SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA: Transit/Transportation News

[northbay]

Cotati SMART Station with wildflowers. The station now has solar panels and the lot is open as a park and ride.


https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...=1&pnref=story

Posted 3/18: "Breaking news: An hour ago, SMART's first two rail cars have just left Chicago by train and will arrive here soon!!!!!! Here is a photo of their trip to California. There is a train coming to town!" - Debora Fudge

[fflint]

BART pushes south as construction project makes progress

Tom Vacar
KTVU.com
March 23, 2015

MILPITAS, Calif. (KTVU) - BART took another big step in getting to the South Bay with a major construction project in Milpitas.

BART's push south beyond Fremont station is well underway from the north and from the south. The South Bay's Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) closed its Montague station Monday for five months.

"That closure is so that we can build the pedestrian over crossing which will connect riders transferring from the future BART system to the VTA light rail system," says Bernice Alaniz, VTA's Marketing Director.

When the connection is finalized, the little-used station will be transformed into to a major transportation hub. "That ridership growing at the Montague Station will be more than 50 times. On opening day of BART, we'll serve around 3,000 – 3,200 passengers a day at the station," says Alaiz.

More reconstruction work in Mountain View, plus the adding of a second rail line, will complete the project and a half century old dream - to put a rail necklace of BART, Caltrain and VTA around the entire Bay Area.

"We are past the midpoint in construction and we are just a short time away, with passenger service planned for late 2017," says Alaniz.

The Warm Springs Station will actually open at the end of this year, the Milpitas and Berryessa stations in late 2017, and the entire BART-VTA-Caltrain necklace circling the Bay in about 2023.

[northbay]

• Video Link

The first SMART train set makes it debut in Cotati earlier today

[fflint]

BART can’t keep pace with rising 'crush loads’

By Michael Cabanatuan
sfgate.com
Monday, April 13, 2015



With a familiar beep-beep, a Fremont-bound BART train rumbles into MacArthur Station in Oakland and an equally familiar routine begins. Hundreds of passengers exit. Most walk, some jog, across the platform and form neat lines as a San Francisco train rolls in.

Each of the 10 cars on the arriving train is already packed full of morning commuters, but only a few riders get out. It seems impossible, but most of the queued-up crowd squeezes on board. On one car, the guy standing nearest the entrance sucks in his gut, lets out a deep breath and puts his hands behind his back as the doors close.

“You could feel the heat coming out of that train just standing here,” said Edwin Charlebois, a UCSF epidemiologist and veteran BART rider who chose to wait for the next train, hoping there would be a little more space.

The tightly packed BART cars during commutes these days are a result of the transit agency’s success — and its failure.

Weekday ridership now averages about 420,000 — 100,000 more than five years ago. But BART hasn’t kept pace with that growth and is hobbled by its inadequate infrastructure.

...

[fflint]

Caltrain has taken delivery of sixteen used rail cars from LA's Metrolink. They will each add capacity for 295 additional passengers per consist.

[tdawg]

Sounds familiar to this New Yorker. Ridership is increasing while service and infrastructure is faltering.

[northbay]

SMART Train Arrival Ceremony

"On April 7th, SMART celebrated the arrival of our first train at the Cotati Depot. The ceremony drew over 300 people and included speeches from politicians, painting an eye on a traditional [Japanese] Daruma Doll, a christening, and a tour of the inside of the train"




SMART General Manager, Farhad Mansourian


Congressman Jared Huffman draws part of the left eye on the Daruma Doll


Chad Edison, Deputy Secretary for Transportation with the California State Transportation Agency, draws part of the left eye on the Daruma Doll


Congressman Jared Huffman christens the SMART Train with a bottle of champagne


SMART Board Member Carol Russell takes a tour of the train


Each two car train set will hold up to 24 bicycles (depending on the mix of wheelchairs, strollers, etc)




Each two-car train set seats 158 people seated, up to 160 standing


https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...8397555&type=1

[fflint]

About a month ago I saw these train cars sitting on a side track on my way between Oakland and Sacramento via the Capitol Corridor. They are even more green than they look in photos.

I'm surprised how few bikes the SMART consists can carry. That might be an issue going forward.

[northbay]

Originally Posted by fflint

About a month ago I saw these train cars sitting on a side track on my way between Oakland and Sacramento via the Capitol Corridor. They are even more green than they look in photos.

I'm surprised how few bikes the SMART consists can carry. That might be an issue going forward.

Cool! I have yet to see them myself, but I personally like green.

Is 24 bikes per train a "few?"

[fflint]

I take that back, it's only a 2-car consist.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by fflint

I take that back, it's only a 2-car consist.

SMART can make 3 car consists in the future, assuming they buy some "C" car DMU units like UP in Toronto did. Which should increase train capacity by 50%.

What do all of you think about the partially white (or almost white) seats and headrests? I would think they would look dirty quickly.

[fflint]

Aren't the seats mostly light green? In any case, I'm sure they can be cleaned.

I'm very excited about SMART and can't wait to ride it. I think it will, over the long term, be a game changer for Marin and especially Sonoma counties.

[northbay]

The seat material is supposed to be easy to clean. I'm glad they went with green as the color scheme instead of red, it's "soothing" and very appropriate for the area.

My hope is that SMART is so successful that they will exercise their option to buy more rail cars, which, if ridership warrants it, they said they will do.

[fflint]

Muni has unveiled its new fleet of electric and hybrid low floor, 60-foot articulated buses (coverage here and here). They are looking pretty sharp:

[northbay]

Awesome! Sharp indeed!

Are they going to have the same number of electric buses as before?

[fflint]

I don't know, but I would bet they will replace the entire fleet without a reduction in size in order to implement the TEP (now called Muni Forward).

[Busy Bee]

Is there a close up of the trolleybus?

[OhioGuy]

Perhaps my assumption is incorrect, but I would assume low floor vehicles would have a higher likelihood of bottoming out on hilly roads? These new low floor buses look very nice, but will they only be used on routes that don't traverse significant hills in the city?

[viewguysf]

Originally Posted by OhioGuy

Perhaps my assumption is incorrect, but I would assume low floor vehicles would have a higher likelihood of bottoming out on hilly roads? These new low floor buses look very nice, but will they only be used on routes that don't traverse significant hills in the city?

The articulated busses and trolleys run on main, flat streets.

[fflint]

There's not much of a difference in ground clearance between a low-floor and high-floor bus--that's all about internal configurations there, not external. But yes--the articulated buses only run on the busiest routes, which are in the flats.