1.
San Jose, California
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San Jose, officially the City of San José, is the economic, cultural, and political center of Silicon Valley and the largest city in Northern California. With an estimated 2015 population of 1,026,908, it is the third most populous city in California and the tenth most populous in United States. Located in the center of the Santa Clara Valley, on the shore of San Francisco Bay. San Jose is the county seat of Santa Clara County, the most affluent county in California. San Jose is the largest city in both the San Francisco Bay Area and the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area, which contain 7.7 million and 8.7 million people respectively. Before the arrival of the Spanish, the area around San Jose was inhabited by the Ohlone people, San Jose was founded on November 29,1777, as the Pueblo of San José de Guadalupe, the first civilian town founded in Spanish Alta California. When California gained statehood in 1850, San Jose became the states first capital, following World War II, San Jose experienced an economic boom, with a rapid population growth and aggressive annexation of nearby cities and communities carried out in the 1950s and 60s. The rapid growth of the high-technology and electronics industries further accelerated the transition from a center to an urbanized metropolitan area. Results of the 1990 U. S. Census indicated that San Jose had officially surpassed San Francisco as the most populous city in Northern California, by the 1990s, San Jose and the rest of Silicon Valley had become the global center for the high tech and internet industries. San Jose is considered to be a city, notable for its affluence. San Joses location within the high tech industry, as a cultural, political. San Jose is one of the wealthiest major cities in the United States and the world, and has the third highest GDP per capita in the world, according to the Brookings Institute. Major global tech companies including Cisco Systems, eBay, Adobe Systems, PayPal, Brocade, Samsung, Acer, Prior to European settlement, the area was inhabited by several groups of Ohlone Native Americans. The first lasting European presence began with a series of Franciscan missions established from 1769 by Junípero Serra, San Jose came under Mexican rule in 1821 after Mexico broke with the Spanish crown. It then became part of the United States, after it capitulated in 1846, on March 27,1850, San Jose became the second incorporated city in the state, with Josiah Belden its first mayor. San Jose was Californias first state capital, and hosted the first, today the Circle of Palms Plaza in downtown is the historical marker for the first state capital. The city was a station on the Butterfield Overland Mail route, in the period 1900 through 1910, San Jose served as a center for pioneering invention, innovation, and impact in both lighter-than-air and heavier-than-air flight. These activities were led principally by John Montgomery and his peers, the City of San Jose has established Montgomery Park, a Monument at San Felipe and Yerba Buena Roads, and John J. Montgomery Elementary School in his honor
2.
Island platform
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An island platform is a station layout arrangement where a single platform is positioned between two tracks within a railway station, tram stop or transitway interchange. Island platforms are popular on twin-track routes due to pragmatic and cost-effective reasons, an alternative arrangement is to position side platforms on either side of the tracks. The historical use of island platforms depends greatly upon the location, the island platform layout is a popular, cost-effective and practical solution in modern railway systems. Island platforms allow facilities such as escalators, elevators, shops, toilets and this is essential for wheelchair accessible stations. An island platform makes it easier for users and the infirm to change services between tracks. Additionally, an island platform layout eliminates the need to construct a crossover or subway between two platforms, however, island platforms may become overcrowded, especially at busy stations, and this can lead to safety issues such as Clapham Common and Angel on the London Underground. However, for the tracks to diverge around the platform, extra width is required along the right-of-way on each approach to the station. Track centers vary for rail systems throughout the world but are normally 3 to 5 meters, if the island platform is 6 meters wide, the tracks have to slew out by the same distance. While this is not a problem on a new line that is being constructed, in addition, a single island platform makes it quite difficult to have through tracks, which are usually between the local tracks. A common configuration in busy locations on high speed lines is a pair of island platforms, high-speed trains can therefore pass straight through the station, while slow trains pass around the platforms. This arrangement also allows the station to serve as a point where trains can be passed by faster trains. The purpose of this design was to reduce unnecessary passenger congestion at a station with a high volume of passengers. Many of the stations on the Great Central Railway were constructed in this form and this was because the line was planned to connect to a Channel Tunnel. Island platforms are a normal sight on Indian railway stations. Almost all railway stations in India consist of island platforms, in Toronto,29 subway stations use island platforms. A slight disadvantage is that crossovers have to be rather long, in southern New Jersey and Philadelphia, PATCO uses island platforms in all of its 13 stations, to facilitate one-person train operation. Most elevated stations in Singapores Mass Rapid Transit system use island platforms, the exception is Dover MRT Station, which uses side platforms as it is built on an existing rail line. The planned Canberra MRT Station will also use side platforms, as it also be built on an existing rail line
3.
Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority
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It is one of the governing parties for the Caltrain commuter rail line that serves the county. In 1969, Santa Clara County had three private bus companies, all of which were in financial trouble, Peninsula Transit, San Jose City Lines. The California Legislature passed a Santa Clara County Transit District Act in 1969, however, the Act did not supply any funding for the new district. The formation of the Santa Clara County Transit District was rejected in 1969 and 1970 before it was approved by county voters on June 6,1972. The SCCTD took over the operations of the three old bus companies on January 1,1973, on September 26,1974, the county Board of Supervisors dissolved the Public Works Department. Non-transit operations went into a new General Services Agency, while transit operations were placed into a new Santa Clara County Transportation Agency. In its early years the Santa Clara County Transportation District approached the task of replacing the bus fleet it inherited from its predecessors, at first the district bought propane-fueled Twin Coaches and Gilligs. SCCTD switched to an all-diesel fleet after six buses went up in flames between December 1977 and April 1978, at the time, critics referred to the buses as rolling propane bombs. On March 6,1976, Santa Clara County voters approved a half-cent sales tax, Measure A, in 1977, the primary Overhaul and Repair Facility was built at the Cerone Yard. Also in 1977, County Supervisors decided to change the bus fleet from propane to diesel, by 1979, three additional bus yards were built and commissioned into service. Another issue was improving the diversity of its workforce, in December 1978, the SCCTD approved an affirmative action plan for the Transportation Agency. After a long battle, the U. S. Supreme Court by a 6-3 majority upheld the gender component of the plan against a civil rights challenge on March 25,1987. On January 1,1995, the SCCTA merged with the county Congestion Management Agency to become the SCVTA, for convenience, the acronym was later shortened to VTA. In 1996, voters approved a half-cent general county sales tax, Measure B, the measure was challenged, but in 1998, the California Supreme Court ruled that the two measure system was valid. The tax was to be collected for ten years, in 2000, voters approved a 30-year extension of the 1996 sales tax to fund an extension of Bay Area Rapid Transit to Santa Clara. The measure was placed on the ballot by the VTA and does not include funding specifically for highway projects, the measure passed with 70% of the vote. Revenues from the tax would not begin being collected until April 2006. After 2000, due to the dot-com bust, existing revenue sources declined and VTA was forced to cut service, VTA introduced a series of fare increases between 1998 and 2005
4.
Caltrain
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Caltrain is a California commuter rail line on the San Francisco Peninsula and in the Santa Clara Valley. The northern terminus of the line is in San Francisco at 4th, extra trains were often run for special events held in AT&T Park in San Francisco, Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto, and SAP Center in San Jose. Caltrain operates 92 weekday trains,6 of which are extended to Gilroy, weekday ridership in February 2016 averaged 62,416, up 83% since 2010. Caltrain is governed by the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board which consists of agencies from the three counties served by Caltrain, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara, each member agency has three representatives on a nine-member Board of Directors. The member agencies are the City and County of San Francisco, SamTrans, Caltrain has 29 regular stops, one football-only stop, and two weekend-only stops. As of October 2012 Caltrain runs 92 weekday trains,36 Saturday, the original commuter railroad built in 1863 was the San Francisco and San Jose Rail Road, it was purchased by Southern Pacific in 1870. Southern Pacific double-tracked the line in 1904 and rerouted it via Bayshore, after 1945, ridership declined with the rise in automobile use, in 1977 SP petitioned the state Public Utilities Commission to discontinue the commute operation because of ongoing losses. To preserve the service, in 1980 Caltrans contracted with SP. Caltrans purchased new locomotives and rolling stock, replacing SP equipment in 1985, Caltrans also upgraded stations, added shuttle buses to nearby employers, and dubbed the operation CalTrain. The Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board was formed in 1987 to manage the line, subsequently, San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties commissioned Earth Metrics, Inc. to prepare an Environmental Impact Report on right-of-way acquisition and expansion of operations. With state and local funding, the PCJPB bought the right of way between San Francisco and San Jose from SP in 1991. The following year, PCJPB took responsibility for CalTrain operations and selected Amtrak as the contract operator, PCJPB extended the CalTrain service from San Jose to Gilroy, connecting to VTA Light Rail at Tamien Station in San Jose. In July 1995 CalTrain became accessible to passengers in wheelchairs, five months later, CalTrain increased the bicycle limit to 24 per train, making the service attractive to commuters in bicycle-friendly cities such as San Francisco and Palo Alto. In July 1997 the current logo was adopted, and the name became Caltrain. A year later, VTA extended its rail service from north Santa Clara to the Mountain View Caltrain station. In June 2003, a connection for the Bay Area Rapid Transit. In 2006, Caltrain announced that wireless internet access would be available on trains at no additional charge, Caltrain invested more than $1 million in researching and testing WiFi in 2006. Caltrain still hopes to offer the service eventually as part of a comprehensive communication package
5.
Caltrain Express
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California State Senator Jackie Speier and Caltrain leadership are credited with the idea to provide an express service for Caltrain during a brainstorming session. The funding request for the Caltrain express service was incorporated directly into the Governors budget. CTX was one of the projects recommended by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission under Resolution 3434 in December 2001, CTX officially broke ground during a ceremony held at 4th and King on June 28,2002. At the time, it was the largest capital improvement program for Caltrain, during CTX construction, Caltrain shut down weekend service for two years starting in July 2002 to allow track work. M. and the line only had two intermediate stops, at Hillsdale and Palo Alto. After construction was complete and weekend service resumed in June 2004, during construction, service was also reduced to a single track on Thursday and Friday nights after 9 P. M. By April 2004, Caltrain was showing off the stock it had acquired for Baby Bullet service. The first southbound Baby Bullet left San Francisco with 420 passengers at 7,20 AM, Baby Bullet trains often ran at standing room capacity during the first year. Just prior to the inauguration of Baby Bullet service, Caltrain served an average of 27,000 riders per weekday. One year later, Caltrain ridership had increased by 12%, and by 2014, ten years later, Caltrain ridership had more than doubled to over 60,000 riders per weekday. In addition to having one of the new locomotives named for her, CTX received a Tranny award from the California Transportation Foundation as the Program of the Year for 2004. During the same ceremony, Speier was honored as the Legislator of the Year, Caltrain split the CTX project into two separate phases, based on geographic region. The North CTX extended from San Francisco to Redwood City, the North CTX contract was awarded in April 2002 to the joint venture partnership of Herzog Contracting Corporation and Stacy and Witbeck. Herzog-Stacy-Witbeck also won the South CTX contract, as announced in January 2003, the key elements of CTX were the overtake tracks, high-speed crossovers, and a central traffic control system which collectively allowed a single office to route trains. To support smoother operation at higher sustained speeds, Caltrain also laid down continuous-welded rails, during the CTX project, Caltrain rebuilt the Bayshore station, relocating it slightly south of the prior location to accommodate the north quad track overtake section ending just south of Tunnel #4. A small rail bridge south of Bayshore was built over a creek as part of CTX, Lawrence Station was in the right-of-way planned for the south quad-track overtake section, so Lawrence was rebuilt with new platforms and an under-track pedestrian tunnel. Work at Lawrence was anticipated to be completed by the end of 2003, the Millbrae station also received some upgrades, a third track was added and existing tracks were relocated, requiring Caltrain to demolish the existing platform. Millbrae station updates were scheduled to complete with the opening of the new station in January 2003. CTX added quad-track overtake sections near the cities of Brisbane and Sunnyvale, during the initial design phase, overtakes were also announced for Millbrae and Redwood City
6.
Intermodal passenger transport
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Intermodal passenger transport, also called mixed-mode commuting, involves using two or more modes of transportation in a journey. Mixed-mode commuting is often used to combine the strengths of various transportation options, a major goal of modern intermodal passenger transport is to reduce dependence on the automobile as the major mode of ground transportation and increase use of public transport. To assist the traveller various intermodal journey planners such as Rome2rio and Google Transit have been devised to help travellers to plan and schedule their journey. Mixed-mode commuting often centers on one type of transit, such as regional rail. Trains offer quick transit from a suburb into an urban area, most transportation modes have always been used intermodally, for example, people have used road or urban railway to an airport or inter-regional railway station. Passenger transport has always been intermodal, people switched from carriages to ferries at the edge of a river too deep to ford. In the 19th century, people who lived inland switched from train to ship for overseas voyages, Hoboken Terminal in Hoboken, New Jersey was built to let commuters to New York City from New Jersey switch to ferries to cross the Hudson River in order to get to Manhattan. A massive ferry slip, now in ruins, was incorporated into the terminal building, later, when a subway was built through tunnels under the Hudson, now called the PATH, a station stop was added to Hoboken Terminal. More recently, the New Jersey Transits Hudson-Bergen Light Rail system has included a stop there, ferry service has recently been revived, but passengers must exit the terminal and walk across the pier to the more modest ferry slip. With the opening of the Woodside and Birkenhead Dock Street Tramway in 1873, public transportation systems such as train or metro systems have the most efficient means and highest capacity to transport people around cities. Therefore, mixed-mode commuting in the environment is largely dedicated to first getting people onto the train network. Although automobiles are used as a single-mode form of transit. They can provide a commute to train stations, airports, and piers. Used in this context, cars offer commuters the relative comfort of single-mode travel, taxicabs and Rental cars also play a major role in providing door-to-door service between airports or train stations and other points of travel throughout urban, suburban, and rural communities. Transport planners often try to encourage commuters to make much of their journey by public transport. Similar to Park-and-Ride is what is often termed Kiss-and-Ride, rather than drive to the train or bus station and park the commuter is driven to the station by a friend or relative The Kiss refers to the peck on the cheek as the commuter exits the car. Kiss-and-Ride is usually conducted when the station is close to home, so that the driver doing dropping the commuter off has a short journey to. Many large cities link their railway network to their bus network and this enables commuters to get to places that are not serviced directly by rail as they are often considered to be too far for walking
7.
Light rail
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Light rail, light rail transit or fast tram is urban public transport using rolling stock similar to a tramway, but operating at a higher capacity, and often on an exclusive right-of-way. A few light rail networks tend to have closer to rapid transit or even commuter rail. Other light rail networks are tram-like in nature and partially operate on streets, Light rail systems are found throughout the world, on all inhabited continents. They have been popular in recent years due to their lower capital costs. The term light rail was coined in 1972 by the U. S, Urban Mass Transportation Administration to describe new streetcar transformations that were taking place in Europe and the United States. In Germany the term Stadtbahn was used to describe the concept, and many in UMTA wanted to adopt the direct translation, however, UMTA finally adopted the term light rail instead. Light in this context is used in the sense of intended for light loads and fast movement, the infrastructure investment is also usually lighter than would be found for a heavy rail system. The Transportation Research Board defined light rail in 1977 as a mode of urban transportation utilizing predominantly reserved, electrically propelled rail vehicles operate singly or in trains. LRT provides a range of passenger capabilities and performance characteristics at moderate costs. Light rail is a generic international English phrase for these types of rail systems, the use of the generic term light rail avoids some serious incompatibilities between British and American English. The word trolley is used as a synonym for streetcar in the United States. A further difference arose because, while Britain abandoned all of its trams except Blackpool after World War II, when these cities upgraded to new technology, they called it light rail to differentiate it from their existing streetcars since some continued to operate both the old and new systems. Conventional rail technologies including high-speed, freight, commuter/regional, and metro/subway/elevated urban transit systems are considered heavy rail, people movers and personal rapid transit are even lighter, at least in terms of capacity. Monorail is a technology that has been more successful in specialized services than in a commuter transit role. Due to varying definitions, it is hard to distinguish between what is called light rail, and other forms of urban and commuter rail, a system described as light rail in one city may be considered to be a streetcar or tram system in another. Conversely, some lines that are called light rail are in very similar to rapid transit, in recent years. Some light rail systems, such as Sprinter, bear little similarity to urban rail, in the United States, light rail has become a catch-all term to describe a wide variety of passenger rail systems. There is a significant difference in cost between these different classes of light rail transit, tram-like systems are often less expensive than metro-like systems by a factor of two or more
8.
Commuter rail
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Trains operate following a schedule, at speeds varying from 50 to 200 km/h. Distance charges or zone pricing may be used and they primarily serve lower density suburban areas, and often share right-of-way with intercity or freight trains. Some services operate only during peak hours and others uses fewer departures during off peak hours, average speeds are high, often 50 km/h or higher. These higher speeds better serve the longer distances involved, some services include express services which skip some stations in order to run faster and separate longer distance riders from short-distance ones. The general range of commuter trains distance varies between 15 and 200 km, sometimes long distances can be explained by that the train runs between two or several cities. Distances between stations may vary, but are much longer than those of urban rail systems. In city centers the train either has a station or passes through the city centre with notably fewer station stops than those of urban rail systems. Toilets are often available on trains and in stations. Their ability to coexist with freight or intercity services in the same right-of-way can drastically reduce system construction costs, however, frequently they are built with dedicated tracks within that right-of-way to prevent delays, especially where service densities have converged in the inner parts of the network. Most such trains run on the standard gauge track. Some light rail systems may run on a narrower gauge, some countries, including Finland, India, Pakistan, Russia, Brazil and Sri Lanka, as well as San Francisco in the USA and Melbourne and Adelaide in Australia, use broad gauge track. The fact that the terminology is not standardised across countries further complicates matters, most S-bahns typically behave like commuter rail with most trackage not separated from other trains, and long lines with trains running between cities and suburbs rather than within a city. The distances between stations however, are usually short, in larger systems there is usually a high frequency metro-like central corridor in the city center where all the lines converge into. Typical examples of large city S-Bahns include Munich and Frankfurt, S-Bahns do also exist in some mid-size cities like Rostock and Magdeburg but behave more like typical commuter rail with lower frequencies and very little exclusive trackage. A similar network exists in Copenhagen called the S-tog, in Hamburg and Copenhagen, other, diesel driven trains, do continue where the S-Bahn ends. Regional rail usually provides rail services between towns and cities, rather than purely linking major population hubs in the way inter-city rail does, Regional rail operates outside major cities. Unlike Inter-city, it stops at most or all stations between cities and it provides a service between smaller communities along the line, and also connections with long-distance services at interchange stations located at junctions or at larger towns along the line. Alternative names are local train or stopping train, examples include the former BRs Regional Railways, Frances TER, Germanys DB Regio and South Koreas Tonggeun services
9.
Millbrae station
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The Millbrae Intermodal Terminal is an at-grade Bay Area Rapid Transit and Caltrain station located in suburban Millbrae, California, in northern San Mateo County. It was expected to support over 30,000 BART trips per day, Millbrae Station is the largest intermodal terminal in the United States west of the Mississippi. It has three tracks for BART and two for Caltrain. An island platform allows a connection between the two systems. A concourse mezzanine is above the platforms, currently two BART tracks and one island platform usually are kept out of regular service, used instead to hold train sets that are also out of service. The station is also a bus transit hub with multiple bus bays served by several SamTrans lines. Millbrae Station has about 2,900 parking spaces, including a parking garage. The Reserved Parking areas cost $2/day from 10am-3pm on weekdays, a free Library-a-Go-Go Peninsula Library System library book vending machine was added in May 2011. The station has daily Caltrain commuter rail service along the line between San Jose and San Francisco. Midday trains are hourly each way, service is frequent during commute hours. Service south of San Jose to Gilroy is limited to three weekday round trips. Passengers who board the train without a ticket are subject to fines of up to $250 plus court fees. Passengers who use the electronic Clipper card to ride the Caltrain must remember to tag on their card prior to boarding, if they board the train without tagging on, they will be subject to the same fines. In addition, Caltrain passengers are charged the maximum one way fare when they tag on prior to boarding the train, if passengers who use the Clipper card forget to tag off when they exit the train, they will be charged the highest cash fare from point of origin. In 2015, construction began on the rail system. If completed as planned, Millbrae would serve as one of one or two stations between San Francisco and San Jose, and would allow high-speed rail passengers to reach SFO via BART. $290 million has been allocated to lengthen the platforms for connection to High Speed Rail, before the Millbrae Intermodal Terminal was built for the BART San Mateo Extension terminus Millbrae had a free Caltrain shuttle bus between the station and San Francisco International Airport. The former Southern Pacific Depot has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since September 1,1978, in 1985 Caltrain service began at the original Millbrae depot, replacing Southern Pacific trains that had operated along the San Francisco Peninsula since the early 20th century
VTA: 25, 82
3% (Caltrain)
Media related to Tamien station at Wikimedia Commons
