The shortest distance

On May 6, Caltrain’s director of Policy Development presented Caltrain’s long-range vision for its corridor to the Redwood City Council. Given the expected population growth, Caltrain is developing a plan to meet the demand that it anticipates by the year 2040.

Before we look at the future, a quick review of what we have today. Redwood City has six “at-grade” crossings, where the train tracks intersect streets at their level, necessitating gates, signs and signals. It also has two “grade-separated” crossings, one at Jefferson Avenue and one at Woodside Road. On a normal weekday, 92 trains pass through Redwood City (46 in each direction), 76 of which stop at the Redwood City station. A little less than 3,900 people board trains at the Redwood City station on an average weekday.

Caltrain is projecting that by the year 2040, the number of people boarding trains in Redwood City will have increased to almost 8,400, with other stations seeing comparable increases. Thus, Caltrain sees a strong need to increase their level of service. Electrification will enable some of that, as will the downtown San Francisco extension, which aims to extend Caltrain to the Salesforce Transit Center. Caltrain expects to start electrified operations in the year 2022, whether or not high-speed rail comes to fruition.

Caltrain has developed three possible alternatives for dealing with this increase. The first is called “baseline growth,” but even with a name like “baseline” it nearly doubles the number of weekday trains by 2040, from today’s 92 to 174. Of those 174 trains, 116 would stop at the Redwood City station.

The second alternative is dubbed “moderate growth.” Under this scenario, the number of weekday trains would increase to 268, all of which would stop in Redwood City. Finally, the “high growth” alternative calls for 348 trains each and every non-holiday weekday, again with all of them stopping here at the Redwood City station.

For anyone who has ever been frustrated waiting at a railroad crossing in Redwood City, know that on a normal weekday at the Broadway intersection, the gate is currently down — blocking cars, bikes and pedestrians — for 17 minutes during Caltrain’s busiest hour. That delay is expected to increase to nearly 22 minutes under the baseline growth scenario. You might expect the other two scenarios to be worse, but they aren’t for one very good reason: at those higher levels of service Caltrain would need four sets of tracks between the Redwood City Caltrain station and Redwood City’s northern border, and along with those would come grade separation. Thus, at Broadway, the street would either be lowered beneath the Caltrain tracks, or the Caltrain tracks would be raised above Broadway, or there would be a bit of both. Regardless, trains would cease to be an issue at Broadway. Other intersections, though, might continue to be adversely affected, depending upon the scenario and the intersection. At Whipple Avenue, for instance, grade separation would likely only be done under the high-growth alternative; if Caltrain elects to pursue moderate growth, the amount of time the gates would be down during Caltrain’s peak hour of operation would increase from today’s 12 to just over 20 minutes.

If these numbers aren’t alarming enough, note that, regardless of the growth scenario they choose, if high-speed rail ever goes forward, Caltrain envisions an additional 130 bullet trains running between San Francisco and San Jose each weekday. Plus, there is the Dumbarton Rail project. If that service comes to pass, it could result in even more trains coming and going from the Redwood City station. Given the routing of that line, however, these trains would not necessarily affect any of Caltrain’s existing at-grade intersections.

For many of us, Caltrain is one of the quickest and most direct routes between Redwood City and the many cities up and down the line. Caltrain’s management plans to ensure that, in the future, it remains quick for a greatly increasing number of people. Fortunately, they are also considering the impact that this future service will have on cities from San Jose to San Francisco and are trying to find affordable ways to alleviate the impacts that more trains will undoubtedly bring.

Greg Wilson is the creator of Walking Redwood City, a blog inspired by his walks throughout Redwood City and adjacent communities. He can be reached at greg@walkingRedwoodCity.com. Follow Greg on Twitter @walkingRWC.