I haven't tried to plan a trip on 511.org in a while, and I just realized that it has a funny limitation. If you ask it for the latest trip for today, it doesn't have a flexible enough concept of 'today' to include trips that involve taking a transit vehicle that departs after midnight, i.e., tomorrow. So when I ask it for the latest trip, it excludes the ability to take the 12:01am Caltrain of the Damned, which rather perplexes things because without that option, for the trip in question, I would have to leave earlier than I arrive.

I'm pretty sure it does allow you to take a trip that involves arriving tomorrow, just not one that also involves departing tomorrow. However, it is helpful enough to tell you what the later trips for a particular leg are, so it's not too hard to get from there to figuring out when you actually need to leave.

In the same general vein as the previous post (alternative transit), I've been thinking about Caltrain lately. I recently wrote them another letter, about the day when Train #226 skipped Menlo Park. Yep, the train skipped the station. I learned from another guy on the platform that there was a new engineer driving and he just messed up.

I wrote them an annoyed but somewhat thoughtful letter expressing my understanding that mistakes happen, but that this one was a particularly bad mistake, and I hoped to know what they planned to do to avoid it in the future. Their letter in response can be summed up as 'Sorry, but mistakes happen."

But see, I wrote to them already having acknowledged that mistakes happen. But there are ways of reducing their frequency, and that's what I wanted to know.

Recently, I got a survey on-board Caltrain, which at the end had a section for comments. I wasn't sure what else to put in the comments, because I've written quite a number of letters to Caltrain, and plus I'm part of two official forums to give input to them. What is there left to say? But I realized that despite all the letters I've written, I've honestly never gotten a satisfactory or even thoughtful response from them, ever.

1. Bikes on Cars: they completely ignored my thoughtful points about their public relations behavior, and furthermore insulted me and Caltrain cyclists in general by implying that we aren't good commuting citizens and our behavior is somehow wanting.
2. Menlo Park bike rack: Still haven't gotten any response other than "This bike rack will be replaced at some point in the future," despite repeatedly requesting time frames. Which means utterly nothing, and they never explained why it was okay to remove it to repave the CAR PARKING lot in the first place.
3. Excessive horn blowing: they stated that blowing the horn is necessary to lower the gates, but didn't explain why some engineers have a light touch and just barely tap the horn, and some BLAAAAAAST it.
4. Train 226: see above.

So I wrote in the form that I thought that Caltrain needed to pay thoughtful attention to all the comments it gets and not ignore them or act like people give input purely to annoy them, and stop producing canned justifications for their behavior that really don't make sense when you get right down to it. I'm sympathetic to their problems (especially given that I know about ten times as much about their problems and the tradeoffs they have to make than the average commuter does) but I still find dealing with them incredibly trying because of this attitude.

If I could change one thing about Caltrain, I think I'd rather change this behavior and attitude than add an 11:00 train. And that's saying something.

Via pdx6's blog, this video about California High Speed Rail annoyingly content-free and with "soothing" voiceovers and lots of meaningless visuals, but the few numbers they do present are interesting. I'm all about high-speed rail out here. I just wish they'd made a video that talked more about facts, so that it might have a chance of convincing people who are skeptical! I want relative environmental benefits (e.g. tons of carbon emissions reduced, land saved from conversion to concrete). I want more information about the relative costs, about grade separation, about construction time. Let's hear it so we can go out and persuade the skeptics.

After I wrote my entry about Caltrain's Bike FAQ, I decided that I really should actually write to them, not just rant on the internet about it. So, I wrote a (warning: long, probably boring) ( letter to Caltrain, which will eventually be sent to them. )

I appreciate that there are many difficulties that Caltrain faces, both in general and specifically with bikes. But I still find this excerpt from the Caltrain Bike FAQs rude:

Our Bullet service is very popular and at least one train per rush hour each is completely full, with no seating capacity available. To remove seats and replace them with bike racks would mean giving up paying customers with [sic] non-paying bicycles. This is counterproductive. Caltrain's mandate is to get people out of their cars and onto the trains. We appreciate the devotion to mass transit demonstrated by our bicycling customers, who have led the way toward leaving behind their cars in favor of the train. Clearly, bicyclists have figured out what we need to teach everyone else - that there are alternatives to the car. The best way to teach that is to provide service to a wider range of customers.

Basically, they are saying that their "educational" (and revenue-generating) mission to "get people out of their cars" takes precedence over giving good service to their existing customers. I think this is incredibly misguided for two reasons.

One, why do people choose to get out of their cars and take the train? It will only happen if the train provides them good service. At that point they become existing customers, and Caltrain needs to serve them well -- something they are declining to do in favor of getting them to make that initial journey.

Two, how do people learn that taking the train may be a good alternative? Often, from existing customers! I talk up Caltrain (and other transit) to my friends and colleagues as a commute alternative. The better the things I can say about Caltrain, the more likely they are to try it. I'm not going to be dishonest and tell them the commute will work well when it won't: I need to give them good advice. A colleague at work and I discussed how she would have to take two buses with a walking transfer in order to get to work. I can't give her the advice that that would be a good sub for her current commute, because it wouldn't.

If someone asks me what it's like to ride Caltrain, I'll tell them the good:

1) No traffic.
2) The trains are fairly reliably within a few minutes of the schedule.
3) The train schedules work well for me.

And the bad:

1) The trains are not frequent enough, especially in the later evening. The odd schedules may not work well for you.
2) Dealing with your bike is a hassle, and you may get denied boarding if it's a busy time.
3) Sometimes the train is substantively late and there's nothing you can do when that happens.

As quoted above, Caltrain is basically saying "We do not care about #2 in the bad list, because we care about recruiting new riders." But #2 in the bad list may stop new people, who want to get out of their cars and become new riders (with their bikes), from using Caltrain! And if you deter people who need to use their bikes to make their commutes effective, you deter a large portion of the population: many more people live and work within biking distance of a train station than live and work within walking distance. A bike may save many of these people the giant hassle of a multi-agency transit commute, and thus make a transit commute feasible. Not being able to leave #2 out of the list makes a difference in the number of people I might effectively convince to use Caltrain.

If a train is at capacity, you need more trains, or your existing trains need to serve more people and better. This is true whether the capacity is people or bikes. And no doubt Caltrain is working on this; like all transit systems in this country (especially public transit, but even including roads), it's underfunded, so they can't work as fast as they should. (Hence poor transit and massive traffic jams.) Their other excuses, like needing to convince more new people to get out of their cars, are irrelevant. What would they do with those people, if several trains are at or near capacity anyway? Tell them to take the (crappy) slow off-peak trains? That's not going to win any converts either.

Caltrain, please ditch the attitude and just work on (and say you are working on) serving all your customers better and doing so to the best of your ability, given lack of funding for everything everyone would want. Feel free to explain that providing more bike capacity is one of the most challenging things to do, and why -- space needs, boarding times, etc. No one will have trouble believing that! Say that due to difficulty it may sometimes lag behind what people would want. But for goodness' sake, keep trying to do it anyway. Doing otherwise will only alienate your current customers, among whom bike commuters are probably one of the steadiest (if not highest) sources of revenue! And if you alienate your current customers, you won't get as many new ones either. I can tell you I at least, knowing that Caltrain doesn't care about commuters like me as much as I had hoped, won't be talking up Caltrain+bike commutes as enthusiastically now as I have been previously.

Followup to previous entry:

Somewhere along the north Peninsula Caltrain line, there is a storage place with a knockoff Underground logo. Unfortunately I can't remember its name or where it is, and I don't have a photo -- I wasn't fast enough to get one.

Next time I go north on Caltrain, I'll keep an eye out for it and try to post a picture here and submit it to the Underground blog. Since Albuquerque is currently the one they list as furthest away, this would break their record!

One of the wonderful things about blogs is that you never know where one is going to send you. From Language Log, I got sent to the London Underground Blog (which I may have to start reading, since I find all subways fascinating and the Tube is one of the greats).

I was surprised to see that Underground-logo knockoffs could be found as far afield as Asheville, NC, and -- wait for it -- Albuquerque, NM!

Today was a good day -- maybe the first genuinely good day I've had since being here, although I've had some enjoyable times of course. It's the result of accomplishing a lot of things, including the first conquest of public transport, the first real episode of cooking, and continued social interaction around classes.

This morning, I had a nice walk down to Pollock Halls to turn in a form -- it was windy, but sunny and even warm enough that after a while I unzipped my coat because I was warm from the walk. It's a great walk -- nice views of Arthur's Seat from different angles as you go along.

In the afternoon, I managed to catch the University shuttle bus down to the King's Buildings area with the intent of going to Sainsbury's, whose virtues had been extolled to me by my hallmate. The shuttle bus is free to go down there, and then it's a bit of a walk to the shopping centre. I even didn't get lost, having found out where the centre was before going, and having my trusty "The University in the City" map with me.

The centre sort of shocked me. I guess in just a week and a bit, I've gotten used to tiny crowded shops that are all strung out along a street, and I was surprised to see huge, roomy shops all inside one big building. (It's not an attractive building, sadly.)

Sainsbury's definitely shocked me. It is IMMENSE. It's really a lot like a Super Target at home, but with more grocery section. And in fact, being there did remind me of wandering disorientedly around the Super Target in Houston when it first opened.

Trying to ignore my disorientation, I pulled out my shopping list and proceeded to attempt to get all the ingredients I needed for my recipe (I wanted to make a curry in my cookbook) and some other stuff as well. It took a lot longer than I wanted, and I forgot some stuff (like the chickpeas...for a chickpea curry...yeah. *sigh*). I got some other stuff, trying to prefer the cheaper versions. One of the things I've discovered recently is that you can save a lot of money just by making sure you buy loose bananas instead of plastic-wrapped ones (not that I ever bought the latter, but it's the concept), and store-brand spices or tinned tomatoes. I should really have always known this, but because I'm less familiar with the brands here, I have less invested in buying the familiar brand, and so I tend to go with what looks reasonable yet cheap.

(I know I'm doing a better job shopping than the people who buy takeaway and frozen foods, by far.)

I ended up with four bags, some quite heavy, and got £1.80 in change. This is relevant, I promise. I thought to myself "Crap, I've got to walk all the way back up to King's Buildings carrying this before I get the shuttle? No way am I going to make it back to school in time to put all this away and go to class." Instead, I saw a bus stop just outside the shopping centre, and looked at the route numbers. 42? 42 is a bus number I know, because it goes by school. Bus 42? Stops on Buccleuch Street and in Bristo Square! Coming in five minutes! And I have exact change (80p) for the bus. BUS!

So I got back just in time to put away my stuff and grab my backpack and head off to class. In classes I sat with other MScSLP people, and between classes Louise and I went to the student union to get yummy hot chocolates because they were having a meeting in the ling common room.

Tonight I cooked my curry (after going to Tesco to get the chickpeas and some other heavy stuff like milk), and it seems to have turned out well despite my omission of a couple of ingredients and failture to peel and seed the tomatoes. It took forever, but it'll save me making meals for most of the rest of the week, I think. I've found that I really enjoy cooking as an activity -- it keeps me productively occupied and has the end result that I'm fed, which is always nice.

Unfortunately, now I haven't done all the clicking around that I'm supposed to do for homework, but things haven't really started up all that much, so I'm not going to stress it yet.

More later about the paucity of comprehensive advice about living in Edinburgh as a foreigner, and American politics. That sounds exciting, huh?