[BashiBazouk]

Uh...have you actually ridden Caltrain? Outside of SF, Caltrain stops in the very heart of each down town. San Bruno, Burlingame, San Mateo, Belmont, San Carlos, Redwood city, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Mountain view, San Jose all have stations that border the historical main down town (I think Sunnyvale and Santa Clara as well). In SF proper, it's probably more to do with geography than land purchases. Trains really don't like hills and tunneling is expensive.

The problem is really, that the train tracks were built in the 1860's when all these places were little towns linked by farms and fields. Then the automobile took over and there was just not seen the need for branch lines. Now it's solid industrial/suburbia all the way up and eminent domain would be way too expensive both in terms of money and politics.

[raldi]

> Uh...have you actually ridden Caltrain?

No, and that's sort of my point. I've lived in SF since the summer of 2008, and not once in all that time has Caltrain ever been useful to me. It doesn't pick up anywhere near anything, and it doesn't run to any place I want to go.

Meanwhile, when I lived in New York, I rode the subway, the LIRR, the PATH train, Metro North, and even Amtrak all over the place, in no small part because Penn Station and Grand Central are located right in the middle of everything and thoroughly connected to local transit.

[BashiBazouk]

But your argument as to why has little to do with the actual reasons to two public transportation systems differ and you make assumptions about the history of California that are flatly just wrong. Not to mention ignore the differences in geography. California has a certain flavor of liberal politics but remember that this is recent and has not always been so, and to this day varies quite a bit depending where you are in the state. Hell, it varies depending on where you are in the bay area...

During the time New York was building some of it's latter public transportation infrastructure, my father and his brother, as teenagers, were wandering around what is now Xerox Parc and surrounding tech campuses and what would become 280 with their 30-06 rifles shooting anything they pleased. No one cared because there was no one around. It was just unused hill country. Much of the explosion of building in the Bay Area has been recent and during a period that no one wanted public transportation, they wanted a car. New York built up much of it's rail infrastructure before the car became commonplace and people really wanted to use it.

Consider this: how late in the history of New York were those grand stations built? Compare that to how far in to San Francisco's history they are building the Transbay Transit Center...

[raldi]

> Much of the explosion of building in the Bay Area has been recent and during a period that no one wanted public transportation, they wanted a car.

You're saying that the region's transit was built up during a time when people didn't care about public transit. I think that's mostly true, and it led to a milquetoast "well, let's just sort of put some train stations around the edge but not do anything that might upset anyone" plan that, today, serves the region a lot less well than New York's strategy of "let's cut-and-cover tracks right down all our major avenues".

> Consider this: how late in the history of New York were those grand stations built? Compare that to how far in to San Francisco's history

If you think you can't build good transit late in a city's history, how do you explain London or Paris?

[BashiBazouk]

"well, let's just sort of put some train stations around the edge but not do anything that might upset anyone"

And this is the crux of my point. Those CalTrain stations, when they were built, were EXACTLY where people wanted to go. The center of each down town. Look on a map. Caltrain is a very direct route to San Jose. The opposite of your argument that it is in any way "milquetoast". Even BART served where people wanted to commute to when it was planned out. The Bay Area has exploded with building since then.

"If you think you can't build good transit late in a city's history, how do you explain London or Paris?"

Uh...train technology not existing for most of those two cities histories?

[nostrademons]

FWIW, I live in Mountain View, have a car, and still frequently use Caltrain to get up to friends or events in the city. I'm within walking distance of the station, and during rush hour traffic Caltrain will often get me there faster than 101 will.

It's somewhat ironic (and telling about SF) that as a suburban commuter I've made better use of public transit than you have in the city, but it really is pretty convenient if you're going to any of the downtowns on the Peninsula, anything BART-accessible, or Candlestick Park.

[raldi]

> It's somewhat ironic (and telling about SF) that as a suburban commuter I've made better use of public transit than you have in the city

Who said I don't take transit? My wife and I both take trains to work, and ride transit whenever possible. The primary factor in choosing our home was to be within walking distance of transit.

It's just Caltrain that I've found totally useless.

[milkshakes]

Ironically, most of the larger tech companies based out of the valley are closer to the highways than they are to the Caltrain stations; the shuttle shitshow at MTV/PA is testament to that.

[BashiBazouk]

Nothing ironic about it. When these plots were being sold off the car was king (and really still is) and passenger train service was almost discontinued due to lack of ridership. Putting tech centers next to freeways was quite sensible at the time.