And what’s most impressive, is that this is in spite of Stanford’s parking pricing structure.

Parking pricing? Who cares? Well, turns out this is one very key knob (some would argue that it’s the best knob) we have to help push us away from foreign oil, global warming, childhood asthma, chronic obesity and all those other happy products of our big bad-ass car culture.

To understand how Stanford’s parking pricing is such a powerful knob that is currently twisted the wrong way, it helps to look at a more-or-less typical case study. Let’s consider a hypothetical commuter, call her… “Jane Student” and let’s say like many Stanford students, she chooses to live up in San Francisco and commute down, for reasons like quality of life, culture, etc. Let’s say Jane has a car, but plans on taking the local commuter rail, Caltrain, about half the time.

At Stanford, there are two primary ‘zones’ for commuter parking: ‘A’ and ‘C’. ‘A’ is the good, close lots and costs about 2.5 times what ‘C’ does. You generally only find metered spots adjacent to the ‘A’ lots. Everything that holds true for ‘A’ also holds true for ‘C’, so for simplicity, we’re going to assume Jane doesn’t want to park a bus ride away from class, so we’re only going to consider ‘A’.

Now, to pay for her parking, Jane has three options:

• Metered parking: $1.50 an hour
• Daily permit: $11
• Monthly permit: $60.50

When Jane sits down to consider this situation, the first thing she does is figure out what’s cheapest for her. Well, Jane is on campus usually about 7 hours a day. If she were to drive everyday (20 days a month), then her options cost per month:

• Metered parking: 1.50*7*20 = $210
• Daily permit: 11*20 = $220
• Monthly permit: $60.50

Whoa! $60 versus $220? That’s quite a difference. But now Jane knows she’d rather take the train some days. So how many days a month would she have to drive to make the monthly permit worth it? Well, 60.50/11 = 5.5 and 60.50/1.50/7 = 5.76. So if Jane drives 6 or more days a month, it’s worth it for her to get a monthly permit. Since Jane plans on doing about 50-50 train/car, she goes ahead and buys a monthly permit.

Now, let’s consider Jane’s decision making process each morning when she’s choosing whether to take the local commuter rail, Caltrain, or drive alone.

Costs to take Caltrain:

• Bike to Station: 15 min, Train: 45 min, Bike to Class: 15 min => 30 min of exercise, and 45 min of semi-productive time
• Two Caltrain 3-zone tickets: 2 * 6 = $12

Costs to drive alone:

• Walk to car: 5 min, Drive: 45 min, Walk to class: 10 min => 15 min of light exercise, 45 min of wasted time
• Gas each way is 40 miles at 30 mpg and gas is now $2.00 a gallon => 2 * 40 / 30 * 2 = $5.33

(Note that medium and long-term costs like insurance, depreciation, health, environmental etc do not factor into Jane’s daily decision making process. Medium and long-term costs and benefits will factor into Jane’s medium and long-term decisions, but will be, generally, inconsequential for her short-term decision making.)

Wow, not only does it take longer for Jane to take the train, but it costs her more! This means Jane’s default behavior will be to drive. We can expect Jane’s commute to be dominated by solo driving with sprinkled Caltrain.

FAIL. That’s not what Jane wants, that’s not what Stanford wants, and that certainly isn’t what our community as a whole wants.

Let’s consider what would happen if Stanford implemented a different parking pricing structure. The following could be implemented with zero costly infrastructure change.

Proposed:

• Metered Parking: $1.25 an hour
• Daily permit: $8
• Monthly permit: $125

Now, the following holds true for our wonderful Jane:

• A daily permit is only worth it if you’re planning on parking 7 hours or longer that day.
• A monthly permit is only worth it if you’re planning on parking 16 days or more that month.

All of a sudden the bar to buying a monthly permit is much higher. So Jane, who expects to go for a 50-50 mode share, now will no longer buy a monthly permit. She’ll buy a series of daily permits to use whenever she chooses to drive. Now, let’s consider Jane’s new decision making process each morning when deciding to take the train or drive alone.

Costs to take Caltrain (no change from above):

• Bike to Station: 15 min, Ride: 45 min, Bike to Class: 15 min => 30 min of exercise, and 45 min of semi-productive time
• Two Caltrain 3-zone tickets: 2 * 6 = $12

Costs to drive alone:

• Walk to car: 5 min, Drive: 45 min, Walk to class: 10 min => 15 min of light exercise, 45 min of wasted time
• Gas each way is 40 miles at 30 mpg and gas is now $2.00 a gallon => 2 * 40 / 30 * 2 = $5.33
• Parking: $8

Bam. Jane’s total direct, tangible cost to drive alone each morning is now $13.33 – higher than the $12 it costs for Jane to take Caltrain. That, coupled with the benefit of reclaimed time Caltrain affords Jane changes Jane’s default behavior. Jane’s default behavior is now to take Caltrain. We can expect Jane will generally take the train, and occasionally drive.

Given that Stanford’s all about going green, this is puzzling. Thoughts? Anybody from Stanford Parking and Transportation out there with any deeper insight into this situation?

The first is the California High Speed Rail blog.  Written and run by Robert Cruickshank, it played an important role in the Prop 1A campaign by providing both a place for discussion and a source of good information about the benefits of the project, statewide and local.  It’s now moved on to ensuring HSR in CA keeps moving forward – passing the bond was only the first step.

The second is blog is rather new.  The Caltrain HSR Compatibility blog focuses on the integration of HSR into the existing Caltrain right-of-way on the peninsula.  So far, it’s taken the form of a series of case studies on particular sections or stations of interest.  There’s a ton of good information there.  The author, ‘Clem’, is clearly very knowledgeable about the Caltrain right-of-way, its stations, and the operational requirements of HSR.

Caltrain Executive Director Mike Scanlon announced that the Caltrain staff is, as of today, commencing a study to look into expanding/improving bicycle conditions on board. Specifically, he mentioned:

• possibly removing some seats to provide more space for bicycles
• streamlining the boarding/disembarking procedures for bicycles
• improving the on board storage of bicycles on the train
• providing information about bike space left on each train in advance of arrival

among other good ideas that I don’t remember.  In addition, nearly everyone on the board also took the time to speak favorably about improving conditions for bikes on board, right now, in the short term.  The several dozen public speakers were also overwhelmingly appreciative and hopeful that Caltrain is now starting to directly address the real problem – the currently dysfunctional state of bikes on board Caltrain.

In the bigger picture, this more than awesome.  Caltrain heard our comments, saw the 2.6k+ signatures the SFBC collected and dropped in front of the board, and is listening!  I’m sure this isn’t going to be the silver bullet that fixes all the bike+Caltrain problems, but this is certainly a step in the right direction.

Update:

The Chronicle has now published a story on this for tomorrow’s paper.

1. The bike plan they’re developing is no longer called the ‘Bicycle Master Plan’. Which is good, because it never was a bicycle master plan. It’s now called the ‘Bicycle Access and Parking Plan’. Again, good, because this means that we can forget this non-problem sooner rather than later and move on to developing a sorely needed ‘Bicycle Master Plan’.
2. The first draft of the plan is out. Some of the URL’s and such still say ‘Master Plan’, but if you search that pdf, the word ‘master’ never comes up in there. Read it, comment about it, but don’t get your hopes up for a response.
3. Why is Caltrain focusing on this non-issue right now?  Strings!  They’re attached!  On page 7 of the draft:
   

   In 2006, Caltrain secured a federal grant from the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) to develop the agency’s first plan to address station access and parking issues for bicycles…

   Well, I’ll give you that in 2006 there wasn’t such a problem with bikes on board. But something is wrong with the system when we’re spending money (even if it is federal hand-me-downs) on a non-problem when there are other, very closely related, much bigger and more pressing problems. Is it the responsiveness (or lack thereof) of the system? 2006 to now – that’s a time scale of years between decision and action. Is it the locality (or lack thereof) of the decision makers relative to the issues? This is federal money, which was allocated to Caltrans for bike/pedestrian/transit, then Caltrans at the state level decided what specific local issue the funds were to be spent on.  To much focus on infrastructure improvements when service improvements are what’s really needed?  I’m not sure.  But it is clear the system is running in a state that is far from optimal.

The final plan will be presented to Caltrain’s Joint Powers Board on October 2nd for approval/rejection.  Stay tuned.

In any case, Caltrain is accepting comments on their draft plan through August 17. If you ride Caltrain (especially with a bike), please take the time to tell Caltrain what issues you think it’s important the bike plan address, and any ideas you may have for actually addressing them.  You can email your comments to bikeplan@caltrain.com.

To: bikeplan@caltrain.com
From: Michael J. Fogel <mike … at … fogel.ca>
Subject: Bikeplan comments:  refocus on the real issue – bikes on board

Good Morning Bikeplan,

I want to add my voice to the chorus.  I feel it’s downright silly that Caltrain is investing time and effort into bicycle parking and storage at this time.  It’s true that may need improvement, but it doesn’t have anywhere near the urgency nor importance that the ‘not enough space on board for bikes’ problem does.

Currently:

- a significant portion of the Caltrain system is consistently delayed, primarily due to bikes loading and unloading.

- 100’s of riders a day are ‘bumped’ from their trains because of a lack of space for them and their bike.

- This problem is getting worse, fast.  This is primarily a product of rising gasoline prices.

Conversely:

- I’ve been riding Caltrain for 5 years, often with my bike.  I have yet to ever, ever hear someone complain about bike parking or storage at a station.

Addressing the ‘bikes on board’ problem is much more difficult than the ‘bike storage’ problem.  But Caltrain needs to suck it up, and address it now.  It’s getting worse, fast!  There are three classes of general approaches:

1. Disallow bikes on board.  They take up too much space and time.

2. Continue fully subsidizing bikes on board.  Thus you need to add more trains, and achieve better loading and unloading throughput.  I don’t (nor does Caltrain, I gather) feel this is a practical solution in the long term (long term meaning: $10-20 for a gallon of gas).

3. Implement a series of coordinated of incentives/disincentives to bringing bikes on the train.  Caltrain’s current approach falls into this category.  However, Caltrain is restricting their study and action to one small part of this solution:  Caltrain wants to provide one incentive (improved bike parking/storage) to help reduce demand for bikes on trains.

Providing improved bike parking and storage will indeed reduce demand and ease the real ‘bikes on board’ problem… by what, 3% ???  Has Caltrain made any estimates of the (intuitively insignificant) effect this is going to have on the real issue here?

Caltrain must refocus its Bikeplan directly at the real problem: bikes on board.  Improved storage and parking is a part of the solution, but a small part.

A few suggestions for other (larger) parts of the solution:

1. Begin charging a ‘fair’ (in comparison to the other Caltrain patrons, who do not bring bikes on board) fare for bringing a bike on board.  If a bike takes up enough space for what would have been another passenger, require that all bikes have tickets.  Also, a surcharge could be imposed on that bike ticket to account for the increased loading/unloading time.

2. Remove all bike cars from express trains and add them to the non-express trains.  Now you can still bring a bike on board if you need to, but you know your trip will be a little longer.

3. Require advance reservation (and purchase) of bike spot on a train, just like assigned seating.  This would reduce loading/unloading times, and greatly reduce the stress of bringing a bike on board.  In addition it would provide a moderate disincentive bringing a bike on board, via increased complexity.

Caltrain has made impressive strides in the last five years or so.  The issue of bringing bikes on board is causing significant problems, while the issue of bike parking and storage is not.  And worst of all – the situation with bikes on board is getting worse, fast.  Caltrain must refocus its Bikeplan now, directly and explicitly on the real issue: bikes on board.

Thanks for your time and consideration,

Michael J. Fogel

(This letter, and your responses, will be publicly posted.)

If Caltrain ever does reply, I’ll post it here.  Don’t hold your breath – we’re already pushing two weeks.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition has also publicly posted their comments on the situation.