Caltrain Declares Fiscal Emergency

Caltrain’s board of directors voted unanimously to declare a fiscal emergency Thursday, paving the way for a far-reaching array of cuts to help bridge a projected $30 million budget gap.

The vote came after more than two hours of one-minute testimonials from riders concerned about losing Caltrain service. Their voices joined the 1,350 written comments the board has received during the four community meetings that have taken place across the Peninsula in the last month, according to Caltrain Executive Director Michael J. Scanlon.

While nothing is certain until the board votes on next year’s budget in April, declaring a fiscal emergency allows Caltrain to bypass the state-mandated environmental review required before making changes to its service, said spokeswoman Christine Dunn.

“If we had to do it, we’d be bankrupt by then,” she said.

Those cuts include nearly halving the number of daily trains and eliminating both weekend service and all service south of San Jose.

Even with these measures, Caltrain would still be $5 million short of breaking even, said Michelle Bouchard, Caltrain’s director of transportation.

“This agency can’t support itself without a dedicated funding source,” Scanlon said.

Unlike other agencies that have allotted revenue through taxes, more than half of Caltrain’s funding comes from its three partner agencies—Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), SamTrans and the county of San Francisco—which make up the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board. Payment from each agency is typically proportional to the amount of riders within that county, Dunn said.

The remaining portion of Caltrain's revenue comes from ticket sales, according to Thursday's presentation.

However, the economic downturn that has hit the coffers of most county governments has forced the three partners to reduce their contributions over the past few years. San Mateo County's SamTrans, in particular, can only afford $4.7 million of its allotted $14.7 million this year, according to the presentation.

If the other agencies follow suit, Caltrain’s available funding for the coming fiscal year would drop from $35 million to $11 million.

“This economic instability has really hit Caltrain and its funding partners in a way that’s unprecedented,” said Bouchard.

VTA General Manager Michael T. Burns announced in a letter last month that his Santa Clara County agency would not cut its contribution. Some have suggested that the agency provide an additional one-time contribution to help cover SamTrans, but not everyone agrees that it would be fair to the Santa Clara County taxpayers who pay for VTA.

“Santa Clara taxpayers should not be subsidizing the cost for San Mateo County,” Cat Tucker, Gilroy city councilwoman and Caltrain Citizen’s Advisory Committee member, said at a community meeting last month.

Concerns expressed at Thursday's meeting were plentiful: Some people said they had chosen their homes based on a nearby station now in jeopardy. Some were students, some disabled, and some were simply long-time fans.

“I have been riding the train for over 80 years,” said Pat Dixon, who recalled when the system was owned by Union Pacific. “I hate to see any trains cut.”

The largest contingent at the meeting was a group representing San Jose's private boys high school, Bellarmine College Preparatory. More than 240 of the students commute by train every day, nearly half of them from south of San Jose, according to Brian Adams, a school vice president.

“It’s critical to the life of our school,” he said.

The College Park station, a short walk from Bellarmine, is one of the stations being considered for the cut. The others are:

• Bayshore
• South San Francisco
• San Bruno
• Burlingame
• Hayward Park
• Belmont
• San Antonio
• Lawrence
• Santa Clara

Bouchard said the agency took a pragmatic approach in considering what stations to cut. Each trip could only last 70 minutes, stopping at the most popular stations during peak hours.

For Chuck Zanger, Gilroy resident and Bellarmine parent, the idea of cutting a station like College Park is puzzling.

“When I see that train unload in the evening, it’s a mob scene,” he said.

The money to be saved from each part of the proposed cuts, like ending service south of San Jose, is unknown at this point, said spokeswoman Dunn.

“It’s very difficult, when you look at a complicated service like Caltrain, to put a cost to it, because the service really functions as a whole,” she said.

Ridership in Gilroy has fallen steadily since the expansion of Highway 101 in 2003. Daily ridership at the Gilroy station peaked at 569 in 2001, experiencing a gradual decline to 119 in 2010, according to Caltrain’s annual ridership study.

When Gilroy’s Downtown Specific Plan was completed in 2006, officials expected Caltrain ridership to grow with an increasing residential population. The Valley Transportation Authority estimated there would be 2,300 commuters from the Gilroy station in 2015 and 3,000 in 2030.

Many plans drafted before the recession have been forced into question, however. Gilroy’s unemployment rose from 7 percent to nearly 17 percent since 2006, and recent hopeful forecasts across the country have butted against recovery-busting gas prices, according to the California Employment Development Department.

Santa Clara County has also seen a rise in unemployment, with an average of 5 percent more people unemployed since 2006, according to the department.

For some riders, like Morgan Hill resident Tom Gorndt, the benefit of riding Caltrain for the past 10 years has been more than just transportation.

“Many people that live in Morgan Hill, Gilroy, San Martin … I would have never had the opportunity to meet them or to relate to them on a daily basis like I do on the train,” he said.

Other speakers included Kevin Mullin, mayor of South San Francisco; Ross Bruce, Broadway-Burlingame Merchants Association president; and Chris Moylan, Sunnyvale vice mayor and VTA board member.

Bruce Shelton, who listened to the three-hour meeting, said he knows many riders on a first-name basis. He has been a Caltrain conductor for 14 years.

“It’s the only agency, hard as this is to believe, in the nine-county Bay Area without dedicated funding,” Shelton said, “They’ve managed to cobble together the funds to keep us going in the past, but those days are behind us.”

In January, Scanlon said, ridership and revenue were actually higher than expected.

“If I could emphasize anything from this meeting—nobody on this board wants to undo everything we’ve done to increase ridership,” he said.

The Caltrain board will meet again April 7 to vote on the proposed changes.