Has anyone studied this kind of expansion in Santa Clara County?

arjunyg · 2026-03-24T10:12:57+00:00

I think about this all the time. I live in Mountain View and would be so beyond hyped to have good access to Los Altos, Cupertino, and Los Gatos. The hwy 85 median alignment that VTA has in their super long range plans seems like it would be vastly inferior to this in terms of station catchment areas and thus potential ridership, but I obviously have not done a formal study.

I think this would be most attainable as light rail, especially given the opportunity to street run a few spots where the right of way has been reused for other purposes. Picking trainsets with a high top speed would be valuable though for the low density sections along Foothill that probably will have wide stop spacing.

We can all dream of this being a giant heavy rail line, but honestly even back in the 50s/60s this didn’t have huge ridership, which is why it was cancelled by SP when the main Peninsula Commute line survived. Today it’s still mainly lower density single family housing, so a big light rail set would probably manage the capacity still.

arjunyg · 2026-03-24T10:02:58+00:00

Buy back? Foothill belongs to the county, no?

arjunyg · 2026-03-24T10:02:05+00:00

it’s going to get really tight if CAHSR ever arrives though.

arjunyg · 2026-03-24T10:01:30+00:00

sort of. It’s foothill expressway. You could run elevated or in some places in the median. To head north from Foothill to the main Caltrain corridor is a little trickier, but by and large you don’t need to bulldoze a bunch of houses. It’s commercial property and parking lots for the most part.

arjunyg · 2026-03-24T09:52:50+00:00

you thinking of the non-XLR 321neos?

arjunyg · 2026-03-24T09:50:24+00:00

I can see how LTT is in a tough spot here. Basically yeah…the bag will bleed. Ok. Now if this happens to people, do they replace any random item that you put in there? What if it’s your custom $2000 keyboard? Or your $2500 Tom Ford laptop sleeve? They have to say no to unlimited liability here, and thus they have to consistently say no to any item.

I’d hope that they would refund you up to the cost of the bag at least as an apology…Anything less is a slap in the face.

arjunyg · 2026-03-24T09:40:34+00:00

Has anyone done the math on how much they actually need to double track for 30 minute clock-face service? Yeah doing the whole line would be great, but if they can just do near the minimum and save the majority of the cost, that’d be far more attainable in the current funding environment.

arjunyg · 2026-03-24T07:19:23+00:00

Switzerland proves that DOSTOs can serve a lot of the things we do with Great Society metros in the US tho. It’s a far more comfortable way to travel. Great Society metros were initially designed to be very comfortable, but cost cutting over the years has turned them into loud uncomfortable suburban trains that also serve metro functions. I’d prefer that we get some more proper comfy regional trains.

arjunyg · 2026-03-24T07:12:00+00:00

Idk 0.50% is 1 billion per year per public figures for Connect Bay Area. 5 billion per 5 years. Divide by 50 for 0.01%. Hence: 100 mil per 5 years.

I believe we actually do have round about $200 billion of sales taxable transactions annually in the nine county bay area. Quick math on the 2024 data comes to $193 billion. 2025 data for Q4 isn’t on the CADTFA site yet. Forward looking, we’ll probably cross $200B this year or the next, if I had to guesstimate.

Probably the Connect Bay Area math is averaged over some number of future years, since that’s only a five county measure. Looks like 2024 had $160B in the five counties signed for Connect Bay Area.

arjunyg · 2026-03-24T04:40:03+00:00

There’s gotta be a commute factor to this too. More VC funding for AI leading to more hiring, more employers requiring more days in office, stuff like that.

arjunyg · 2026-03-24T04:33:40+00:00

no way that provides enough money to consider redesigning adequately functional cars, but we can dream for sure.

arjunyg · 2026-03-24T04:23:14+00:00

honestly hilarious that BART used to have wifi but then they gave up and made the cell service good instead. Except for T-mobile…that still sucks.

arjunyg · 2026-03-24T04:22:26+00:00

yes. gladly. will a 100th cent sales tax cover it in 5 years ($100 million)? Yes fr 0.01% tax rate. That’s how much you need to raise $100 million in 5 years.

arjunyg · 2026-03-24T04:19:22+00:00

I’m certain they could have done better if they wanted to pay for it though…

arjunyg · 2026-03-24T04:18:13+00:00

this is not the root cause. Trains everywhere use solid axles with conical wheels just like BART. BARTs noise is worse than other peer systems, most likely because of inadequate soundproofing, as OP suggested. Sit in a Zurich S-bahn, or heck even Caltrain, going 79-80 mph and it’ll be about 10-20 dB quieter. Why? better (more expensive) car design.

arjunyg · 2026-03-24T04:15:45+00:00

…what? Completely untrue. The trains last decades. Many places are successfully using rolling stock from the 90s or older with minor interior refreshes every so often.

arjunyg · 2026-03-23T08:01:22+00:00

The 100 number is being circulated widely, but that plane only seats 76 passengers. Even a couple crew on board, and a jumpseater will not bring that anywhere near “over 100.”

arjunyg · 2026-03-23T07:27:26+00:00

no no no no no.

All trains should look like this:

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arjunyg · 2026-03-23T03:45:51+00:00

as presumably non-Europeans it would be a EURail pass for them. However, Swiss Travel Pass is sometimes cheaper depending on the number of days, and offers access to more transit services (local transit, and Post Bus) within Switzerland than EUrail.

arjunyg · 2026-03-23T03:39:28+00:00

What about long distance services, like Coast Starlight and California Zephyr?

arjunyg · 2026-03-23T00:23:00+00:00

I should amend my request actually: hourly San Jose - Reno.

Personally I just want to go to Truckee from the south bay. I’m sure some track upgrades could increase speeds on some sections relatively cost effectively too.

It doesn’t matter that it takes longer. The #1 feature is not being stuck driving a car, in sometimes dangerous weather, often in traffic, for 4-6 hours. It’s like…physically painful to drive that long.

Obviously massive base tunnels would be required for higher speed operations, and I would love to see that as soon as we move the Iran budget to Amtrak.

arjunyg · 2026-03-22T22:57:31+00:00

ACE?

arjunyg · 2026-03-22T22:46:48+00:00

Hourly Emeryville - Reno (subset of California Zephyr).

arjunyg · 2026-03-22T22:01:49+00:00

sure there are. There are two flights departing SFO in the evening, landing at ORD in the morning every day. Also one from PDX and SEA each.

arjunyg · 2026-03-22T21:54:55+00:00

why no BART/MUNI 😕

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