On Bicycles, and.... what else is there?

Every once in awhile I get fiesty and feel the impulse to fire off a letter to the editor of a local paper. Back in the day, this required actually printing (or before that, typing or writing) an email, finding an envelope and stamp, and deliberately mailing it. These days, however, it's click-click-click,CLICK, and you've fired off your reactionary diatribe to take its place in the ever-increasing annuls of journalism. Anyway, returning from the Fremont Peak Hillclimb yesterday, my ride made an unfortunate choice of taking 101 north, and I forgot to check 511 for traffic conditions. Due to a horrific accident on the road 7 hours prior, traffic was appalling, and we sat in walking-pace congestion for at least 45 minutes. This partially inspired my response to the Palo Alto Daily Post 's latest editorial blasting high speed rail. Here's my letter: The 13 September Post editorial, Take a Stand, warned against how high speed rail could "devastate the city ...

Caltrain just shifted their southbound weekend schedule by 15 minutes to allow extra time for nocturnal track work . Caltrain weekend service is a long, sorry tale. For two years weekend trains were canceled altogether for track upgrades, replaced by a limited-stop " RRX " bus which kept up with the previous local-stop schedule to the stops it served. This included a brutal round-trip crawl between 101 and Palo Alto transit center. With track work completed, Caltrain patted itself heartily upon its back by returning weekend rail, presenting three schedule options to public comment. There were plans A, B, and C (PDF schedules linked to page no longer available). Under A, the train would stop at approximately 2/3 of the stations, every hour. Under B, they would stop at every 2/3 of the stations, but some of these stations would be served every hour, others every hour. The final plan, C, and the one I vocally opposed, was to stop at every station, every hour. Obviously...

Rendering of high speed rail car passing electrified Caltrain along Brisbane Lagoon I just fired off a letter to the editor of the Palo Alto Daily News . A loud vocal objection has been voiced to the impact high speed rail will have on quality of life. However, the proposed alternative is always that the would-be passengers will stay peacefully at home. To the contrary, if they aren't on the train, they'll be flying or driving. Flying requires valuable land for airport expansion, and more planes roaring overhead. More cars on the road? 101 and 280 are incredibly disruptive on communities, on local access, on noise, on air quality, on public safety, and on aesthetics. I experience this every day, living close to 101 and 280. I far, far prefer investment in rail to dumping more precious resources into inefficient automobile or air infrastructure. Transportation investment is always a matter of damage mitigation, whether it is in walking or cycling trails or in projects o...