Going Off The Wrong Track:Caltrain Slowly Disappearing

As the state of California faces a $25 billion budget deficit, many public programs have been cut. The state funding for Caltrain is still uncertain, also depending on contributions from three agencies to balance its budget;(City and County of San Francisco, the San Mateo County Transit District and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority). Which this year, San Mateo County Transit District could not contribute to Caltrain, due to infrastructure deficit within Samtrans. Assuming that Santa Clara and S.F County is in the same position of decreasing contribution, Caltrain is declaring a fiscal emergency. Which its already been in for the past ten years. Its the only Bay Area transit system without a dedicated funding source. So to balance the lagging budget Caltrain had to reduce service, fare's became higher, staffed ticket offices closed, administrative cost reductions and one-time funds.

Even though Caltrain could suspend over 50% of its service in order to balance its deficit, it is estimated that a remaining $4.7 million deficit will still result from the cuts, these effective changes would be as follows:

-Reduction of weekday trains from 86 trains to 48. Cutting evening trains and operating commute hours only.

-Suspension of service at up to 7 stations. Still undecided but possible suspended stations are Bayshore, South San Francisco, San Bruno, Burlingame, Hayward Park, Belmont, San Antonio, Lawrence, Santa Clara and College Park.

-Suspension of weekend service, and holiday service.

-Suspension of all service south of San Jose Diridon station. These stations are Tamien, Capitol, Blossom Hill, Morgan Hill, San Martin, Gilroy, which already run only 6 trains. 3 northbound during the morning and 3 southbound during commute hours.

-Suspension of special event service, such as Bay to Breakers, sharks and giants games.

-Increase fare by 25 cents.

-Parking fee is under consideration of increasing from $3 per day to $4.

I went to a public hearing that Caltrain held March 3rd, at the Caltrain Administrative Office located at San Carlos, CA in order to listen to comments from the community. Caltrain also held four community meetings along the service area to inform the community of the situation and to provide comments from the community. By the end of the four community meetings, Peninsula Corridor Joint Power Board Staff Report was emailed by Deputy CEO, Chuck Harvey, stating that as of February 24th over 1000 emails were received. But even though the community is speaking up against the initiatives taken by Caltrain , they still have very little room to improve its service as long as it doesn't have a dedicated source of funding.

The issues dominating the comments were the suspension of service to stations with 519 comments, followed by suspension of off peak service with 151 comments. The suspension of service south San Jose Diridon had 131 comments, follwed by 109 comments on suspension on weekend service and fare increases gathered 90 comments. The community spoke with disappointment for not being able to solve an ongoing issue that Caltrain faces every year: declaration of fiscal emergency. This issue will continue every year until Caltrain adopts a dedicated funding source. From these comments, and public hearings, Caltrain could make some changes to its current proposed service cuts. Caltrain will hold a meeting on April 7 to outline service suspensions and fare increases which would be implemented on July 2nd.

Caltrain could and would face a large decline of riders, if the service changes are effective as they're proposed now, leaving less loyal commuters and creating an even larger deficit and because of that we would face a great lost in our cultural and environmental battle in the Bay Area as the gas prices go up and less public transportation, such as Caltrain goes down.