Re: Caltrain should be more like Transperth

[Silas Warner <silas@value.net>]

elson@westworld.com wrote:
> 
> Obviously money is an issue; BART to the south Peninsula and San Jose is
> a nice fantasy, but where's all the money coming from?

Well, that's the core of it.  CalTrain with its JPB has to beg for
subsidies every fiscal year from the three counties through which
it runs.  BART, on the other hand, has a guaranteed source of 
hundreds of millions of dollars through permanent sales taxes in
the counties through which it runs.  Furthermore, BART effectively
controls the MTC which governs the distribution of Federal and
state monies to all Bay Area transit.

> Why not a large
> commuter rail system that absorbs the current CalTrain and ACE
> corridors, plus some more, maybe a transbay route, maybe even reaching
> as far as Santa Cruz and Sacramento, going where BART can't afford to
> go?

Probably this will happen, and BART will control the superagency
that runs it.  They have already taken the first step by forming
the CCJPB to oversee Capitols service.  

Unfortunately, BART has a track record of suppressing anything that
might get in the way of its own broad-gauge, expensive expansion.
Notably the FastTrack system that was set up in eastern Contra 
Costa County, when BART ran only as far as Concord.  With the
CCJPB, BART is expanding its reach to Sacramento where it would
otherwise have no hope of a line extension.  Most San Mateo 
activists feel that if BART took over CalTrain, it would move
immediately to kill it and run its own tracks over the corridor.

						Silas Warner