Some of Caltrain's biggest problems: - funding (some municipalities' voters don't want their towns to be bedroom communities for Mountain View and SF -- these

Some of Caltrain's biggest problems: - funding (some municipalities' voters don't want their towns to be bedroom communities for Mountain View and SF -- these are also the towns that vote against e.g. HOV lanes on their section of the 101, and against BART running through their town) - ground level crossings along the whole route (trains hit people and cars all the bloody time, but "grade separation" is expensive and also makes the stations harder to use -- for example, see San Bruno station) - having to sound their loud horns along the whole route for safety reasons (anyone with train tracks in their backyard opposes increased frequency) - people wanting electric trains before more service happens - did I mention funding? (Caltrain used to have people selling tickets at every station -- those jobs were cut due to a lack of funding.) I think creating a well-funded, well-managed state agency that was in charge of transit (ala Metrolinx in Ontario) could do wonders for BART and Caltrain. But the first thing that needs to happen would be to give public transit more money (which is difficult considering all the other things on municipalities' plates, like homelessness in San Francisco, and property tax rates not reflecting the rise in housing prices).