Caltrain plans major cuts for its weekday services

By Mary Chamaki

Caltrain has released a list of possible changes to its service line, including the elimination of weekday service to the Santa Clara station.

The foreseen changes are a result of Caltrain's budget emergency, with a projected $35.7 million deficit by the end of 2012.

Possible modifications to the services provided by Caltrain include elimination of all weekend services, all non-rush hour services, all special event services to Giant's games, Bay to Breakers, etc, and the elimination of weekday service for seven stations, including the Santa Clara station located across the street from campus. Additionally, there are plans for the complete suspension of service to all six stations south of the San Jose Diridon station.

"This situation should be an immediate concern for every member of the Santa Clara community," said sophomore Kendra McClelland, a frequent Caltrain user. "The closing of this station will impair students from the ability for an easy route to San Francisco, one of our school's top vantage points in terms of gaining prospective students."

According to reports on the Caltrain website, if the issue of the deficit is not resolved by July 2, the full-force of Caltrain's implemented changes will commence, directly affecting the entire Bay Area community.

"It is imperative that our school community joins together in order to raise awareness regarding the issue of the elimination of one of our greatest public transit units," said Joe Sugg, the assistant vice president of university operations. "We need both students and faculty to write in directly by e-mail to Caltrain officials."

Santa Clara will be partnering with the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, which has taken an active role in gathering members of the community to protest against the proposed changes, in order to set up an on-campus meeting in either March or April. The meeting will be open to all members of the community, with the opportunity to offer suggestions or testimonies to support the argument against the currently planned modifications.

"Action needs to take place in order to allow officials to understand what an enormous toll this will take not only on our students, who use the transit system for recreation and commuting purposes, but more importantly the faculty whose careers depend on their ability to simply have a means of transportation to and from campus," said Sugg.

Many Summits and City Hall meetings are being held, where officials of the Caltrain policy board are present to listen to community members, who voice their concerns regarding both their personal issues and the destructive implications the changes will bring to the state, both economically and politically.

These meetings will be addressing topics such as difficulty with parking space in all areas where the Caltrain stations will be closed down.

Members of the Bellarmine College Preparatory community, who attended the Feb. 14 San Jose City Hall meeting, were also flustered at the notion of the closing of the College Park Station which provides access to campus for their own faculty and staff. The teachers from the school demanded that the station remain open and that electorate measures be placed on the ballot and sent out to state voters before any reductions were made.

Another concern raised is that there will be thousands of new cars on both the state and interstate highways, causing both traffic blockades and also greater levels of pollution to the atmosphere.

Several Green organizations have joined together, hosting summits, including the one held on Jan. 29 with Congresswoman Jackie Speier.

According to Speier, Caltrain generates among Bay Area public transit's highest fare revenue per dollar of operating cost. Despite this spectacular financial performance, Caltrain is currently facing this crisis because it had not acquired an alternative source for the subsidized funding it received from SamTrans, who recently declared it would no longer be able to provide $10 million worth of funding for Caltrain.

Concerned students can visit friendsofcaltrain.com for more information, or e-mail changes@caltrain.com to voice their opinions.

Contact Mary Chamaki at mchamaki@scu.edu.