California
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- California
- Bakersfield, CA
- Bay Area, CA
- Burbank, CA
- Fresno, CA
- Long Beach, CA
- Los Angeles, CA
- Oakland, CA
- San Diego, CA
- San Jose, CA
- San Francisco, CA
- Sacramento, CA
- Santa Clarita, CA
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Ok, I'm gonna be that guy because I live here. Imo ridership is only going back up because it was way down during Covid, and now people are being RTO'd and going to large gatherings again. I don't think the trains being electric has anything to do with the increase in ridership. Having said that, the new trains are nice, and I am absolutely a fan, but I think people are still using Caltrain for everything it was already used for. I am happy they have quieter, less polluting trains though.
RTO definitely has something to do with it, but I don't think it's a direct cause. Weekend ridership up to and surpassing pre-pandemic levels while weekday ridership has not recovered as well (though still up).
I believe ridership is up because of the new and more frequent trains. 1 hour intervals really suck and while 30 minutes isn't great, it's a whole lot easier to deal with. Weekday intervals were also reduced to sub-15 minutes during traditional peak commute. That's a lot of time savings for a daily rider!
RTO does have an indirect impact: the freeways are always jammed. With partial RTO and split teams, there's not been a return to the in-the-office-at-9am culture. Our local population has grown as well. Highway traffic is all-day now.
Is it really just RTO causing ridership increase if the dilemma faced is a guaranteed sit-in-traffic for an extra 15+ minutes versus a train that runs on time with 15-minute intervals?