Caltrain

Caltrain may have averted a disaster of year-long service cuts. The Caltrain Joint Powers Board voted 5-3 today to approve a budget plan that would retain all of the system's service for the coming fiscal year, granted partnering agencies vote to increase their annual funding contributions.

Has the governing board of Caltrain helped lead riders into the current storm of budget deficits?

Communities from San Francisco to San Jose may be saved from much of the expected crippling Caltrain service cuts. A new Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) plan being developed could make up much of the agency's budget deficit for the next two years, said MTC Public Information Officer John Goodwin.

The Caltrain Board of Directors declared a fiscal emergency for the third year in a row today as a step toward enacting severe service cuts to help close a $30 million deficit. At the meeting, dozens of speakers representing Peninsula families, city agencies and organizations plead with the board not to close stations next month.

The Caltrain Board of Directors has decided to hold a series of public hearings and community meetings before voting on a declaration of fiscal emergency and approving dramatic cuts that would slash service and potentially close up to 16 stations.

There was a groundswell of support to save Caltrain at the Friends of Caltrain Summit Saturday, an event that brought a standing room only crowd to the auditorium at the SamTrans building in San Carlos. Friends of Caltrain is a grassroots effort attempting to stop Caltrain from cutting evening, midday, weekend, and Gilroy service.

Dr. Shirley Johnson is the chair of the newly formed Caltrain Bicycle Advisory Committee and the head of the Bikes ONboard project sponsored by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.

As Bay Area transit agencies transition from paper passes to the Clipper smart card, operators like the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which runs Muni, are hoping their most loyal customers take the switch in stride. To this end, the SFMTA started selling its November Muni A Fast Passes and disability Regional Transit Connection (RTC) passes online this weekend, and the agency is working overtime with targeted outreach to familiarize the nearly 50,000 A Pass and RTC users how to load their re-usable Clipper cards before the November 1st deadline, when those paper passes will no longer be accepted for Muni service.