Published Tuesday, October 21, 2003, in the San Francisco Examiner

Baby Bullet beats BART
Caltrain express faster than BART, but fails to connect.

By Sara Zaske
Of The Examiner Staff
szaske@...

SAN CARLOS -- This spring, Caltrain's Baby Bullet express will shoot
from San Jose to San Francisco in 57 minutes, flying past BART on its
way.

The impending arrival of the new CTX express service -- commonly
called the Baby Bullet -- has prompted a complete overhaul of the
entire Caltrain schedule. A draft of the schedule released on Monday
shows times changing on virtually every train, in order to
accommodate the new, faster service.

The schedule also shows the Baby Bullet missing an easy BART
connection at the Millbrae station while beating BART into San
Francisco.

Caltrain spokesperson Jaime Maltbie Kunz said the two new services
are not designed to compete for current transit riders, but to
attract new patrons.

"We don't want to lose riders from one service to another," she
said. "We want new riders to get on the trains. When you look at
public transportation as a whole, it does no good to build these
giant projects and just trade riders from one service to another, you
want more people off the road."

Starting from Millbrae, BART takes approximately 30 minutes to arrive
in downtown San Francisco.

The Caltrain line ends at Fourth and King Streets near Pac Bell Park,
a little over a mile from the heart of the financial district, but
the Baby Bullet will take only 17 minutes to get there.

Caltrain has always run limited or "skip stop" service to shorten
commute times by flying past some of the line's 33 stations. The Baby
Bullet takes express service to the extreme, stopping at only four
stations between its south and north endpoints -- Mountain View, Palo
Alto, Hillsdale station in San Mateo and the Millbrae station.

However, commuters wishing to transfer from the Baby Bullet to BART
at Millbrae may find that they have to move pretty fast.

According to the draft schedule, the northbound Caltrain express
pulls into Millbrae just two minutes before the next city-bound BART
departs. If commuters miss that train, they will have a 17-minute
wait. The Baby Bullet will also miss the airport bound train by five
minutes. The next one pulls in 15 minutes later.

Southbound is not much better. BART riders will have to arrive 18
minutes before the next Caltrain leaves or race through a three-
minute transfer time.

Supervisor Mike Nevin, who sits on Caltrain's governing board,
thought the schedule should be changed to better coordinate the two
systems.

"I'd want to revisit it to make sure people have the time to make the
connection," he said. "The whole purpose of the Millbrae station is
to be a transportation hub and two minutes isn't long enough. We have
to change that."

The BART board may be examining its own schedule in January, but
spokesperson Mike Healy said the changes will be made for internal
reasons, not necessarily to meet up with the Baby Bullet.

Margaret Okuzumi, executive director of the train riders' advocacy
group Bay Rail Alliance, did not mind missing the BART connection.

"BART doesn't even line up with BART very well," she said, pointing
out that the airport trains leaving Millbrae are not timed well with
inbound trains. "It is kind of unfortunate, but there are not a whole
lot of people transferring between the systems anyway."

Overall, Okuzumi was pleased with the proposed Caltrain changes,
which concentrate services at popular stations and pass by lesser-
used stops such as Atherton and the Broadway station in Burlingame.

Baby Bullet Draft Schedule

Due in the spring, the Baby Bullet will shoot five express trains in
each direction up and down the Peninsula during commute hours. Below
is a breakdown of the proposed express services schedule.

The express train service will disrupt the schedule for nearly every
train this spring. A draft of all the proposed changes can be viewed
at the Caltrain Web site: <http://www.caltrain.com>.

[BATN: http://www.caltrain.com/news_2003_timetable_overhaul_meetings.html ]

Northbound . . a.m. a.m. a.m. p.m. p.m.
---------------------------------------
San Jose . . . 6:00 7:00 8:00 5:00 6:00
Mtn View . . . 6:13 7:13 8:13 5:13 6:13
Hillsdale (SM) 6:21 7:21 8:21 5:21 6:21
Millbrae . . . 6:32 7:32 8:32 5:32 6:32
SF . . . . . . 6:57 7:57 8:57 5:57 6:57