November 30, 2004
Was it worth it?
After weeks of hearing Greg sing the praises of public transit, I finally rode Caltrain's Baby Bullet express service today; it's the first time my bike and I have actually ridden this service.
My door-to-door time was one hour and thirty minutes, including fifteen minutes' waiting time at the Mountain View platform, where a Stanford psychology student tried to engage me in some sort of study. If I take the limited in the evening, the door-to-door time is about fifteen minutes longer, or, barring wait time, as much as half-an-hour longer!
Caltrain has a progressive policy towards bicycles on board: no additional fare and ample space for bicycles and gear. However, with the Baby Bullet, Caltrain has really let down cyclists. The rolling stock is significantly less bicycle-friendly: we have to move bicycles through the seating area to place them in cages which are significantly less roomy than the racks on the older carriages; the capacity has diminished, so that only 16, rather than 32 or 64 bicycles, fit -- as a result, cyclists line up 20 minutes early to board the Bullet, thereby negating much of the speed gain.
The faster travel time of the Bullet is due to its less-frequent stops; it runs at a top speed of about 70 mph, just as the regular locals and limiteds do, but stops only four times between Mountain View and San Francisco (irritatingly, at both 22nd and 4th streets).
