Riders filling Baby Bullet trains Riders filling Baby Bullet trains (August 18, 2004)

By Arthur L. Lloyd

After their introduction in early June, all but the early morning trip of the new "Baby Bullet" trains are running at capacity, making the roundtrip between San Francisco and San Jose in just under one hour.

Other Caltrain improvements also are being well-received. Weekend hourly operation has resumed and is exceeding ridership and revenue expectations. And Giants fans are once again filling the special trains that run before and after the games at SBC Ballpark.

There are growing pains, however, which will be addressed. Parking at the Baby Bullet stops has reached capacity. Additional parking is in the works for Mountain View with arrangements being worked out with the city. Parking is available at the VTA light rail lot at Evelyn Avenue but this involves a 10-minute walk to and from the Caltrain station. Palo Alto and Hillsdale are close to full. However, a new station is in the planning stages at Hillsdale to relieve this problem. There is plenty of room in the BART garage at Millbrae.

The other problem is bicycle capacity. The new cars on the Baby Bullet allow for only 16 bikes and with the trains running full, Caltrain is now unable to increase the space, although acquiring additional Baby Bullet cars is being considered. Meanwhile the regular limited and local trains each have 32 bicycle spaces. Caltrain is asking the bicycle community to be patient until a solution can be found. Consider that each bicyclist takes up three revenue seats so additional cars must be in the works.

Meanwhile, Caltrain is closely monitoring ridership counts with an eye to making possible adjustments in late October. School starts very soon and vacations will come to an end after the Labor Day weekend, revealing a better picture of rider capacity. The present budget does not allow for more trains, although the current 86 weekday trains is the most in the 140-year history of the corridor. In addition, Baby Bullet stops may be adjusted and schedules adjusted to serve stations with the highest ridership.

Express trains are nothing new to the corridor as Southern Pacific operated trains every three minutes from San Francisco in the evening peak and those were with steam engines going up to 70 miles per hour. The rider patterns have changed considerably since those days, with more local riding on the Peninsula, but the steam trains were running in express mode, with limited stops.

Arthur L. Lloyd serves on the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board, which operates Caltrain, and the board of the county transit district. He lives in Portola Valley.

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