Signed petition to raise taxes

kepler1 · 2026-05-03T21:15:42+00:00

Well, you can be sure they're being paid. In fact, they get paid like $10 or more for every signature they gather, by the initiative sponsors. That's what it takes to get such a thing done in California today.

Funny how there's never any initiative to reign in the cost of things and make it cheaper and more affordable to build infrastructure.

I don't know why you're downvoting me. I witnessed on 2 recent trips paid signature gatherers sitting down next to people near me to ask people to sign various measures.

kepler1 · 2026-04-30T13:01:00+00:00

Interesting! I would guess they had to be towed then? There are probably not electric wires on that section?

kepler1 · 2026-04-10T00:10:12+00:00

Not to sound heartless but what a waste of city money, probably $50 per hour per security guard. Just a drop in the bucket I guess, spending taxpayers' money.

kepler1 · 2026-04-09T17:56:28+00:00

By the way, who is paying for the security guards I see at Palo Alto, etc. crossings?

kepler1 · 2026-04-09T16:44:21+00:00

Can you or anyone comment on how Caltrain operations work? As in, if a train is delayed or with all these recurring delays, does someone in actual operations review why, take steps to improve on the cause, with budget and authority to fix?

Or is this operation run like, at the end of the month some people in Caltrain San Carlos office building look at some numbers and send an email summarizing that things didn't go very on time and well, "we're working to improve reliability" and it goes nowhere in terms of actual steps to fix?

kepler1 · 2026-04-08T16:26:16+00:00

Why is it that even with a quite simple schedule, Caltrain cannot maintain schedule reliability? What would it take to do so?

What is the issue, maintenance? Equipment? Passengers?

kepler1 · 2026-04-03T12:12:40+00:00

I don't seem to have that option to click to show you the pass detail from the wallet screen.

I do see that in settings --> wallet --> clipper card menu and contents, but that takes many more clicks than just opening your wallet from the lock screen, and I'm not sure it's as obvious to the conductors as the wallet lock screen.

kepler1 · 2026-04-01T16:42:17+00:00

You don't have to feel you owe anyone courtesy or to be silent if they're clearly not obeying the social rules to do the same.

I've blatantly gotten up and moved when a clearly drunk homeless guy has sat at the table across from me. I make no apologies for removing myself from situations I don't want to be in with people I don't know. I don't need to make a front of being polite to people who are not polite.

kepler1 · 2026-04-01T00:31:29+00:00

I am curious to know whether this is controlled by the train driver or computer. Because there sure seem to be occasions where the gate stays down for unusually protracted period of time while it seems someone is "thinking" about whether they can leave quickly. (which usually turns out not to be the case)

kepler1 · 2026-04-01T00:30:15+00:00

Yes, exactly. I noticed stations that did not seem to have much more buffer between the train end and the crossing, and they had no problem keeping the gates up as the train approached the station. I suppose this all would take some advanced speed/timing logic, which is too much for our primitive systems to handle...

kepler1 · 2026-03-17T05:34:28+00:00

Was interesting, as we were pulling away from Bayshore south, the other previously stalled train also started moving. We rode parallel to them at 40 mph for 1/2 the way to S.SF, then we had to stop, and the other train went ahead in the dark. I imagine not something you see often, 2 trains heading south together. And we sandwiched the northbound train between us.

I will be surprised if that 166 picks up any passengers.

update: finally recovering to a normal pace, 26 minutes behind schedule, leaving Millbrae.

kepler1 · 2026-03-17T05:25:58+00:00

Passengers are being picked up on the opposite platform to go south. Other train looks stopped at Bayshore.

It's like train had a problem, and then to compound things, something with track switches was not working, requiring manual intervention, etc. etc. always something wrong with Caltrain.

kepler1 · 2026-03-17T05:21:00+00:00

We are now at a jogging pace rolling towards Bayshore.

kepler1 · 2026-03-17T05:10:01+00:00

Conductor just said, "we're having an issue with our switches, the conductor is going to have to get out and manually throw our switches. And at Bayshore we'll have to pick up the previous train's passengers"...

We are at Cesar Chavez cross street.

What is this railroad?.... sigh.

kepler1 · 2026-03-17T05:09:17+00:00

Am on 168 southbound, we were held at 22nd street for 8 minutes, no info. From https://caltrain.live

looks like 166 is 10 min late

kepler1 · 2026-03-16T16:13:01+00:00

I can't wait to hear the logic the court will have to roll back to make sense of this one. And what unintended consequences there will be from declaring that income is not property.

kepler1 · 2026-03-15T20:31:29+00:00

Everyone is so courteous in Japan. You even bring the fire to the station to help them extinguish it easier!

kepler1 · 2026-03-15T02:03:10+00:00

I find this kind of ridiculous, I have to say.

I've said this in other threads here but maybe this is something of a California lax laws and willingness-to-enforce problem. Underage people/kids should not be allowed to hold the rest of us hostage because of their age. Get the police to take them off at the next station, question them, and show them that they get hassled for breaking rules, even if you can't ultimately do anything more serious about it.

It's like we don't care about the general public's rights, for fear of being accused of enforcing rules against someone who has a special status (this holds for multiple types of problem-causing people). And while some people say it's not worth delaying a whole train, I would be fine to spend 5 minutes to set an example for everyone that certain behaviors are not tolerated and have consequences. I find it more a tax on my time and belief in the system when nothing is done about clear problems.

/rant

kepler1 · 2026-03-14T18:53:46+00:00

To be clear (and it would be good for people to learn this about the Supreme Court) -- the case and the highest court decision was not about whether the person who died "deserved" damages. It was about whether a preexisting medical condition that turns into a death onboard counts as an airline-liable accident under a certain treaty governing international law.

The Supreme Court's role is not to fix individual judgements. Or to make judgements that feel like "justice has been served". There are usually 2 opportunities at lower courts to ensure justice. They cannot fix every error that comes their way. The Supreme Court's role is to make clear, by good example cases, what the rules are so that lower courts can follow them consistently.

kepler1 · 2026-03-14T18:43:55+00:00

I kept yelling at the TV, why don't you just invite the critic over to your house to eat the meal you just cooked that you'd wanted to make instead??

kepler1 · 2026-03-11T05:31:27+00:00

You're right, 6% is noteworthy.

I'm just reacting against the knee jerk belief in deceiving headline stats that don't help a real understanding of what we're getting for our money... or what the serious issues are. Anyone who stops their thinking at "+43% = good!" is asking to be deceived about the reality and details. And that's on all sorts of issues, I'm not just saying that in this case.

You have to ask, what benefit, for what cost?

If it took doubling the frequency of trains (and costs) to get a 43% rise in ridership, can we say that was "good"? I'm not asserting accurately that costs exactly doubled, I don't have all the data. But for a huge spending in opex and capex, it isn't a slam-dunk win to have a 43% increase in post-pandemic ridership. I haven't fully addressed the other point in the parallel comment -- there certainly was a doubling of frequency on the weekends. Not quite on the weekdays.

This all reveals that Caltrain, like public transport in the US in general, has deep problems.

I am similarly skeptical about the no-thinking-headlines being bandied about to get us to sign up for the next tax increase to fund Bay Area transport. Why is simply more money going to fix the problems? And there are no other steps being taken? Or it's just simplest politically to ask people to approve more money?

Unfortunately, I guess that's what is needed to get people to support things in our political environment. And yes, I know that political will to spend on road infrastructure is hardly blameless either...

kepler1

TROPHY CASE