[batterseapower]

Annual ridership is about 7m passengers (https://www.caltrain.com/media/34265) or 9m if we annualize the numbers in this article. At the same time, the Caltrain is losing more than $33m/year (https://www.caltrain.com/blog/2023/04/financial-future-caltr...) even though it recieved a huge $410m subsidy from the state government for the capital investment required to complete the electrification. So it's losing more than $5 per ride even ignoring capital costs. In fact, the farebox recovery ratio is only 25%, which is truly horrible even by public transport standards: https://www.caltrain.com/media/33996/download

The curmudgeon in my questions where it really make sense for the Caltrain to exist at all, given that it:

  1. It is extremely far from covering its own costs
  2. The subsidy provided by the state is regressive because it principally benefits the wealthy commuters along the line
  3. It imposes substantial negative externialities on the South Bay both in terms of noise & traffic delays at grade crossings
  4. The line and stations occupy very valuable real estate that could be sold and put to better uses

[piva00]

If you are only looking at how profitable infrastructure is on the short term and only on 1st order effects you'll quickly realise you should never build it. That goes for power plants, roads, trains, subways, electrical conduits, and any other major project requiring a lot of initial investment.

It's just a stupid way to analyse infrastructure.

[e_y_]

1. Before the pandemic, farebox recovery was 73%, one of the highest in the country. Electrified, it probably would have gone even higher since at least some people avoided the train because it was too crowded at rush hour. Unfortunately it could take over a decade to return to that point if ever, but it shows that Caltrain can be fairly efficient given enough ridership.

2. There have been ongoing efforts to improve equity, including Go passes for students and low-income workers. Clipper START offers 50% off for low-income riders, youths can ride for $2/day now. Side note: subsidies and programs like this decrease farebox recovery ratios, which is why transit covering its own costs is not necessarily the end goal. In fact, the decline of commuting for tech/knowledge workers (many who now work hybrid or fully remote) has meant that less-privileged workers have started making up a larger share of Caltrain ridership.

3. The new electric trains are a lot quieter. There's ongoing, long-term projects to grade separate the remaining at-grade crossings (of the 113 crossings, 41 still need to be separated).

4. Arguably, the stations were directly responsible for the land being so valuable. Many peninsula downtowns and sometimes entire cities were built around the train stations, 100-150 years ago. Pre-pandemic, some of the most expensive apartments were the ones near the train station. Sure most of them also had the benefit of being close to downtown restaurants, but there were also big developments around Lawrence station which has basically zero local services aside from the Costco and the train station.

Of course this was mostly in the past, but downtown areas continue to be congested and the only way we can keep building high-density housing is to have good public transit. In the long run, the train provide immense benefits to the cities that host them and removing it would be shortsighted.

[crystaln]

Seems also important to consider the positive impacts?

- traffic reduction - emissions reduction - quality of life / time recovery of train vs driving - socialization of society

That’s off the top of my head.

Not saying those justify anything however costs are not the only factor.

[MiguelX413]

Nobody asks if roads or airports pay for themselves.

[kccqzy]

Should roads exist at all, given that the gas tax doesn't cover the costs of building and maintaining roads?

And furthermore since Bay Area roads are not toll roads, the equivalent of farebox recovery ratio is zero, since road users don't need to pay to drive on the road.

[saagarjha]

I just think they're neat.

[MiguelX413]

It wasn't a subsidy so much as it was an exchange of electrification for state trackage rights.

[jazzyjackson]

Have you considered that the real estate is valuable because there's a commuter train across the street?

iirc there are Japanese railroads that recoup their costs by owning real estate that appreciates in value once a train exists. In Los Angeles the great cable car conspiracy was kind of the opposite, real estate developers built a train to make the suburbs appealing, and then once all the property was sold there was no reason to maintain the trains so they were scrapped, bait and switch really