SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA: Transit/Transportation News

[electricron]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Ah. If UTA actually was successful at buying property from UP, that would be a first. Perhaps UTA's track comes with an easement for UP to run freight service along it? In every circumstance I've seen, UP merely grants an easement to the transit agency to build platforms and operate service, while they continue to hold ownership of the tracks.

UTA did buy the right-of-way from UP that UTA's tracks uses. Here's a web link to a news story for the UTA Frontrunner - UP deal
from http://www.utahtransit.us/deal.htm
As reported in Mass Transit Magazine, September 2003, the Utah Transit Authority made the deal of the century in 2002 when it purchased 175 miles of railroad right-of-way, most of it parallel to I-15 and along side Union Pacific freight mains, from Brigham City on the north (north of Ogden) to Payson on the south (south of Provo) for a mere $185 million. Also included were two sites for intermodal hubs (Trax light rail, Frontrunner commuter rail, and bus) in SLC and Ogden, as well as some rail right-of-way through Salt Lake County for Trax expansion.

Another link with more UTA Frontrunner historic information:
http://www.utahrails.net/uta/frontrunner-north.php

April 2001:
The Utah Transit Authority (UTA) is reported to have reached an agreement in principle with Union Pacific to buy access to the railroad's rights-of-way between Brigham City and Payson for $103 million. The agreement would permit UTA to put commuter trains on UP tracks between Ogden and Brigham City, where freight traffic is light, and build its own commuter line in UP's more-heavily-trafficked Salt Lake City-Ogden corridor. It would also open the way for further commuter rail development and extension of UTA's Trax light rail system. UTA says it can raise $59 million of the neeeded funds if the state puts up $44 million.
May 22, 2002:
Utah Transit Authority received approval from the federal Surface Transportation Authority to purchase the following properties from Union Pacific, for use as part of a commuter rail project:
Total of 62.77 miles
Salt Lake Subdivision: milepost 754.31 in Bountiful, to milepost 778.00 in Ogden (former D&RGW mainline)
Salt Lake Subdivision: 20 to 35-foot portion of right of way from milepost 782.48 in Salt Lake City, to milepost 818.05 in Ogden (adjacent to UP mainline)
Provo Industrial Lead: milepost P-775.23 at Point of the Mountain, to milepost P-762.00 at Hardy (UP mainline)
Provo Subdivison: 20 to 35-foot portion of right of way from milepost 705.71 at Lakota Junction, to milepost 729.29 near Riverton, and from milepost 729.50 near Riverton to milepost 745.50 in Salt Lake City (adjacent to former D&RGW mainline)
Sharp Subdivision: milepost P-752.41 in Provo, to milepost P-757.25 at Lakota Junction (UP mainline)
Sharp Subdivision: 20 to 35-foot portion of right of way from milepost 745.82 in Spanish Fork, to milepost P-749.99 in Provo, and from milepost P-750.81 in Provo to milepost P-752.41 in Provo (adjacent to UP mainline)
Tintic Industrial Lead: from milepost 0.00 in Springville, to milepost 13.06 in Payson (former D&RGW Tintic Branch)
Sugar House Spur: from milepost 0.00 at Roper, to milepost 2.74 in Sugar House (former D&RGW Sugarhoue Branch)
Bingham Industrial Lead: from milepost 6.60 at Bagley, to milepost 11.81 (former D&RGW Bingham Branch)
Bingham Industrial Lead: 20 to 35-foot portion of right of way from milepost 0.00 to milepost 6.60 (former D&RGW Bingham Branch)
Consummation of sale to occur on or about May 30, 2002.
UTA is acquiring tracks for future passenger operations, and does not intend to conduct freight operations. (STB Finance Docket 34170)
September 17, 2003:
UTA and Union Pacific signed the final contracts for UTA to purchase UP's former Salt Lake City diesel shop, located at 900 North and 500 West. The building was completed in August 1955 and was closed by UP in June 1998 (more information).

[BTinSF]

Originally Posted by Gordo

BNSF has been much more open to working with the CHSRA - and it's all BNSF owned ROW that will be used in the Central Valley and LA area.

Originally Posted by mwadswor

I wonder if it's just a difference in managment, but BNSF does generally seem much friendlier to working with passenger rail than UP. I know UP has also been completely unreceptive to the idea of having any commuter rail on it's tracks anywhere around Phoenix while BNSF has been more cooperative.

BNSF = Warren Buffet, a friend of the Administration and, presumably, of HSR. Berkshire Hathaway has been a large and influential stockholder for some time and recently bought the rest of the company.

[sammyg]

Originally Posted by Gordo

In certain areas on the peninsula. Not in Palo Alto or Menlo Park because of various reasons, but mostly dealing with the fact that El Camino Real runs very close to the tracks on one side (6-8 lanes plus parking lanes) and Alma St runs right next to the tracks on the other side (4 lanes). If you had roads passing under the tracks, they'd also have to dive under both roads and the descent would start several hundred feet away on either side (and the cross streets are mostly of semi-urban development, so you'd kill off a lot with that tactic).

Somewhere on the CHSRA site you can look and see exactly what the different proposed solutions are for each mile of the peninsula section. I don't feel like looking for it now, but I know it's there

It's a good point, but there are already several streets that do cross over/under the tracks and Alma/Central - University, Page Mill, San Antonio and Shoreline just in Palo Alto and Mountan View. (I think Menlo Park and Atherton have been shortsighted for years and never planned far enough to do the same for their streets) It's not that much hassle to drive to one of those, but people are set in their ways and used to how things are done now. If HSR can get past the complaints, people should be able to get used to the new routes pretty quickly.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Gordo

^Bingo, but that's not quite all of it. They have been pretty good about working with Amtrak California as well over the years (as well as some other entities like ACE), but this is really a new thing. HSR would require them to sell (I suppose a lease could be possible too) at least portions of the ROW (with barricades in between their tracks and the high speed tracks), rather than just allowing/leasing use of the tracks. The concern that they've voiced publicly is around liability issues, with trains operating alongside theirs at four or five times the speed being something that they're not comfortable with.

EDIT - you nailed it with your last sentence.

UP might be willing to sell their line in the East Bay outright, though. It's a single-track line that maybe serves a handful of industrial customers. If they were willing to sell, then the ownership would transfer to the state of CA and a double-track high speed line could be built, with a new single track to the side to continue serving those industries (operated by a private company).

Obviously, the line between SJ and Gilroy is a key part of UP's western network, and they don't want anybody to touch it. But more secondary lines in their system might be available for the right price.

[fflint]

Free parking for private automobiles on public land after 6pm and all day Sunday--meanwhile Muni, which is never free, will see 10% fewer trains and buses all day and all night. The downward spiral into autocentrism begins:

----------------------------------------

MTA: Layoffs, service cuts, rate increases
By: Will Reisman
Examiner Staff Writer
February 26, 2010
http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/MTA-...-85579762.html

Sweeping service reductions, increases to monthly fares for Express routes and Cable Car service and more expensive rates for residential parking permits were approved by the Municipal Transportation Agency’s Board of Directors in a budget-balancing move today, although a controversial proposal to double the costs of Fast Pass fares for senior, youth and the disabled was shelved, at least temporarily.

[nequidnimis]

Hopefully, this will also encourage increased bicycle riding, and increased walking. I think many people do not realize how little difference there is between walking and riding the bus. I just checked a 1.7 mi trip on Google map with a direct bus line and bus stops two blocks from the departure and destination points. By bus, it take 24 minutes, walking, 33 minutes. And the bus time does not account waiting for the bus and traffic delays at rush hour.

[BTinSF]

If they just eliminated Muni it would really encourage walking and bicycle riding. Have you passed the idea along?

[fflint]

Originally Posted by nequidnimis

Hopefully, this will also encourage increased bicycle riding, and increased walking. I think many people do not realize how little difference there is between walking and riding the bus. I just checked a 1.7 mi trip on Google map with a direct bus line and bus stops two blocks from the departure and destination points. By bus, it take 24 minutes, walking, 33 minutes. And the bus time does not account waiting for the bus and traffic delays at rush hour.

I'd look at the biggest transit service cuts in San Francisco history as a boon for biking as well, except for one very ugly and inconvenient truth: NIMBY scum stopped the city (for four years and counting) from building out the necessary infrastructure to handle the coming influx of cyclists.

The drastic and sudden degradation of public transportation in San Francisco isn't just going to usher in a golden age of urban cycling upon our bronze-age streetscapes--it's also going to bring on more high-pollutin' car traffic. Our corporate sellout mayor's dogged defense of his free-parking policy for rich motorists--free parking on Sundays and after 6pm, when Muni is still full-price but also more overcrowded and late than ever--is both a carrot and a stick leading to increased car traffic throughout the city.

So that means 1) more motorists and 2) more cyclists and 3) the NIMBY scum injunction requiring the two modes share the same travel lane. It will take longer than ever to get anywhere.

Just as bad, Muni will lose its "common denominator" factor among San Franciscans, as the able-bodied sort themselves from the transit-dependent. When the working majority no longer uses Muni, Muni loses its electoral base. An apathetic public that sees Muni as a loser cruiser full of fat slobs, geriatric cases and welfare queens won't likely care to fund Muni at even current, degraded levels. The MTA board, by cravenly caving to all the wrong policies, is presiding over the destruction of its own agency, and San Francisco's transit culture, and we're all going to be worse off. Until we move, of course.

NIMBY scum + corporate sellout mayor + (MTA - balls) = bifurcated city in slo-mo death spiral. Heckuva job, douchebags.

[Yankee]

Don't mean to change the subject, but does anyone know if they're still planning on extending Caltrain across Dumbarton bridge to East Bay? What's the current status of that project?

[BTinSF]

Friday, March 12, 2010
S.F.’s Doyle Drive rebuild eyes private cash
Savings could top $150M
San Francisco Business Times - by Eric Young

State officials might pay an investor to build and maintain a large portion of the Doyle Drive project, a move they estimate could save taxpayers nearly $150 million.

Under a proposal now being studied by the California Transportation Commission, an investor could take responsibility for constructing much of the 1.6-mile southern entrance to the Golden Gate Bridge and maintaining it for 30 years. Transportation officials estimate that would cost about $488 million — versus $635 million if it is handled as a traditional public works project by the California Department of Transportation. A private investor could get the work done more cheaply, a CalTrans study says, with the state saving extra money by spreading payments out over 30 years. The CTC is expected to decide April 7 whether to allow CalTrans to strike a deal with a private investor to bid on the project.

Discussions about privatizing parts of the Doyle Drive rebuild project gathered steam last year after California, which has under-invested in infrastructure for decades, agreed to lift caps on the number of public-private deals it could strike . . . .

A deal with a private investor would require the financier to finish Doyle Drive construction by 2013 and keep it in good repair until at least 2043. The state would agree to dole out annual payments over 30 years, provided those targets are met. The private investor could maximize profits by keeping maintenance costs low during the 30-year concession.

Construction on 73-year-old Doyle Drive began in November 2009 after local officials lined up about $1 billion in federal, state and local funding. The project is divided into eight contracts. Three have been awarded and one is being bid now.

If Doyle Drive work is overseen by an investor, private companies would take over the second half of the job, which calls for completing the 1.6-mile roadway with wider lanes, additional safety features and some stretches running underground . . . .

Source: http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/...15/story3.html

[fflint]

Bay Area Transit Blog, SFGate

Bicycling Magazine Ranks San Francisco 6th Best Cycling City Nationally
by Matthew Roth on April 6, 2010


Streetsblog Editor Bryan Goebel, Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, and SFBC's Leah Shahum riding downtown on Bike to Work Day. Photo dustinj

San Francisco today was named the sixth best city in the nation for cycling by editors of Bicycling Magazine, the best ranking of any city in California. Bicycling editors chose San Francisco in part because of the huge growth in cycling over the past two years and despite the injunction that has prevented the city from substantially improving its bicycle infrastructure.
"San Francisco has one of the most vibrant bike cultures in the nation and in spite of the injunction ridership is way up," said Bicycling Editor-in-Chief Loren Mooney.

Mooney said she has been following the progress of the injunction and has been excited by the recent improvements to the city's streets, such as the protected bicycle lane on Market Street. According to Mooney, San Francisco ranked as high as it did because of the city's bicycle culture and community and because of the hard work of the bicycle advocates in the face of adversity.

Two years ago, when Bicycling did its last ranking, the magazine segregated cities by size; San Francisco received an Honorable Mention behind Portland, Denver, and Seattle in the category of cities sized 500,000 to 1,000,000,

"Not only is San Francisco strong now, it will be great to see where they are in two years on our next list," said Mooney.

Mayor Gavin Newsom's spokesperson Brian Purchia said they were pleased to be the highest rated city in Calfornia. "With street improvements under way and working closely with the cycling community, our ranking is sure to rise."


San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Leah Shahum was thrilled with the news. "Despite some unexpected roadblocks in the past few years, we are still experiencing unprecedented growth in the numbers of people choosing bicycling for transportation," said Shahum. "Today 53 percent more people are riding compared to just three years ago."

Added Shahum, "One of the things I'm most proud of in San Francisco is that bicyclists are still on the cutting edge of re-imagining and pushing the envelope on how our city's public space is valued. It's not a coincidence that greater support for bicycling is connected to this larger, broader movement for more livable streets."

Bicycling editors based the rankings in cities with populations of at least 100,000 and used factors such as cycling-friendly statistics (numbers of bike lanes and routes, bike racks, city projects completed and planned) and changes in these statistics and a city’s future plans since the last survey. They also gave credence to a city's bike culture, such as the number of bike commuters, cycling clubs, cycling events, and renowned bike shops. Editors also referenced the Bicycling and Walking in the United States 2010 Benchmarking Report prepared by the Alliance for Biking and Walking, the League of American Bicyclists’ Bicycle Friendly America project, and interviews with national and local advocates, bike shops, and other experts.

[M II A II R II K]

Transit boom in the works


April 7, 2010



Read More: http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/Tran...-90066007.html

The redeveloped Bayview and Hunters Point neighborhoods will feature $229 million in transportation improvements, including elevated rapid-bus lines, extensions to existing Muni service, new bike paths and improved pedestrian walkways.Under the long-term transit proposal — a joint effort between the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which operates Muni, and the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development — existing local bus lines like the 23-Monterey, the 54-Felton and the 24-Divisadero would be extended to better serve the Candlestick Point and Hunters Point neighborhoods.

The bus lines would also be realigned to connect more efficiently with BART and Caltrain, said SFMTA Deputy Planning Director Peter Albert, who presented the plan at the agency’s Board of Directors meeting Tuesday.

The southeastern neighborhood would also benefit from a new bus rapid transit line — a dedicated lane for swift-moving transit vehicles — set to carry passengers from Candlestick Point to the Bayshore Caltrain and Balboa Park BART stations. The BRT line will run over a bridge proposed to be built on top of Yosemite Slough, a delicate environmental site in the area.

Two new downtown buses, slated for service between the Financial District and Hunters Point, are also among the transit plans. The Hunters Point Transportation Plan includes biking and walking improvements in the neighborhood, which has long lacked the proper infrastructure planning found in other areas of The City, Albert said.

[BTinSF]

Muni Charter Measure Supporters Take to the Streets to Collect Signatures
by Michael Rhodes on April 8, 2010

People catching Muni near West Portal station this morning were greeted by an unusual sight: Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, SPUR Executive Director Gabriel Metcalf, and a team of volunteers were out canvassing the avenue to gather signatures for a ballot measure that would change the way the city sets Muni operator salaries.

Elsbernd, who first introduced the measure late last year only to see it receive an icy reception in a Board of Supervisors committee, said getting it on the ballot through a signature campaign was a daunting task, but so far people are receptive.

"If they give you that two seconds to talk to you about it, they'll sign it," he said. "It's just whether or not they'll give you that two seconds."

After twenty minutes of standing out on West Portal Avenue, Elsbernd said he'd collected about 15 signatures. To get on the November ballot, 70,000 of San Francisco's half-a-million registered voters must sign a petition in support of putting the measure on the ballot . . . .

The measure would remove language from the City Charter that currently sets Muni operator salaries and benefits at the average of the two highest-paying large transit agencies in the country, instead of through a collective bargaining process. The measure's supporters argue that the charter provision has been too costly for Muni and has given management less flexibility to negotiate better work rules . . . .

The operators union has . . . strongly opposed the measure, though union representatives couldn't be reached for comment today. In the past, Transport Workers Union Local 250-A President Irwin Lum has defended the current Charter provision, which he said has ensured decades of labor peace.

SPUR's Metcalf, however, called the measure a "small but practical" way to improve Muni by ultimately reducing costs and giving the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which runs Muni, more leverage to negotiate operator work rules that he hopes will reduce absenteeism and make Muni more efficient . . . .

Source: http://sf.streetsblog.org/2010/04/08...ct-signatures/

[Busy Bee]

Found this .pdf on a docstoc.com. Not sure of the source or if it was published in some sort of trade mag, but thought I'd post it since it shows a rendering of an EMU. Of course it could be just for illustrative purposes, but if this did come from Caltrain it wonder if they are considering off the shelf EMU's like one from Alstom:

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/document...oc_id=15459016


I also found this in my saved images file. I have no idea where it came from:

[Busy Bee]

Just read that the website of industrial design firm Antenna, chief designers of NY's R-142 and 143 subway cars, is working with BART on the next generation BART car. No further details were revealed, but this could only be a positive.

The image that was thrown around the media in 2009 and featured on Wikipedia is more than likely a generic conceptual image developed around the time the original RFP's went out and way before the procurement process is set to complete:


wiki

[Busy Bee]

eBART Now Under Construction, Extending Rapid Transit Far from San Francisco


TP


» Effort to extend BART across the region continues, even as roadway expansions pursue their course.

The San Francisco Bay Area is one of the nation’s case studies in regionalism, with one metropolitan planning board determining local transportation spending in cities from San Francisco in the west to Antioch in the east, from Richmond in the north to San Jose in the south. The existence of Metropolitan Transportation Commission, while theoretically designed to distribute resources to the most effective projects, has in fact erred in the opposite direction, prioritizing geographic equity over efficiency or high ridership.

The groundbreaking of the eBART line from Pittsburg to Antioch, in east Contra Costa County, is indicative of this trend that also includes the extension of BART to Livermore and San Jose. eBART would bring diesel multiple unit (DMU) train service from the existing BART Pittsburg/Bay Point Station to Hillcrest Avenue in Antioch, via a new station at Railroad Avenue in Pittsburg, providing customers new rapid transit service along 10 miles of track wedged into the median of Highway 4. The $462 million project is being built in conjunction with the expansion of that road from four lanes today to six and eight. Completion is expected by 2015.

10,100 daily riders are expected to use the line by 2030, up from 3,900 in its opening year. This is expected to relieve the current crowding at the Pittsburg/Bay Point terminus. Including a timed transfer between DMU and BART trains across a new platform, customers hoping to get from Antioch to San Francisco’s Embarcadero Station, the first in that city, will have a 68 minute ride. Thus the region’s ambitions for transit connectivity stretch far into the suburbs.

Rest of Story



________________________________________


Artist Rendering of new DMU's:


ebbc



I found this YouTube clip of a simulation showing the shared eBART/BART platform at Pittsburg.

Moderator Edit: I edited the front of this post due to the thread merge. The content of the post was not altered in any way.

[northbay]

can a mod please combine this thread with the one busy bee just created?

since we're resurrecting this thread from the dead...
here's some news on the van ness, geary brt (for you cybereric):

Bus rapid transit projects facing major funding shortfalls
By: Will Reisman
Examiner Staff Writer
11/01/10 12:15 PM PDT

Two planned projects to install swift-moving buses on Geary Boulevard and Van Ness Avenue are underfunded by as a much $235 million.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which operates Muni, wants to install bus-rapid transit vehicles on the two thoroughfares as a way to increase speed and efficiency and make public transportation a more attractive option on the congested corridors. The BRT vehicles (a hybrid of sorts between light-rail trains and Muni trolley buses) would travel on dedicated transit lanes and would receive signal priority at intersections.

However, the BRT proposal for Van Ness Avenue is facing a funding shortfall of $15 million to $80 million, and the one on Geary Boulevard has a gap of $115 million to $155 million, according to the SFMTA, which will make a presentation on the project at its Board of Directors meeting Tuesday.

...

If funding is made available, the Van Ness BRT is scheduled to be completed by 2015, and the Geary BRT by 2016.

wreisman@sfexaminer.com

for full article: http://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/bl...#ixzz148cbwir5

[colemonkee]

Threads merged. Busy Bee's post on the eBART extension should now appear in this thread. Carry on with your bad selves.

[northbay]

thanks colemonkee!

as for ebart, let me get this straight. a person traveling east on bart has to wait at the pittsburg/bay point station, then travel to a second pittsburg station some hundreds of feet away where they transfer? i honestly dont know the area but was it really impossible to bring ebart to the existing pittsburg station, rather then having a transfer station completely isolated in the middle of a freeway a hop, skip and jump away? what about someone traveling west to the current pittsburg station from antoich. would they have to transfer to conventional bart for the few hundred feet or so, or would the bart completely skip the current station?

anybody? i'm so confused at this setup.

[fflint]

"BART carried the most riders of any day in its 38-year history on Wednesday -- 522,200 -- many of them going to cheer the San Francisco Giants in a World Series victory parade."

http://www.bart.gov/news/articles/20...s20101104.aspx