The Lost Subways of North America: A Cartographic Guide to the Past, Present, and What Might Have Been

The Lost Subways of North America: A Cartographic Guide to the Past, Present, and What Might Have Been by Jake Berman

This book is a very depressing look at transit in North America. Most places had decent transit at one time, then had it wiped out in favor of cars. There had been various attempts at implementing good transit that have fallen apart. Much of the newer transit in the United States has been overpriced and of minimal utility. (Many are described with limited attractions or places that could be more easily walked.) There have been a few successful modern transit systems. Canada has generally done a good job. Houston of all places has followed best practices by sending transit to dense areas and allowing dense development to be located there. (Dallas has done the opposite, making for a much less useful transit system.)

Transit systems have failed for various reasons. Economic collapses and wars have eliminated funding. Investors and the mob have driven others down. Though most come down to various politics. The government was covering 90% of the cost of freeways, so government loved the gravy train at the expense of transit investment. Then the negatives of freeway construction has lead to excessive government approval process. City/Suburb conflicts make it difficult to get consensus on regional transit support. Past transit monopolies and extortion soured the public view on supporting transit. 

The book includes map of the original transit systems, proposals that were not built and the current systems. It can be quite depressing to look at all those details. There are so many "modern" transit systems that have too much focus on political appeasement and parking and not enough on making walkable communities.

The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America’s First Subway

Boston finished the first subway transit system in the US, though New York's subway is better known. However, there were many predecessors that were needed to make it all possible. Subways systems were already in place in other places in the world. London had started an underground railway with steam power. However, the pollution involved caused problems. Advances in electric motors were a prerequisite for further expansion. In the late 1800s, most street car systems were powered by horses. Railways helped improve efficiency. However, horses were still slow. Cable cars were another alternative, and continue to be used successfully in places like San Francisco. However, cable systems have their limit and they can't cross draw bridges. Electric motors at the time had limited power. It took a series of advancements, including test runs on hills in Richmond before they were good enough to power railways. 

There were also politics. Most urban transit systems were private enterprises with entrenched interests. Alfred Beach created a pneumatic underground railway system in 1870 in New York. However, there was little political will to expand it. There was also concern that people wouldn't want to go underground. Eventually, it took the buy in of politicians, transit barons and the local populace as well as some bad weather to finally get the subway built. Boston was able to get their subway built first, though did little to celebrate it. New York, on the other hand, made a great celebration of there new system.

Door to Door

Door to Door provides a look at transportation in America. Ample coverage is provided on ports and the movement of freight. (Ironically, most people don't realize the importance of the ports, such as the resident that complained of the port traffic being useless to here because she could just get things at Wal-Mart. Little did she realize how Wal-Mart got its things.) People are reluctant to build roads that would be mostly used by freight. They would prefer to optimize roads for less-efficient single occupancy vehicles.

Freeways tend to induce demand. The story was told of the busy California freeway that was closed for reconstruction and expansion. Calamity was expected when it was closed, with drivers clogging local roads. Instead, drivers simply did not drive. The traffic on other roads was lighter than normal, even with the freeway closed. However, once it was opened with additional lanes, traffic picked up with a vengeance, with times being even slower than they were before the expansion.

Cars are just plain dangerous. Distracted drivers are given a few tons of metal to do what they see fit. Early on, cars were seen for the danger that they were. However, through the careful PR work of the automobile interests, we have the language of "accidents". The incidents are viewed as things that could just as well happen to anybody and need not be punished. The author gives an account of a number of fatal "accidents" that happened in a single day. We have become "immune" to the serious scourge in our society. We demand recalls when small parts have problem in cars, but do very little for the large scale problem we have with cars. Modern "stroads" that combine large multi-lane highway design with strip malls and other attractions are another significant danger of the modern car culture.

The author of the book is very keen on driver-less cars. They are seen as a great help that can improve cities and make the roads safer for everyone involved. The cars can respond instantly to dangers and incursions. They can also be communal taxis, not needing to occupy real estate in dense city centers. Will they catch on? Or will the auto interests find a way to encourage more personal ownership and make roads even more inclusive to automobiles. I have been a driver-less skeptic, but the arguments presented here are quite persuasive. However, the "road bullies" driving their own cars could still be a concern in a driverless world.

Chinese Infrastructure

In China, I can walk down to the train station and take the $30 train from Nanjing to Shanghai. It cruises around at a measly 180 miles per hour and takes a "lengthy" 67 minutes to travel the approximately 200 miles. Compare this to the much more expensive and slower Acela trains on the east coast. The California high speed rail has cost billions of dollars, yet doesn't even aspire to these speeds. And in Shanghai, this high speed line isn't even the fastest. The Maglev that goes to Shanghai's Pudong airport travels around 300 miles per hour.

I wonder if China is taking the place of the US from a century or two ago. Back then, the United States was the scrappy little country that just got stuff done. Want a railroad across the country? We'll get it done. Factories that can outproduce Europe? Check. Sure there is some corruption and questionable business practices, but things got done. Today, however, the United States is stuck in a bureaucratic quagmire. Things are planned and planned and planned.

I can see things happen in the local case of the Steven's Creek Trail. Mountain View has built a trail along the Creek. Cupertino has built another portion. There is a two mile gap between the two. However, for a good chunk of that gap, there are houses along the creek. There is also a freeway that needs to be crossed. The simple solution would be to simply sign a route down the street and build a bridge over the freeway. This would connect the trails, and provide a nice ride down quiet residential streets next to the creek. However, the city of Sunnyvale instead is spending oodles of dollars on community outreach. The people on the logical streets yell the loudest. (It doesn't matter that their yelling is nonsensical.) So after many meetings, the current plan is to add in a couple mile detour down streets far from the trail, require a double crossing of another freeway, and potentially add a two-way bike path down a road adjacent to a freeway. And who would use this new trail? Obviously not anyone walking down the trail. Commuters would also be out since it poses a significant detour. Families on a leisurely bike ride are probably also out due to the sketchy freeway crossings. I guess a few people in the local neighborhoods could use it for local bike traffic. But, they are generally fine using the low-traffic roads already.

China on the other hand would just say "we need a bike path" and build it.

The Chinese way also has development in clusters - which happen to be the clusters where mass transit is focussed. A city like Nanjing has millions of people. Despite this amount, it is very walkable without being hugely overcrowded. There is also a huge amount of green space. China apparently has learned something from US-style suburban sprawl. Yes there are issues in China. Cars are becoming popular (but the crowded streets can be easier on pedestrians). Sidewalks can be blocked by construction (but there are enough pedestrians walking on the street to keep it from being a safety hazard). And there is the nasty issue of factory pollution. These are big issues, but they are fixable. China is rapidly building metro lines that are being used - often because stops are near the high density developments. Even with all this crazy development, it is still easy to walk around. The communistic capitalism does seem to be working - for now.

Schools Tragedy of the Commons

Grant School in Los Altos once had over 800 students. It has since been closed. Many of the students go to West Valley or Montclaire schools.
West Valley also has students from the former San Antonio school and Serra school.
Serra school is still owned by the school district. West Valley is overcrowded and filled with portable classrooms.

The school district had built neighborhood schools when there were young children. When they grew up, the schools were shut down. Now that the next generation is coming, rather than opening schools, the district is packing more people in to each school.
Parents are complacent.  At first kids would walk to school. Then a few parents drove their kids. This was easier for them to do on their way to work. Then more parents started driving. Since parents were driving, it didn't matter where the schools were located. So the old schools shut down, and parents simply drove to a different location. Now it was too far for many kids to walk. Parents had to drive.

Lovely.  just lovely.

Today, schools want kids to get more exercise. They want less traffic at the schools. Yet they have created an environment that fights against both of these.

An unfortunate tragedy of the commons.

Housing in Sunnyvale

The city of Sunnyvale complained that 700 housing units per year is too much. Just try to tell that to the many people that are trying to buy houses in the city.

The problem is that Sunnyvale is still trying to solve the problems of last century.

100 years ago, people lived close to where they worked. Factories were loud, polluting buildings that people wanted to get away from.

Thus, the city now has "zoning" to solve the problem. Workplaces are separated in to one zone. Residences in to another.

Except, that is no longer the problem. Workplaces are now sterile with some of the most "green" buildings around. The primary cause of the noise and pollution? The very suburban style that is mandated.

Cars cause much of the noise and pollution. Leaf blowers and lawn mowers contribute to the environmental problem. They are often hired by people to maintain their bit of "suburbia" that they rarely use.

The city does claim that it is "supporting" development by a new "industrial to residential" zoning. However, it also alludes to the problems with providing enough subsidized housing.

The problem is that land is so expensive. By requiring low density housing, the city raises the cost. Requiring subsidies further increases the costs.

Eliminating much of the zoning restrictions would help resolve the problems.
Currently, many single-family homes are being torn down and turned in to larger single family homes (even as household sizes are shrinking.) Instead, these could be allowed to be converted to multi-family housing. Replace one housing unit with four, and you get new, low-cost housing. Alas, the city is obsessed with "big" projects, and often ignores the small work.

There is also the location problem. Southern Sunnyvale has high prices. This is where people want to live. The "industrial to residential" areas are in northern Sunnyvale. There are few amenities there. The location also has heavier industry with its associated issues.

Meanwhile, there is a huge office area north of Highway 237 that has no housing at all. Why not allow some here? This will allow people to walk to the many jobs near there. It is also well-served by transit and would allow contra-flow car commuting.

Alas, the city is still solving the problems of the past. Alas, the city's "bosses" further influence this. Zoning and planning is done by the "current" residents rather than the future residents. People that would like to live in the city have no say in the process. Prop 13 further keeps residents in place. Thus people that moved in to suburban tracts surrounded by orchards want it to stay like it was when they moved in - even though the orchards are long gone. Manhattan was once filled with farmland. When will the South Bay get a clue?

A Garage Full of Bikes

Our garage is full of bikes. Is the expense worth it?

We went many years without a car, and now have only one minivan, so for car-obsessed California, the answer would probably be yes. (In spite of having all sorts of "fancy" bikes we still haven't come close to spending as much on them as on the car.)

But are bikes the most economical way to travel?

At Stanford, biking easily beat out driving. (Even with the added expense of replacing a stolen bike.)

Cost of commuting to Stanford:
"A" parking permit: $747/year
or "C" parking permit: $291/year
Gas: ~ $4/day ~ $800/year

Thus, if there were a "freely available" car with no additional expenses (oil, maintenance, depreciation, insurance, etc.) the yearly cost to drive would be somewhere between one and two thousand dollars.

Bikes can park next to the building, while "C" permits are a 15 minute walk, and A permits can be a couple minutes walk away. A high-speed bike ride during rush hour can easily be faster than "C" parking, and even competitive with "A" parking. During off-peak times, however, driving can be faster. However, biking leaves you a bike on campus which allows for fast trips to other areas of campus (as well as journeys in to Palo Alto.)

Overall, the convenience of biking is similar (or perhaps better) than driving, with a significantly lower cost. It also provides exercise.

However, it is not the cheapest means to get to work. It requires purchasing a bike, along with maintaining it. Stanford also provides free bus and train passes. If timed right, a walk to the bus stop + bus + train + bus can be somewhat competitive with driving or biking. However, there is typically only one "fast" timing per day, with a few other "somewhat acceptable" timings. However, every few months a schedule change can change this timing (and sometimes, there is no good timing. A late bus can also throw everything off.

Thus transit is low cost, and can be comparable timewise - if you are lucky. But also provides limited options.

Now I'm working closer to home with free parking. Cost to drive to work would be around $1 per day in gas. Driving is a little faster, but not by much. (Stop signs and lights are more of the limiting factor. A fast bike ride during AM rush hour could easily be faster than driving.)

Biking's main advantage is in physical activity. In addition to biking to work, it makes it easier to go to the nearby gym (there is plenty of bike parking, but car parking can be hard to find.)

Transit would cost $4 per day and still require between 1.5-2 miles walking per day. (Or for $6/day you could get it down to less than a mile walking, but at the expense of a transfer and a much longer trip.

Walking the entire distance (without a bus) is also fairly reasonable, and only takes about as long as the drive/bike to Stanford. (But why walk if you can go faster?)

Walking would lead to shoes getting worn out faster. Biking would wear out pants faster. This would offset some of the cost savings. Add in a couple slices of bread to account for the extra calories consumed, and the cost advantage from not driving is almost totally eliminated. (The other costs from driving would probably not significantly impact costs. The extra 1000 miles driven would probably not impact insurance rates, registration costs, depreciation or maintenance.)

If I already had a car, but didn't have a bike, driving would win out in the strict monetary calculation. A decent low-cost bike well equipped for commuting (lights, fenders, rack, etc.) could cost a few hundred dollars. Add in rain gear and you are looking at years to earn back the investment.

Reverse the equation, however, and a bike really wins out. Adding a car would cost thousands of dollars in purchase cost, insurance, etc. If a bike can eliminate the need for a car, the savings pour in.

But do the bikes eliminate the need for a second car?

It would seem to be yes. However, looking at the past year, most of the trips could have been accomplished with one car and no bikes. It would, however, have required a great deal of shuttling people around and dropping then off at different places. The shuttling would result in increased gas and parking cost, and would probably be sufficiently large to have a small impact on the other costs of car ownership.

As for the few times that couldn't be solved by excessive shuttling, a rental car could probably be used. (Though this would require some advanced planning and expense.)

If we span these extra costs over a few years, we probably come close to the money we have spent on bicycles. However, bicycles are much more convenient than overloading car use.

Thus, the garage full of bikes is either a break-even proposition for a similar level of convenience, or a money saving alternative to a second car. Physical activity, exercise, easy communication and stress reduction? Well, that's the free bonus.

Bikes are faster than planes

With a section of freeway shut down in Los Angeles, JetBlue airlines ran a promotional flight between two nearby airports. Some L.A. bike groups didn't miss the opportunity to stage a race between destinations near each airport.

The winners?

bicyclists.

The plane came in fourth place, behind a transit user and rollerbalder. The transit user is the most intriguing. You can actually take transit on a weekend in L.A.? Wow. Perhaps there is a city down there with all the sprawl.

It reminds me of the commute from Sunnyvale to Stanford. The fast bicyclist could always win. However, even the transit user could often beat the driver - especially when factoring in the trip from the parking lot to the office.

Slate or LA Streetsblog or US News

Caltrain cuts - less is more?

Caltrain has a Proposed schedule that would slash a number of trains and raise fares and parking costs.
With my current job, caltrain doesn't come in the picture (I usually bike, though I have walked, and plan on one day starting to jog there - at least after I find a good place to shower.)

However, in my previous position, I took the train on a semi-regular basis. However, the schedule had something to be desired. During rush hour, there were three trains per hour. Unfortunately, they were all in the first 20 minutes of the hour. The "cutback" plan increases the trains to 4 per hour, with the longest gap being about 19 minutes. They do make a couple more stops, but all the trains skip at least one station, making the time to Palo Alto 15 minutes on each train.

Since I usually had child responsibilities, the AM "commute" trains were rarely an option anyway. However, with the new schedule, the 8:44 and 8:55 trains would be distinct possibilities - with both skipping a stop (and thus arriving faster.) Those are followed by a couple all-stop trains every half hour (which were my normal trains.) Those were moved ten minutes earlier - meaning with a bike I could get to work earlier. By the bus, however, they now leave a couple minutes before the bus arrives. D'oh!

PM trains also look good, with 4 trains per hour, fairly evenly spaced.

For bus service, there are AM rush hour trains that leave 9 minutes after the 54 bus arrives. This is a fairly reasonable gap to allow catching the train without fear, while not having an excessive wait. For PM trains, there is a train that arrives 7 minutes before each bus leaves. Again, great timing. (The off peak trains, alas are timed almost perfectly to miss the buses.)

Weekend trains also see a big improvement, with the shuttering of many of the train stations. The last time we took a weekend trains, it took forever, with the train stopping at stations like Atherton for perhaps one passenger. (Though the person I saw walking away was with a dog, so he may have just been crossing the tracks.) The shuttering of some of the weekend stations will make the trips much faster and more reasonable.

Happy Hollow

Saturday, I went to Happy Hollow for the first time. We have had a membership for a few years (half of which it was closed), but I had never made it out there. My soon knew that the 25 bus went out there, but it was actually quicker to take the 522 to the 73 bus.

I was not sure exactly where it was, but managed to get off the bus at the right place. There was a nice sign on the corner saying that Happy Hollow was open. We coul see some of the rides behind the fence. So, we thought it would be a quick walk in.

Nope.

We had to walk a long ways down the road to get to the parking lot. This must almost be it. (After all, they were charging $10 to park there.)

Nope.

After that there was a long walk down a path to finally get to the entrance. At least they had bike racks right next to the entrance. (Though there wasn't a bike present.)

Free entrances are one of the things that I loved about Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo. You can stroll along the lakefront, meander through the zoo, then stroll out for a donut at the Sushi/donut shop.

Even the Santa Cruz Boardwalk has the charm of free access. You can "enter" from multiple places, even stroll in from the beach. You do have to pay for rides separately, but the food vendors are fine with taking money from 'non-riders'.

The $12 admission at Happy Hollow does give you free rides, as well as access to the zoo. We visited the bathroom, road the merry-go-round, saw some monkeys, lemurs and a few birds and other assorted animals, dug in a "dinosaur bone" sandbox and used the bathroom again before we left. The 73 bus came first, so we ended up taking that home - though we ended up on an accordion 22 instead of a 522. (For some odd reason, the 22 was waiting for long periods of time at the downtown San Jose stops. However, once a 522 passed, it sped right along. Perhaps they have some schedule issues - the bus driver wanted to do all his waiting at once.)

It was a nice trip for a hot day, but I think we'll try bikes next time.

The pitiful state of Caltrain funding

A google news search for caltrain reveals the problem with transit funding in the U.S.

• Caltrain could go broke with $30 million annual shortfall
  
  
• Caltrain nearing start of $1.2 billion electrification job
  

In the worst case, there is a $30 annual operating deficit that could lead to a slashing of half of the train service. Meanwhile, there is $1.2 billion floating around to make improvements to the tracks. If one of us were faced with a similar situation, we could through the $1.2 billion in the bank. If we can get at least 2.5% return, there would be enough to cover the operating deficit.

Instead, in our wonderful world, there is an iron wall separating operating and capital expenses. Thus we get a lot of new transit infrastructure that is rarely used, while transit that is used rots away. For transit to be successful, there must be a long term commitment. Transit friendly housing, shopping and offices depend on reliable transit. A train station is more likely to attract development than a bus stop in part due to the commitment. However, if the trains don't run, even a train station doesn't do much good.

Recently, millions of dollars were spent on extending BART to SFO, including a giant viaduct from Millbrae to SFO that rarely sees trains. VTA would like to spend another $6 billion for a dozen miles of BART track. In a rationale world, they would simply send some of that money to maintain operations of existing bus and train lines. But instead, we'll just let the existing transit go broke, siphoning off ridership and driving more people (against their will) to their cars.

Adventures in Transit and the 54 bus

Spending a little time on public transit helps me to really appreciate my bicycle.

On Friday, I happened to leave work shortly before a caltrain 'baby bullet' would leave. Perfect. I thought I'd just go to the station, hop on the train, and get home super fast without breaking a sweat. Small problem. It was a 'new' train with a smaller bike car that was already partially full. The next train didn't come for another 26 minutes - and that was a local train. So I popped over and saw the 522 bus had just left. They time the two to leave at the exact same time (not bothering to think that this does happen to be the bus/train transfer station, where people coming from the north would find it useful to transfer to the El Camino bus.) So I just rode down the path on one side of the street, then crossed the train tracks to Alma. Alma is a pretty miserable street for cycling - horrible pavement condition, with no shoulder. However, there is a long stretch with no intersections, thus allowing for some quick travel times. Then there are a few jammed up intersections (with not even room to squeeze by), then it turns in to Central Expressway with a nice wide shoulder. I got to Sunnyvale long before a train appeared. I even saw the good 'ol 522 on El Camino right as I got there.

At least I was lucky. I get a Caltrain pass from work. Most people have to pay for their tickets. And Caltrain is proof-of-payment. This means you have to buy a ticket first, and then hope to get on a train. If you get bumped, you still have the time-stamped ticket that you have to use in 4 hours. You either wait it out, or you have just made a donation to caltrain. This can make 'bumping' even worse. Some people may have ridden - but now that they have paid for a ticket, they are somewhat obligated to wait for the next train. (If it were 'pay or stamp onboard' they could see it as a discount for not riding.) Or perhaps conductors could simply hand out "bump vouchers". A bump voucher could then be 'validated' as 10 ride tickets are validated and be used for a free ride at another time. (Though to prevent abuse a valid ticket should be required to receive one.)

An even easier approach to improving public transportation usefulness would be to synchronize bus and train schedules. Samtrans and Caltrain even operate from the same office. VTA is in its own little world - however, it doesn't even bother to sync its own trains with its buses. The 54 bus is a great example of this. Sunnyvale's caltrain station is overwhelmingly 'northbound commuter'. There just aren't many trains taking people to San Jose in the morning. And there are not a whole lot of people getting on in the afternoon to go back to San Jose. So, it would make a whole lot of sense to have AM buses arrive shortly before northbound trains leave and PM buses leave shortly after trains arrive. During the middle of the day, the schedule is not too bad. The bus arrives about 10 minutes before the train leaves. This is a little much, but makes it easy to catch the train, even with a slow bus.
During rush hours, however, its a disaster. Trains depart at :00, :13, and :18. The :13 train is a baby bullet, while :18 is a local. So, it seems pretty easy. Have the bus arrive a little before the bullet, perhaps :10. Even if there is a big delay, there is a chance to catch the local. It also allows passengers from San Jose to catch the bus going north. Instead, the schedule is timed to be about as bad as it possible can. The bus runs every half hour, yet the closest it gets is 24 minutes before the bullet train. Catching any train could be a challenge. The timepoints on the schedule are for the Sunnyvale transit center. Getting to the train requires crossing Evelyn at a light, and crossing to the boarding platform at the other side of the tracks. If all goes well, there is a slim chance that you can catch a train after arriving at 8:17, but everything must fall perfectly in place.
54 arrivals at caltrain station.
6:20a - 53 minutes before bullet (40 minutes before next train)
6:49a - 24 minutes before bullet (11 before next train)
7:18a - 55 minutes before bullet (0-42 minutes before next train)
7:47a - 26 minutes before bullet (13 before next train)
8:17a - 56 minutes before bullet (1-43 minutes before next train)

In the evening, trains arrive around :16, :21, and :55. The :21 is the desirable Baby Bullet. Again, they are timed almost perfectly to miss the trains. You can take a fast baby bullet - and then watch a bus pull away from the station right before the train arrives. But, at least in the evening, there are two buses that actually make reasonable train connections.
5:18 - no bullet (2 minutes after closest train)
5:48 - 27 minutes after bullet (27 after closest train)
6:19 - 58 minutes after bullet (2 after closest train)
6:48 - 27 minutes after bullet (27 after closest train)
7:16 - 55 minutes after bullet (21 after closest train)
8:16 - 55 minutes after bullet (21 after closest train)
9:16 - no bullet (33 after closest train)

Now these buses do arrive a couple of minutes before the baby bullet to San Jose. So perhaps VTA is trying to make it easy for people to get quickly to San Jose. The catch is that VTA also provides plenty of service for that. From El Camino, the 522 gets from Hollenbeck to downtown San Jose in 30 minutes. The 23 bus can take an hour. The light rail is around 35 minutes. All of these connect to various points of the 54 bus (and are some of the main points for people getting on and off the bus.) They also go to multiple destinations in central San Jose. So why exactly would anybody need to take the bullet train there? Chances are, its just an accident that they timed it so well for catching a bullet downtown - either that or they are crazy sharks fans. (But unfortunately, that would leave them no way to get home.)

Perhaps the reverse commute? Well, the northbound trains leave at :58, so yes, it would be only a 10 minute wait for somebody catching it. Or an 18 minute wait for somebody trying to get on the bus going north. Neither is that great.

Perhaps it is just an attempt to tie in to the light rail schedules. The northbound buses arrive 4-6 minutes before the southbound light rail leaves. But since the trains leave every 15 minutes, there are plenty of other opportunities to create good connections to the light rail, while also having good caltrain connections. Furthermore, the 522 provides a much faster means of travel to San Jose - and is closer to the population center of the 54s route.

In the end, there are no excuses. The 54 schedule is just bad. Just typical VTA thoughts in isolation. And that is what makes riding a bike a necessity.

And if the schedules were not enough of an issue, drivers can introduce their own variance. Some choose to adhere religiously to every timepoint on the schedule. Some only pick some to adhere to, while blowing right by others. Some try to drive as fast as possible to get to a timepoint, then wait there until it is 'time'. (This last type can actually be beneficial. I once was able to get off the bus at El Camino, cross El Camino and Olive, return some books at the library, and then go back to the bus stop on Olive to catch the bus as it came by.) And then there is the matter of what clock they are following. (One bus whizzed by a stop a mile and a half from the start only 2 minutes after the official start time. Since the speed limit is only 30 miles per hour, this bus did some serious speeding with no stops or red lights - or left a little early.) But its hard to give bus drivers a tough time. Given the system they have to work in, I'm grateful that they are willing to at least try to provide some transportation sanity. It would be nice if VTA actually required its employees and board to use transit. Ha... That would be the day.

Drive through transit

Stanford University offers free Caltrain GO passes and VTA ecopasses to all its employees. The audience for these passes would seem to be employees who take transit to work, and then rely on the free Stanford shuttles and walking to get around campus. However, to get the passes, one has to go to the parking office. Hmm...
And to make things worse, the parking office is on the edge of campus, next to, well you guessed it, a big parking lot.
The campus shuttles don't stop near the parking office, though they do stop only a couple of blocks away. However, there is no crosswalk or sidewalk connecting the route from the bus stop to the parking office. I guess you can just chalk it up to another half-hearted effort to accommodate transit without hurting cars.

The law of unintended consequences

When cars first came in to being they seemed great. They allowed people freedom of transportation at greater ease and distance than walking. They were much cheaper than horse carriages, and didn't produce the 'nasty' pollution of horse manure. In California, especially, they allowed people to rid themselves dependency from the ugly train monopoly. The rail barons seemed to exercise way to much control, and this was a great opportunity to get rid of the railroads influence. Building more roads was the solution to the problem. The early adopters had great mobility advantages.

However, as more people owned cars, some problems started to appear. Congestion slowed traffic. The simple solution was 'limited access roads'. However, this ability to drive greater distances on freeways was no use unless there was a place to park. So, minimum parking requirements were put in place. Things were still somewhat manageable. Kids would walk to school, and come home at play. Most households had just one worker, so one car was enough.

However, these old neighborhoods were still a little too dense for optimal car use; and nobody wanted to live on a busy street. So, new neighborhoods were built with more space for cars, and often with 'fences' facing the busy streets. These 'fence streets' were miserable to walk on, but most everybody was expected to stay in their neighborhood. Some parents started driving their children to school. It seemed to be faster. As more households had both parents working, a daycare "drop off" on the way to work became more of a norm. Dropping off at school just seemed to be a natural extension. Since houses were further apart (and family sizes smaller), neighborhood schools began shutting down. Initially some bus service could be provided. But this was much slower than driving kids, so most parents opted to drive. Soon, driving to school became the norm. School districts then begin to offer special magnet programs at various schools. The parents are expected to drive. This all goes to create more traffic, and make it even more difficult for children to walk to school. The benefit some parents initial gained from driving kids to school, eventually became a loss to kids that actually wanted to safely walk to their neighborhood school.

These loses extended to other areas. The initial benefit of low-cost super-stores resulted in the loss of neighborhood stores. Sure, the Wal*Mart had things much cheaper than the neighborhood store. But, it required an up-front purchase of a car, and additional ongoing costs of owning and operating the vehicle, as well as taxes for the roads. (If Walmart opened with a $20000 initiation fee, and $2000 in annual dues, nobody would go there. However, by externalizing that cost in to a 'necessity', it became more palatable.) The price of low-cost also destroyed some local community institutions. Would Wal*Mart support the little league team? Would Home Depot provide the nuances of how to fix the obscure electrical outlets in your neighborhood? Probably not. But they would sell you the wrong receptacle for 20% less.

The gradual elimination of transit and scattered development seemed good at first. There was no need to funnel all traffic on trains to a central location. In theory, homes and workplaces could form a fine mesh, where nobody has to travel too far and no road is too congested. Problem is, things don't work this way. People don't want to live near retail or industrial. Businesses like to be near other similar businesses. The big-box phenomenon was affecting companies as well, through consolidation, and formation of large offices. Zoning comes in to the picture to make things even worse. So today we have a model where there are many residential, industrial, commercial and retail clusters. The clusters are large enough to cause huge traffic jams. However, they are too spread out to really enable an effective transit solution. Even the few that provide adequate clusters for transit often provide just a drop in the bucket of the overall travel demand.

And finally pollution. We have replaced horse manure with carbon monoxide, ozone, and a host of other air pollutants. Noise pollution has also become a serious problem. And, as another unintended consequence, water pollution has become a serious problems as farmers use excess chemical fertilizers on their farms. Perhaps horse manure wasn't so bad after all.

Can we finally put BART out of its misery?

With all precincts counting, Measure B has 66.3% of the vote, vs. 66.67% needed to pass. However, there are still provisional ballots and vote-by-mail ballots to vote. Hopefully that wont change much, and it can die a nice death. Measure B was a horrible idea. After the feds pretty much told VTA that their planned BART extension did not make any cost/benefit sense, VTA hitched a great plan: "We will show that the voters are so stupid that they are willing to tax themselves to oblivion just to put the 'BART' name on something." Luckily, it seems to have failed. Hopefully that will cause the powers that be to rethink this "BART or nothing" approach.

If the choice were between adding new freeways and building BART, I would surely be in the BART camp. Only its not that way. 50 years ago, Santa Clara county decided that 'expressways' were a much better choice than BART. More recently, raising taxes to build Highway 85 seemed to be the way to go. "Upgrading" 237 and 87 to freeways also appeared to be wise ideas. Only now, after building all the roadways, it is finally dawning on people that "hey, maybe some people might actually like to take transit". Problem is that most development is geared towards cars. The further south, the worse it gets (just check out South San Jose - with residential 6 lane divided streets, where you have to walk over a mile just to get to your neighbor across the street.)

In this climate, who would take BART? Primarily people that take transit already. It might save a little time. (No getting stuck in traffic on the express bus). Though it would probably cost them more. New riders? Well, a few that were afraid of buses. But VTA already has an extensive light rail system that hardly anybody rides. Why should they? The stations are set in the middle of the freeway. "Hmm. traffic's light. I guess I'll just drive in". They also go a a circuitous route to finally get to their destinations. The end result is that they almost always take much longer than driving. (Often even longer than biking!) And this to arrive at a destination that is horribly pedestrian unfriendly. And links between transit systems? Hah! the light rail passes right over an Amtrak/ACE station - but the light rail station is half a mile away! Why make it easy for people to connect between transit systems?

For $5 billion dollars, perhaps we could actually build transit systems and development in a that they would actually be used. Now that would be innovative. Transit for moving people. And VTA just thought it was for providing union jobs.