Capitol Corridor still growing

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Apr 10, 2006 | by Erik N. Nelson, STAFF WRITER

Perhaps its the stunning San Francisco Bay views from its riders elevated seating. Maybe its because, as one of its directors boasts, its the only place you can have a drink while going 80 miles per hour.

Whatever the appeal, the confusingly managed Capitol Corridor commuter rail system from San Jose to Oakland to the Sacramento Area has flourished while other Bay Area transit agencies have struggled with stagnant ridership.

The increase has been so strong and so consistent -- even during the dot-com debacle -- that the system is reshuffling its equipment, building new track and adding six new weekday trains as early as August.

I always joke that our best advertising and marketing tools are Interstate 880, Interstate 680 and Interstate 80, may they ever be congested, said the Capitol Corridors managing director, Eugene Skoropowski, with a mischievous chuckle.

It doesn't take a transportation guru to recognize that the rail line owes its success to offering riders a chance to laugh at the fuming motorists they once crept alongside in their own vehicles.

Add to that the vantage point of a double-decker, stainless- steel-clad Amtrak coach, with frequent tables for stretching out laptops or playing cards while munching sandwiches or sipping on one of the seven kinds of beer sold in the cafe car.

But the system has its drawbacks. Riders suffered "hellacious delays," Skoropowski admitted, because of washed-out tracks between its Suisun-Fairfield and Martinez track in December and track construction at the line's San Jose end the next month.

After catching the 6:59 a.m. train out of Suisun-Fairfield on Thursday, accountant Laura Fields, 37, was in a forgiving mood.

"At least it didn't get me to work late, because the delays were in the evenings," the 37-year-old Fairfield resident said as she knitted a pink baby poncho for an expectant fellow commuter.

But one of her regular commuting buddies, Children's Hospital Oakland psychologist Cherise Northcutt, remembered it differently.

"You are sooo kind. That's not what you said in February!" she chided Fields from across the second-floor aisle. "It was a pain in the neck."

But Fields said that while she was frustrated by getting back home to Fairfield late, "it didn't get me into my car," and the delays were followed by "a really good last month," when the line doubled its on-time record.

"It was so bad in January, we only had 44 percent on-time performance, and that was the worst month we had," Skoropowski said. The line has also been vexed by freight traffic on the tracks it rents from Southern Pacific on the northeastern end of its 170-mile line and Union Pacific through the Bay Area.

To console riders, Capitol Corridor is offering a 10 percent discount on its monthly passes for May and 10-trip tickets passes sold April 16 through May 15.

But the big payoff will come this summer, after the line completes its $65 million worth of track work, which will open a passenger and freight train bottleneck in San Jose and speed trains past Oakland's Jack London Station.

Currently, San Jose passengers on certain trips must sit in traffic on one of Amtrak's buses -- which take twice as long as the train -- because the Union Pacific tracks can't handle the extra traffic.

"We have equipment that sits in San Jose for as much as 10 hours," Skoropowski said. "It gets there at 7:40 a.m. and does not leave until 5:48 in the afternoon. We don't have the ability to bring it back because we don't have enough slots."

In a deal with the freight line, the Corridor's improvements will earn it the perpetual right to run three more weekday trains in each direction. On top of being able to retire its buses, the line will also fill 80- and 90-minute gaps in its rush-hour schedule all the way to Sacramento.

"If they had a train at, like, 7:30, then I could get to the

office at 8:30," said Cuca Chavez, a 47-year-old data profiling analyst from Suisun who commutes to Emeryville. Now, however, she has to slink into work about 9:30 a.m. unless she wants to drive or show up at the station in time to catch the 6:59 train.

The planned addition of a late train after the existing 8:20 p.m. train leaves Oakland for Sacramento will help commuters who work late from being stranded, but the line's lack of new rail cars is troubling to Estelle Shiroma of the riders' advocacy group, CC Riders.

"If gaps in service are at times when there is a passenger demand, more trains will be great," she said in an e-mail. "However, many riders are concerned that there won't be enough rolling stock to add these new trains. We would rather have more cars added to the existing service, particularly during the commute hours, rather than more service at hours when demand is low."

Even before this summer's improvements take effect, the Capitol Corridor has been remarkably successful in attracting riders and keeping them.

Last year's 8 percent jump to nearly 1.3 million riders would be the envy of any transit agency, but the line's current governance has seen an increase of 172 percent over its seven years of existence, from the 463,000 it inherited from Caltrans' earlier stewardship.