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Glad to hear some good news about trains in CA for once.
I will say the upgraded trains in Sacramento have increased my usage from zero to occasional. The old trains meant hauling my bike up the stairs which was a chore. Not that they’re ground level it’s much easier to use.
That definitely helps a lot.
The new trains in Caltrain have much greater acceleration, which means that local trains don't have so much of a time penalty as they used to, and they also are a LOT quieter, which makes it easier to get something else done while traveling.
I know I've been riding Caltrain more.
It's shocking how much better the new train sets are. I remember the first time I took the new one. It was rolling in so fast that I thought it must have been an express train about to pass my local stop. Nope! It stopped on a dime compared to the old train!
Good job, Caltrain!
I've been enjoying Bart, it's kinda noisy compared to the NYCT system I grew up with, but super steady.
Turns out they use a wider gage on the tracks than any other system, which is good for speed/stability.. but also expensive af.
I'll have to try Caltrain next.
I took BART from the airport a couple months back, holy shit was it loud, I would go deaf if I had to keep riding that.
Yeah, I really wonder what's up with that?
Ok, I'm gonna be that guy because I live here. Imo ridership is only going back up because it was way down during Covid, and now people are being RTO'd and going to large gatherings again. I don't think the trains being electric has anything to do with the increase in ridership. Having said that, the new trains are nice, and I am absolutely a fan, but I think people are still using Caltrain for everything it was already used for. I am happy they have quieter, less polluting trains though.
RTO definitely has something to do with it, but I don't think it's a direct cause. Weekend ridership up to and surpassing pre-pandemic levels while weekday ridership has not recovered as well (though still up).
I believe ridership is up because of the new and more frequent trains. 1 hour intervals really suck and while 30 minutes isn't great, it's a whole lot easier to deal with. Weekday intervals were also reduced to sub-15 minutes during traditional peak commute. That's a lot of time savings for a daily rider!
RTO does have an indirect impact: the freeways are always jammed. With partial RTO and split teams, there's not been a return to the in-the-office-at-9am culture. Our local population has grown as well. Highway traffic is all-day now.
Is it really just RTO causing ridership increase if the dilemma faced is a guaranteed sit-in-traffic for an extra 15+ minutes versus a train that runs on time with 15-minute intervals?