SF to San Jose in < 30 mins
OK, I am a sucker for infographcharts (thank you, Edward Tufte), and I think this is epic:
From Infrastructuralist, via the California High Speed Rail blog.
Ahhh, California High Speed Rail Authority, get me to San Jose in under 30 minutes. (Frankly, I hope for a 20 minute express.) And to do 220 mph along I-5 to and from LA? Oh, imagine the timelapse opportunities! (Never mind a bar car.)
(Caltrain = baby bullet, my ass. At no point should I be able to *drive* faster than the top speed of a “bullet” train.)
Another question — why in the hell is there not a faster train to Sacramento from Oakland? Good god, Amtrak is slow from Richmond to Martinez. I want to get to Sacramento in 45 minutes tops. Especially at 5pm so I laugh at the suckers in their cars going 4 mph.
Burrito Justice 
Love the graph, but something ain’t right… it’s showing that San Jose’s population (as gauged by the size of the circle) to be smaller than San Francisco’s. That ain’t right – SJ is at approx. 1.3 million people (this according to the sign on 280, and is for the city proper, not the whole urban mess) versus about 800k for SF. Maybe my numbers are off, but I’m fairly certain most people agree that the city of San Jose has a larger population than San Francisco…
Good point, I can’t quite figure out those elongated lozenges.
Just to take a moment to defend poor CalTrain: with traffic, the drive to San Jose can be about an hour and twenty minutes. Cal Train will get you there in about 59 minutes. Of course, with transport to and from the stations etc, it’s not quite the same. Stations in between terminals can be even quicker — try racing someone from San Carlos to downtown San Francisco during rush hour afternoon traffic. Trains will beat autos 90% of the time.
(That’s an awesome graph, btw.)
Agreed, especially via the disaster that is 101. But San Jose is a different matter. I suspect most people who live in SF and take Caltrain to SJ don’t work near the Diridon station.
Total trip time to the office parks around the San Jose airport easily takes 2 to 2.5 hours via 22nd St Caltrain and VTA (whether via Diridon or MV), compared to 45 minutes on 280. Why Santa Clara is not a baby bullet stop is beyond me.
143 years ago, the San Francisco and San Jose RR set a speed record of 67 miles per hour. The baby bullet goes 79 mph today. Oh, Caltrain… That’s the part that makes me sad.
Palo Alto is all set though. I think the PA is specifically designed to be hard to get to from 101 and 280.
Anyway, I would love nothing more than to be able to take the train more often. Especially at TWO HUNDRED MILES AN HOUR! w00t!
Agreed on all points. Trains = good. Really, really, (really) fast trains = great.
Yeah, but do we really want Oakland or San Jose retards getting here any quicker (or easier)???