Abaddon wrote:
so I've been trying to take the train to work lately...this morning the ticket machine argued with me about whether or not my check card had a magstripe on it...eventually, just as the train left it spit my ticket out...so I got to pay for it and I missed the train...curse!...seriously, why don't all these companies just pay Billy to make their shit, his hacker tools kick all the commercial version's asses...
so all busted ass point of sale technology aside, why does it cost me nearly twice as much money to ride the train to work than it does to drive?!? the cost of a 3 zone ticket (san francisco to mountain view) is $10.50 round trip per day!...so lets break that down and compare that to gas prices...
so according to the us government my car gets about 31 miles per gallon highway and 24 mpg city (this seems to hold true to my own experience)...google maps tells me my drive is about 40 miles from home to work (that commute is killing me)...
so with gas costing me about $2.70/gallon lets compare the price of public transit to the price of driving my car...
at highway mileage rates (which is accurate for almost my entire trip) I'm spending about $6.97 a day on gas to drive to work and back...even if I were to drive the entire trip at city mileage rates I'm still paying only about $8.66 for a round trip in my car....
caltrain does offer some slight discounts if you buy either a 10 ride pass, or a monthly pass...the 10 ride pass will get me to work and back for a full work weak for $44.75...compare this with the average estimated cost of driving over that same week at just $34.85...
the monthly pass will cover me for a full month for $139.25...this is roughly the same price as driving at about $139.40 for a months worth of gas...
so if I buy a month in advance I can save myself a wopping 14 cents!!!..there are a few problems here...
first, like a lot of tech proffessionals in the bay area I am able to telecommute several days a month, even a couple days a month not driving will dramatically shift the cost-benefit analysis in favor of driving...
second, the train takes much longer to get there (between 45 minutes to an hour extra each way), and I have to connect to VTA to make the final leg of my trip to the office, I get this part for free as a Juniper employee, but most people will have to throw down about %50 the cost of the caltrain ticket for a roundtrip on this connecting light rail every day...
third, with gas prices so high we can probably expect one of two things to happen, either gas prices will go back down (although not as low as they were before of course), or they will remain and the resulting inflation will raise the cost of other goods and services...including the caltrain...at best caltrain is breaking even with my car at the monthly rate, and thats not including the cost of connecting transportation...any slight change and they've got nothing left to offer...
so why does caltrain cost so much money? especially in a part of the world that smugly prides itself on being environmentally concious to the point of being rediculous...you would think that they would try to put some of that communism style of politics that they love in these parts into action by subsidising public transportation like caltrain...I'd love to ride the train to work, and I'm sure a lot of other people would too if it were economical...hell, I'm sure lots of people without cars that live in san francisco wouldn't mind living some where in the bay that was cheaper and commuting into the city...what good is public transportation if you price it so high that no-one uses it...
so I'm going to end this rant here for a while, but the next time I'm avoiding doing work I'll do some digging to see where they get their money, and what the hell they're doing to make it cost so damn much...
Decius makes great points. The situation will not really improve no matter what you do. It will always be a tradeoff. Even if you try to take multiple paths (still owning a car AND taking regular caltrain rides to work) and optimize, you'll still make no progress. You will be able to save some money by driving less. You'll incur less mileage on your car, slowing the depreciation curve a bit and slowing maintenance cycles a bit, the idea of getting a discount on insurance for low mileage driving is a good one and you'll be less dependant on a very volatile consumable (gas!). Other gains that were mentioned were more productivity (working while on the train, drinking while on the train) and less time wasted parking.
It seems your real question is why the double speak in caltrain's marketing? Why is it that the most socialist economy in the country can't provide affordable mass transit to a large constituency of its citizens? For that, there's probably not a really good answer other than most things in life are bullshit! =) In the US, compact older cities are the only ones that do mass transit well and afforably (think Boston, NYC, and even Chicago). Cities that are newer, less dense and have highly decentralized boros cannot optimize mass transit to make it affordable. It's only really done in places like Atlanta, Nashville, Austin, etc as either a token green gesture or a way to maintain DOT quotas so that more freeways can continue to be built later on.
