[memracom]

There is another way.

In London a group of businesses got together and lobbied government for better bus service among other things: http://www.londonriversidebid.co.uk/our-achievements/

For that matter England has http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/about_us which lobbies for improved transport all over the country.

You want to disrupt the old way of doing things? Setting up a private bus service is not disruption. The initiatives linked above are true disruption. They are all about doing government differently.

[apsec112]

If, tomorrow, Google bought Caltrain and started running it competently (unlike the current clowns), I'd throw a party to celebrate. But I'm sure the anti-Google-bus crowd would condemn that too. It would be 'corporatizing our cherished community institutions' or something.

[kevingadd]

I don't think anyone could decry better management of Caltrain with a straight face. everyone hates how Caltrain is run.

[AnimalMuppet]

Define "better".

Everyone hates how Caltrain is run. But if you change anything - any one thing - to make it better, you'll get a particular noisy group screaming "You can't change that!"

That's why Caltrain is so badly run. It has too many competing interests pulling at it, and it listens too much to too many of them. Fixing it is going to involve making people mad.

Disclaimer: I don't live in California. I don't actually know anything about Caltrain. I just have an idea of how government works, and why it goes bad.

[Patrick_Devine]

It's still better than BART, which isn't saying much.

[daniel-cussen]

That would fall under "nefarious influence of money in politics."

[dasmoth]

Campaign for Better Transport used to be Transport 2000, which was set up by the rail unions.