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

In 2009, Caltrain projected 72 thousand boardings by 2030 , a rate of annual increase of 2.3%. These projections are obviously extremely important, since capacity increases need to be planned well in advance. Indeed, as was predicted by essentially all rational observers at the time, the ridership has exploded far in excess of that "extremely conservative" schedule, Ridership survey reports are available here . Here's the annual ridership: At the rate ridership has been increasing it would hit 72 thousand not in 2030, but rather in 2019: A key thing, though, is that ridership will not increase at this rate. There simply is not the capacity. At some point trains get so full that the experience of riding on the train is worse for a sufficient number of passengers than the experience of driving, or the experience of working from home, or the experience of moving closer to work, or the experience of changing jobs closer to home, or the experience of moving to Portl...

Since the mid-naughts SF2G has served as a catalyst for cyclists to commute from San Francisco to the Peninsula. The focus has been Google's Mountain View campus, but I've never worked for Google, and I've ridden with the group to Stanford Campus, my old office on California Ave in Palo Alto, and to my present work-place south of Google at the Mountain View - Sunnyvale border. There's no leader; instead riders call rides via the Google Group , then others affirm their intent to join with a Googlesque "+1". But until now, despite the fact SF-to-Peninsula is considered a "reverse commute" (although with the flight back to cities from suburbia this is changing), there's been no comparable organization of cyclists who work in the city and live on the Peninsula (the "forward commute"). That changed today with the launch of a new group, "Pen2SF" . They also have a web site (still under development as I write this). I really ...

Until last fall, I would ride my bike to the Caltrain station, take the train to Mountain View, and ride from there to work. Since then, however, I've been leaving the bike at home. This is because in August I started training for early December's California International Marathon, then after that redirected my focus to the Napa Marathon. Napa is looking extremely grim due to extended training lost from post-holiday-travel sickness, but I prefer to not dwell on that. I've continued to go by foot to the train. It's interesting to compare the relative times, using the 314 train which departs San Francisco @ 7:14 am. Another day on the Caltrain bike car ( StreetsBlog ) Train: Leave home at 7:02 with bike. Ride to 4th and King station. 22nd Street station is closer (0.8 miles versus 1.3 miles), but if I go there I risk the bike spaces filling up before I arrive. It takes me around 7 minutes to ride to the 4th and King. However, if I leave any later than 7:02, I...