BayRail Alliance e-mail 10/18 Options

[KevinKorell]

1) BayRail Meeting on Regional Rail Plan, Thursday, Oct. 20
2) Hillsdale platform opens
3) VTA RIDE task force
4) Download New Schedules to Your PDA


1) BayRail Meeting on Regional Rail Plan, Thursday, Oct. 20

At the BayRail Alliance general meeting on Thursday, October 20, we will receive a presentation on the MTC Regional Rail Study from Howard
Goode, a consultant who works for Caltrain and who retired as Caltrain's deputy general manager last year.

We will also be discussing our organization's recommendations for the study. Please examine the proposals at
http://www.arch21.org/BARegRail.dir/regrailindex.html and
http://lomaprieta.sierraclub.org/lp0509_RailPlan.html in preparation for
this meeting.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission is conducting the Regional Rail Study in cooperation with the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA), BART, and Caltrain.

The first element in the study is to make recommendations on a Regional Rail Plan that integrates passenger rail systems, improves connections between services, expands the regional rapid transit network, and coordinates public investments in regional rail systems with transit-supportive land uses.

The second element examines various California high-speed rail alignments between the Central Valley and the Bay Area and how they would impact the development of the Regional Rail Plan. These two elements are to be integrated in order to provide a fully comprehensive Bay Area Regional Rail Plan.

The scope of the plan considers both freight and passenger traffic. It
includes conventional rail, BART, future high-speed rail and emerging
diesel light rail technologies, popular elsewhere in the world for years.

BayRail Alliance General Meeting
Thursday, October 20
7:15 pm - 7:30 pm business/announcements
7:30 pm - 8:30 pm presentation and discussion
8:30 pm - 8:45 social/chat time

Location:
SamTrans Building, 2nd floor auditorium
1250 San Carlos Ave., San Carlos
1.5 blocks from the San Carlos Caltrain station

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2) Hillsdale platform opens

Caltrain opened a new northbound platform yesterday at the Hillsdale
station. Passengers access the new platform via a new pedestrian crossing at the southern end of the station.

The new platform allows for trains from either direction to safely pull into the station at once without delaying until the other train has pulled out of the station, reducing delays.

In the coming months the new platform will be extended and another
pedestrian crossing will be built at the north end of the station. The
Hillsdale and Bay Meadows stations will eventually be consolidated as part of the project.

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3) VTA RIDE task force

A new task force for the Valley Transportation Authority is being formed to explore new, innovative and cost-efficient methods of increasing bus and light rail transit ridership in Santa Clara County. The Task Force’s proposed vision is “To create an open process that produces workable, reasonable and cost-effective strategies that increase VTA ridership for both the near and long term.”

The initial meeting of the RIDE Task Force will be on Wednesday, October 19, 2005 from 4:00 – 5:30 p.m. in the San Jose City Hall, Room W120, 200 East Santa Clara Street, San Jose. We expect the Task Force’s work to extend for approximately 18 months, with bi-monthly meetings initially and monthly meetings once the Task Force’s work plan is well underway.

If you are interested in serving as the BayRail Alliance representative to the task force, or are interested in keeping apprised of the meetings,
please contact Margaret at okuzumi@silcon.com with your daytime and evening phone numbers.

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4) Download New Schedules to Your PDA

Caltrain schedules changed slightly on October 10 to reflect actual
operating conditions. But if you have PDA, you can quickly look up when the next train is without carrying around paper schedules.

Many people are unaware that Caltrain and BART schedules can be downloaded to a PDA. Caltrain schedules are available for PDA's running the Palm operating system. Download a free copy at
http://www.wrafra.net/software/Caltrain/ (link is at
http://www.caltrain.com/schedule.html). The program even lets you quickly switch to the BART QuickPlanner if you have it installed. You can obtain the BART PDA planners at http://www.bart.gov/stations/quickPlanner/pda.asp

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BayRail Alliance
http://www.bayrailalliance.org/
toll free 866-267-8024