SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA: Transit/Transportation News

[jmecklenborg]

^In semi-related news, I saw the Kansas City streetcar extension u/c this fall, and it's going to have two 200-foot vertical climbs. I'm certain that these are the two biggest modern streetcar climbs in the United States, and they are lucky that they operate the CAF Urbos 3 streetcars with overhead wire. They won't have any trouble with the climb. I'm much less confident in the ability of battery-powered buses and streetcars to deal with such climbs.

I have been on a fully-loaded (150 passengers) CAF Urbos 3 climbing a 10% grade and the thing is able to accelerate while climbing, even with that load.

[BigDipper 80]

Does SF use any dual-mode trolleys? Dayton upgraded their trolley network with dual-mode buses a few years ago and they generally work pretty well. You get the best of both worlds having them run mostly on wire but with the ability to use their battery to go around obstacles or further down certain routes where there is no wire.

[AndrewK]

Originally Posted by BigDipper 80

Does SF use any dual-mode trolleys? Dayton upgraded their trolley network with dual-mode buses a few years ago and they generally work pretty well. You get the best of both worlds having them run mostly on wire but with the ability to use their battery to go around obstacles or further down certain routes where there is no wire.

Yes, Muni’s trolley buses do have battery backups, allowing them that flexibility:
https://www.sfmta.com/getting-around...-trolley-buses

[homebucket]

Caltrain to Receive $43 Million in Federal Funding for Electrification Project
12/23/2022

Caltrain announced today that it will receive $43M in federal funding as part of the recent omnibus spending bill, which passed Congress and is expected to be signed by President Biden. The funding will help fill the funding gap for Caltrain’s Electrification project, which is scheduled to be completed in fall 2024.

...

“The transportation sector makes up 50 percent of California’s greenhouse gas emissions, and electrifying our public transit systems is one of the most effective ways to cut down on those emissions,” said U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein. “I have long supported funding for the Caltrain Peninsula Corridor Electrification project and will continue to work to secure funds for this important effort.”

“I am proud to have secured funding to support Caltrain’s Peninsula Corridor Electrification Project that will help complete California’s first electrified commuter rail system,” said U.S. Senator Alex Padilla. “With this investment, we are reducing greenhouse gas emissions, eliminating pollution caused by the aging diesel engines, and helping Caltrain meet its goal of tripling capacity by 2040.”

“The Bay Area is the high-tech capital of the world, and it deserves a transportation system that reflects that,” said U.S. Rep. Anna G. Eshoo. “I’m proud to have helped secure this funding to electrify Caltrain and bring modern, electric trains to the Peninsula, symbolizing our spirit of innovation and dynamic change.”

...

“Tens of thousands of Bay Area commuters rely on Caltrain every day. The electrification of Caltrain will improve the lives of these workers and families by increasing passenger capacity while also, importantly, combating climate change,” said U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, Chair of the California Democratic Congressional Delegation. “It’s great news when federal funding is a win-win-win; this investment helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions, decrease traffic, and will improve the experience for Caltrain’s riders.”

“The electrification of Caltrain is a great step in our fight to tackle climate change and lower greenhouse gas emissions. It will also help improve the frequency of trains for riders in Santa Clara County and reduce traffic congestion.” said U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna. “I’m glad to see this critical investment included in this year’s government funding bill.

Of the federal funding, $10M was secured by U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein and U.S. Senator Alex Padilla as a community project and $33M was included as part of the Federal Transit Administration’s Capital Investment Grant (CIG) Program for projects with existing Full Funding Grant Agreements.

Additional funding sources are being pursued to resolve the project’s remaining $367M funding gap, including from California’s Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program (TIRCP), which includes up to $1.3B for projects like Caltrain Electrification. Caltrain applied to the program in December and awards are expected by the end of January. Caltrain has received tremendous backing from Caltrain’s state delegation in support of the application, as well from San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara County elected officials, every city along the corridor from San Francisco to Gilroy, the JPB member agencies, and over 70 community groups representing business, labor, environmental, housing & transit advocates, health, and education. The total project cost is $2.44B and electrified passenger service is expected to start in fall 2024 if the funding can be secured.

Caltrain’s historic Electrification Project is the first undertaking in North America in a generation in which diesel trains and their infrastructure components are transitioned to an electrified system. The project will improve the customer experience by increasing the number of trains, modernizing service and adding new safety elements. The new trains will feature on board displays with digital trip information, increased storage capacities, baby-changing tables, WiFi and power outlets at every seat. Electrification will also help meet ambitious regional and state climate action goals by lowering greenhouse gas emissions, improving air quality and relieving traffic congestion. Additionally, electrified service will advance equity along the corridor by reducing noise and air pollution while increasing access for priority equity communities. It will also set the framework for California’s future High Speed Rail network that will run on the Caltrain corridor.

https://www.caltrain.com/news/caltra...cation-project

[jmecklenborg]

This story has been picked up by tabloids:
https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/ar...w-17705293.php

I don't know about BART but this sort of thing has precedent on the east coast, going way back. The big difference is that today cameras/video are ubiquitous. In old punk venue and house show photos, you'd maybe see one person holding a camera in one of the photos (meaning two people brought their camera to an event). Now it's like dozens of people with $1,000 phones acting like they're poor.

[tech12]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

I don't know about BART but this sort of thing has precedent on the east coast, going way back.

It's definitely not the first time something like this has happened in the Bay Area lol.

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

Now it's like dozens of people with $1,000 phones acting like they're poor.

There are like five cell phones visible in all of the video/photos...do you just assume that everyone has a $1000 phone in their pocket, or that it's impossible to have an expensive phone if you're poor?

[homebucket]

People have been using Bart, Muni, AC Transit, etc as performance venues for a long, long time now. It's nothing new.

[Busy Bee]

Youth of Today

[jmecklenborg]

Here is an extended video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzywwuY_VEI

I imagine that they ran the amps off of batteries of some sort. A generator would cause carbon monoxide poisoning in the car.

[llamaorama]

That video is actually cool. Cool people having a good time.

It's not the same kind of disorder as a miserable drug addict making other people miserable by doing disgusting things while camping on the train all day.

Call me crazy but maybe that's a sign of life. The people in that flash mob probably have normal lives otherwise, they are college students or go to work during the day and are probably otherwise from a demographic that fears or doesn't care much for public transit.

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

Now it's like dozens of people with $1,000 phones acting like they're poor.

Phones are incredibly useful and essential and have become the core communication and entertainment device for a lot of people.

Also because of inflation $1,000 is not as much money as it used to be.

[CharlesCO]

Yeah, that's nothing new. I remember pretty regularly seeing a breakdance/rap group get on at 12th Street, do a performance down the aisles, hang from the handlebars, and then get off at West Oakland while asking for tips on their way out. It was well-timed, and it was fairly impressive the first time I saw it....more than 10 years ago.

[homebucket]

High-speed rail to downtown S.F. is back on track — but the price tag keeps going up



John King
Jan. 18, 2023

Five years after the debut of San Francisco’s grandiose transit center that features only buses and a rooftop park, regional transit agencies are gearing up to try to win the federal funding necessary to add rail service to the mix.

That new effort includes a new price tag for the long-promised expansion — $6.7 billion, up from $5 billion in 2016.

This is the estimated cost to bring commuter trains and a route for high-speed rail service from Mission Bay to First and Mission streets by 2033. Besides the inflation that comes with the passage of seven years, transit planners say the revised budget accounts for extra costs that could arise in the decade that it would take to complete the 2-mile extension.

They also argue that while the costs are steep, the investment would pay dividends for decades to come.

“This is a generational infrastructure project,” said Adam Van de Water, executive director of the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, which operates the transit center that opened in 2018. “We want to connect San Francisco to Silicon Valley and Los Angeles in a sustainable way.... If you want to compete with automobiles and planes, the service has to be convenient, reliable and affordable.”

An underground rail connection has been part of the center’s concept since planning began in 1999, and the first phase included a federally funded concrete shell to hold the platform. But expansion plans were put on hold as costs swelled from $1.6 billion to $2.26 billion for the first phase — the futuristic three-block-long structure that spans First and Fremont streets and is cloaked in an undulating veil of perforated white metal.

In doing its budget projections for the second phase, the agency increased the contingency costs from 30% to 37% — a tacit acknowledgment of the reality that large infrastructure projects rarely go as smoothly as hoped. The revised budget also jettisons the concept of an underground walkway from the Embarcadero BART Station to the transit center — a stroke of value-engineering that, Van de Water said, trims $220 million from the budget.

“Convenience aside, that (connection) is not essential,” Van de Water said. “Active street life is a good thing. People can walk on the sidewalk.”

For all the skepticism that has surrounded the rail extension to the station that runs behind Salesforce Tower — and is called Salesforce Transit Center after the tech behemoth purchased naming rights for 25 years in 2017 — the campaign got a boost in 2021. That year, after the passage of an infrastructure bill by Congress, the federal Department of Transportation said the extension was eligible to apply for part of the bill’s $23 billion set aside for new transit projects.

The trick now is to be selected from a pool of what could be several dozen applicants.

Assuming its eight-member Board of Directors gives the green light next month, the transit agency will apply to federal officials in April. This would kick off a detailed review of the proposed project, including the revised budget estimate. The Department of Transportation would then rate application in terms of substance and national merit; the higher the rating, the better the chance of ultimate approval.

The local schedule calls for a bid for full funding to follow in August. If this is successful, the downtown extension would be part of the 2024 federal budget and the grant could be signed off in early 2025. From then, Washington would pay half of all project costs up to $6.7 billion.

“Because we’ve been a regional priority for so long, and have done so much groundwork, we should be ahead of most of them,” Van de Water theorized, referring to other applicants.

One factor in the Bay Area’s favor is that the project has full environmental approvals. It also has several local funding sources built into various bonds and sales tax measures, giving it some measure of financial credibility.

In a best-case scenario — which hasn’t often been the case for a project that in 2010 was budgeted at $2.6 billion with a target opening date of 2020 — construction of the tunnel beneath Townsend and Second streets to the existing station could begin in 2025. This would allow service to begin in 2032, Van de Water said.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/artic...t-17724143.php

[Busy Bee]

....jettisons the concept of an underground walkway from the Embarcadero BART Station to the transit center — a stroke of value-engineering that, Van de Water said, trims $220 million from the budget.

Everything wrong with American transportation planning succinctly provided in single sentence form.

[Busy Bee]

Was a 7th and Howard route ever evaluated as a DTX option? It would obviously relegate 4th & King to just a yard, make Transbay the primary downtown Caltrain station, as well as require real estate acquisition but it would make for a smoother alignment then the current 2nd St plan. I have always felt that that hairpin turn into Transbay is almost operation design incompetance. Seems like the wear and tear on the wheels and track will be an ongoing headache and maintenance expense that should have been avoided at almost any cost. Unless the tracks are slathered in grease the squeal is going to be unbearable. It just doesn't seem like any way to build something in the 21st century. And i can not wrap my head around why a simple relatively short tunnel is going to cost 6 billion f****** dollars.

[slock]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

Everything wrong with American transportation planning succinctly provided in single sentence form.

While it is disappointing, the article isn't completely accurate. They're not cancelling the pedestrian connection, just deferring it.

https://tjpa.org/uploads/2023/01/Ite...R-Addendum.pdf

[Busy Bee]

Good to know. I wondered about that.

[TWAK]

They could totally shuffle the cost of one of the top few things in the project or shuffle money around if they are locking-in costs.

[SFBruin]

How important is the DTX, now that the central subway is built?

[ardecila]

There's all kinds of foolish ideas with this project. First, they want to abandon 4th/King entirely to redevelop the land, but SoMa landlords don't want to lose their easy Caltrain access. So they are planning a costly underground Caltrain station at 4th/Townsend.

Easy fix: leave 4th/King in place as a surface terminal and, yes, do a 7th/Howard alignment for the tunnel with no intermediate stops. Caltrains would go to one terminal or the other, but let riders get off at Millbrae or 22nd St to change trains for their preferred destination. Similar to how New Yorkers will change trains at Secaucus to go to Penn Station.

Also for the BART connector, isn't there a big redevelopment of the PG&E block planned? Make the developers include the underground connection as part of that project. It will be cheaper to include that in their basement level than to rip up an entire street, relocate utilities etc.

[homebucket]

Peep the updates.

Eyes on the Station: BART Celebrates 19th Street Modernization
If you're wondering where the money goes when you vote for a BART measure, as you did in 2016, here's an example



By Roger Rudick
Jan 23, 2023

BART officials celebrated the completion of a major makeover of its 19th Street station in Oakland on Saturday. Improvements include new paint, bright-and-modern lighting, and illuminated artwork to help make some of those previously dark corners of the stations seem a little more inviting. From a BART statement:

The upgrades and improvements to the station in the heart of Oakland’s Uptown neighborhood allow BART to expand station capacity, improve access, save energy, reduce fare evasion, and enhance the customer experience. The station is now brightly lit for safety with an open concept, modern look as the project redesigned the concourse to turn three paid areas into one continuous paid area, and eliminated hidden corners by using glass barriers instead of brick.

Streetsblog was given a tour of the new installations by BART’s art program manager Jennifer Easton, who explained that the artwork in the station is intended to evoke the area’s music-and-dance history. The artwork is strategically placed on the stairwells, as seen below:



...

Tiles were fixed for the project and new gold paint was added to the ceiling, along with bright white and blue LEDs seemingly everywhere:

https://sf.streetsblog.org/2023/01/2...modernization/