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  #1101  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2014, 5:56 AM
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The taxes are collected at the county level. Their county has received service all 40 years.

Numerous neighborhoods in SF much larger than places like Livermore or Antioch have not yet received service that was a part of the original BART plan 40 years ago. Now, again, the county of SF has had service in that time so there can't be too much complaining, but the Richmond not having service and paying taxes all these years is no different than Livermore not having service and paying taxes.
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  #1102  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2014, 7:38 AM
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My understanding was that the original BART plan called for express trains, but that the bores that were reserved for them were later given to the nascent Muni Metro (and one bore each in the downtown Oakland stations weren't dug out). Building the infrastructure for express trains or skip stop service at high frequency would likely require a lot of passing track, and if the entire BART system is above or below grade, that's by no means an inexpensive project.

And we don't have to go to Japan to see the effects of express trains or skip stop. We have that on Caltrain already, and the reason that was an easier switch was that Caltrain runs at grade.
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  #1103  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2014, 4:29 PM
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Originally Posted by CharlesCO View Post
My understanding was that the original BART plan called for express trains, but that the bores that were reserved for them were later given to the nascent Muni Metro (and one bore each in the downtown Oakland stations weren't dug out). Building the infrastructure for express trains or skip stop service at high frequency would likely require a lot of passing track, and if the entire BART system is above or below grade, that's by no means an inexpensive project.

And we don't have to go to Japan to see the effects of express trains or skip stop. We have that on Caltrain already, and the reason that was an easier switch was that Caltrain runs at grade.
Interesting point on the original BART plan. I need more info: thinkers behind BART were not (all) wild eyed dreamers.

The reason Japan has been brought up, is that Japanese railroad companies simply have the most experience dealing with express travel along high volume routes as well as the most experience in scheduling passenger trains across transfer points.

Express scheduling on Caltrain is a far simpler proposition than on BART, because Caltrain is merely a straight line. While made more complicated by tightly controlled limited freight train movements, and, by future HSR coexistence, Caltrain express issues do not involve a multi-leg network that branches off of a very busy tunnel (yet).

*******

BART, IMO, for a reasonably low price compared to a new Bay Tunnel, has great opportunities to increase that traffic that does not have to go between SF and Oakland via express scheduling. These opportunities could radically increase when San Jose is hooked into BART and express train synergies exploited on the Oakland - San Jose corridor.

*******

I suspect that most mass transit study in the US has been hampered by not looking enough at constantly improving efficiencies, train frequency, and, average speed. Many such improvements can be made in increments by steadily straightening out switch approaches, by replacing slower crossing speed switches with higher speed switches, by putting in wider radii curves, by steadily putting in extra tracks at stations where relatively cheap to do, etc.

Efforts should be more towards constant improvement, rather than towards grandiose projects because the total cost is spread out, and, the "return on investment" will be higher over the short to medium term. Such improvements are noted by the public, and, the politicians who "serve" them.

I have learned this lesson while watching routing and switching mistakes being made on new mass transit lines, and, through experiencing resistance towards correcting serious mistakes while still fairly cheap to do.
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  #1104  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2014, 5:35 PM
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Here's the most recent study of express trains. This plan calls for express trains through Daly City-Dublin Pleasanton and Daly City-Fremont/San Jose, with additional peak hour trains through Contra Costa County (which already exist).

http://www.mercurynews.com/traffic/c...equent-service

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  #1105  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2014, 6:47 PM
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Originally Posted by CharlesCO View Post
Here's the most recent study of express trains. This plan calls for express trains through Daly City-Dublin Pleasanton and Daly City-Fremont/San Jose, with additional peak hour trains through Contra Costa County (which already exist).

http://www.mercurynews.com/traffic/c...equent-service

Splitting trains is routinely done in Japan with the understanding that splitting trains apart is much easier than putting them back together for two reasons:

A) When train A is at the station on time, and, train B is running behind schedule train A has to wait for train B, and train AB is running behind scedule.

B) Coupling forces are higher than Detachment forces, i.e., you cannot miss the "coupling" if you are detaching . When coupling, at least two and preferably 3 people are needed- if A is coupling B, then A would have to have an engineer, 1 witness would be need to watch the process and possibly an engineer in train B. Detaching, I would think would not need an outside witness, just the two engineers.

I think what BART is suggesting is using only the detachment scenario for select outbound routes. This negates problem A. In addition, as the procedures get worked out through repeated practice, as BART becomes more confident in the practice, and, as stations with 3 or more tracks (should) go on stream, then slack can be built into scheduling to accommodate wait times at the junction.

This two way ability to form and detach trains is another benefit that 3 and 4 track stations can provide at a minimum wasted time cost.
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Good read on relationship between increasing number of freeway lanes and traffic

http://www.vtpi.org/gentraf.pdf

Last edited by Wizened Variations; Mar 5, 2014 at 6:58 PM.
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  #1106  
Old Posted Mar 11, 2014, 1:13 AM
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Anyone who's ever been stuck on a Muni Metro train inside a station, wondering when the damned doors will open, has reason to celebrate this planned change:

Muni Metro tries doubling up

Call it a two-fer, double duty or two in one but Muni is preparing to start using double berthing — having two trains stop at a single station platform — at three downtown stations.

The plan is to use double berthing at the Civic Center, Powell and Montgomery stations to speed the morning commute. Muni employees tested double berthing, which requires adjustments to the computerized train control system, early Friday morning in the Powell and Montgomery stations after the subway shut down Thursday night.

John Haley, the Municipal Transportation Agency’s transit director, said the test went well, with the trains stopping safely, and as planned, at two locations on the platforms with some buffer space in between.....
....
“We’re excited about it,” Haley said. “It should be a really valuable customer service.”
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  #1107  
Old Posted Mar 11, 2014, 1:27 AM
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Machines quietly tunneling in Muni's Central Subway project


Visitors get a peek at the progress in the northbound tunnel of Muni's Central Subway project in San Francisco.





A transport vehicle emerges from the northbound tunnel of Muni's Central Subway construction project in San Francisco, Calif. on Saturday, March 8, 2014. Two large boring machines, Big Alma and Mom Chung, are grinding their way north from Fourth and Bryant streets towards Chinatown and North Beach.

....a tour of the under-construction northbound bore of the Central Subway - the Municipal Transportation Agency's $1.6 billion transit link between the Caltrain station and Chinatown.

The line will stretch 1.7 miles, with a twin-bore tunnel going underground where Interstate 80 crosses Fourth Street. An above-ground station will be built at Fourth and Brannan streets with subterranean stations near Moscone Center at Fourth and Folsom streets, at Union Square and in Chinatown at Stockton and Washington streets, where the tracks will end.

But the tunnel will extend to Powell Street and Columbus Avenue, the site of the old Pagoda Palace Theater in North Beach, where the two tunnel-boring machines will be plucked from the ground and an extension might someday be built.

For now, the two machines - each longer than a football field and weighing 750 tons - are steadily and surreptitiously gnawing 20-foot wide tunnels beneath one of the most-congested parts of the city. Tunneling crews work five days a week, 12 hours a day, with maintenance work taking place when they're not digging.
....
Imperceptible on surface
So far, it seems to be working. John Funghi, the MTA's Central Subway project manager, said the work has been imperceptible on the surface, even when passing beneath some of the city's busiest areas, such as Fourth and Market streets, where the boring machines had to dig beneath Old Navy and Forever 21.

"You could be in the Nike store shopping and you wouldn't feel a thing," Funghi said. "We've been very fortunate. Nothing on the surface has moved. We crossed under BART without stopping or even disrupting service."
....
The machines excavate and build about 50 feet of tunnel a day, Funghi said. Big Alma is quicker at 54 feet a day compared to Mom Chung's 44-foot average, but Mom Chung holds the performance record of 96 feet in a single day.
....The tunneling may be done this summer, but it will be another 4 1/2 years before passengers can ride the Central Subway in 2019....
....
Metro system connector
"This will be the Metro system connecting north and south, which has not been connected by rail so far," said Paul Rose, an MTA spokesman. "It's connecting Chinatown, one of the densest areas not only in the city but in the state and country."

He said the project is on schedule and on budget.
....
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  #1108  
Old Posted Mar 11, 2014, 2:38 AM
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Originally Posted by fflint View Post
Anyone who's ever been stuck on a Muni Metro train inside a station, wondering when the damned doors will open, has reason to celebrate this planned change:

Muni Metro tries doubling up

Call it a two-fer, double duty or two in one but Muni is preparing to start using double berthing — having two trains stop at a single station platform — at three downtown stations.

The plan is to use double berthing at the Civic Center, Powell and Montgomery stations to speed the morning commute. Muni employees tested double berthing, which requires adjustments to the computerized train control system, early Friday morning in the Powell and Montgomery stations after the subway shut down Thursday night.

John Haley, the Municipal Transportation Agency’s transit director, said the test went well, with the trains stopping safely, and as planned, at two locations on the platforms with some buffer space in between.....
....
“We’re excited about it,” Haley said. “It should be a really valuable customer service.”
That's excellent to hear, though I hope they also double up in the afternoon as well.

I also always wondered why they couldn't or haven't done three or even four car trains for the S-Castro Shuttle. I would think that might also help congestion.
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  #1109  
Old Posted Mar 11, 2014, 3:12 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fflint View Post
Anyone who's ever been stuck on a Muni Metro train inside a station, wondering when the damned doors will open, has reason to celebrate this planned change:

Muni Metro tries doubling up

Call it a two-fer, double duty or two in one but Muni is preparing to start using double berthing — having two trains stop at a single station platform — at three downtown stations.

The plan is to use double berthing at the Civic Center, Powell and Montgomery stations to speed the morning commute. Muni employees tested double berthing, which requires adjustments to the computerized train control system, early Friday morning in the Powell and Montgomery stations after the subway shut down Thursday night.

John Haley, the Municipal Transportation Agency’s transit director, said the test went well, with the trains stopping safely, and as planned, at two locations on the platforms with some buffer space in between.....
....
“We’re excited about it,” Haley said. “It should be a really valuable customer service.”
That's good to hear, I always thought the Muni stations were extremely underused compared to the shortness of their trains. Might as well be able to stop more than one train at each of the stations if there is room.


Great to see the new tunnel for Muni is coming along, I can't wait to get back to SF again and see all the things that have changed since my last visit.
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  #1110  
Old Posted Mar 11, 2014, 3:26 AM
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That's excellent to hear, though I hope they also double up in the afternoon as well.
Morning commute is more important--it's one thing to get home 10 minutes later than usual, and quite another to be 10 minutes late for work. That said, I also hope they'll double-berth during the evening rush.

Quote:
I also always wondered why they couldn't or haven't done three or even four car trains for the S-Castro Shuttle. I would think that might also help congestion.
Muni runs three-car consists on the S-Shuttle route (between St. Francis Circle and Embarcadero Station) on weekdays, with three round trips from 6:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. and then another three round trips again from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. They're very popular.
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  #1111  
Old Posted Mar 11, 2014, 3:35 AM
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Oh, well I guess that shows you how much I pay attention. Admittedly, I'm not in the city much during weekdays, and I unfortunately haven't had much time to go in recent weeks/months. Either way, crowded Muni trains aren't a pleasant experience (though I've been on far worse BART trains).
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  #1112  
Old Posted Mar 12, 2014, 10:34 PM
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Wharf-extension push surfaces as Central Subway crews dig on

Quote:
As the Central Subway's earth-devouring machines extend the tunnels toward the Chinatown terminus and the North Beach site where they'll be yanked from the ground, a group of transit advocates, neighborhood activists and business interests are pushing for a station in North Beach and an extension to Fisherman's Wharf.

Opponents, of course, are still pressing for the subway to be stopped, or at least for the tunnel-boring machines to be parked in Chinatown and buried in place.

But supporters of an extension, who are operating under the name SF NexTstop (the capital T, cleverly, is for the T line that will run in the subway), say taking the line north to the wharf makes sense.

"Without this last link, the Central Subway can never fully deliver on its promises of connectivity, improved commerce or reductions in surface congestion," the group says in a statement on its website ( www.sfnextstop.org). "We need to complete the Central Subway."
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  #1113  
Old Posted Mar 13, 2014, 2:05 AM
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I hope the NexTstop group can make some real progress. It would be such a missed opportunity if it weren't extended.
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  #1114  
Old Posted Mar 13, 2014, 8:33 AM
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Wait, there are folks still trying to derail (pun intended) this thing as its under construction?
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  #1115  
Old Posted Mar 13, 2014, 11:05 PM
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Muni Central Subway wharf extension rides on many things

That group pushing for a Central Subway extension to Fisherman's Wharf - mentioned in Wednesday's column - is making some headway, but it's not quite time to start planning your trip to Scoma's on Muni Metro.

The San Francisco County Transportation Authority, which administers the city's transportation sales tax money, is prepared to dedicate $150,000 to a feasibility study for the extension. The study, according to Tilly Chang, the SFCTA executive director, would move the notion of an extension of the T line past the Chinatown station beyond the idea stage.

"It's intended to flesh it out a little bit," she said - "to look at potential alignments, whether it should be on the surface versus underground, what it might cost."

That preliminary study, Chang said, would then be handed over to the Municipal Transportation Agency for a more in-depth look.

The authority's Plans and Programs Committee will consider funding the study at its meeting Tuesday. If approved, it would go to the full county transportation authority board, which also happens to be the Board of Supervisors.

Chang said the study is "just the beginning of the process to consider and assess the project," which would need to be assigned a place in the MTA's capital spending plans as well as the Bay Area's regional transportation spending strategy.
....

Ah, that new bus smell


The trolley buses on heavily used Muni lines like the 30-Stockton are showing their age, and 60 new ones are on their way and should hit the streets in 2015.

Ah, that new bus smell: Tired of those old, stinky Muni trolley buses that are, in some cases, literally repaired with duct tape? Here's some good news: The Municipal Transportation Agency has placed an order for 60 new electric trolley buses.

Muni will join in on an existing order from the Seattle transit agency to buy 240 regular-length and 93 articulated trolley buses. The purchase price is just short of $95 million, which comes from a mix of federal, state and local money. The local chunk comes from Proposition K, the half-cent transportation sales tax.

A prototype of the new trolley buses should be rolling through the streets in early 2015, MTA officials say.
....
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  #1116  
Old Posted Mar 14, 2014, 12:51 AM
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Ugh.

The New Flyer trolleybus is debatably as ugly or uglier than the ones they're replacing. I wish one US city could get a sharp trolleybus. Boston isn't too bad.
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  #1117  
Old Posted Mar 14, 2014, 12:52 AM
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He said the project is on schedule and on budget.
....
haha yeah right.
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  #1118  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2014, 3:00 AM
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Hi guys. I just came through San Fran on the weekend on my way back up to Canada and just wondering if someone could tell me what the construction is by the Golden Gate bridge. I tried doing a search but can't find any info. I appreciate any info you can share.
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  #1119  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2014, 4:19 AM
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haha yeah right.
Yeah, I remember. We went to SFO last 12 years ago. We rode on the old electric trolley buses. It was very old. It's time to retired. They have to be replace a brand new buses.
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  #1120  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2014, 5:40 AM
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Hi guys. I just came through San Fran on the weekend on my way back up to Canada and just wondering if someone could tell me what the construction is by the Golden Gate bridge. I tried doing a search but can't find any info. I appreciate any info you can share.
It's the doomsday device that Obama is going to destroy Canada with.
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