[Carfreeliving] Baby Bullet Wins Tranny Award

[A P Thornley]

Really, "Tranny Award?"  "Baby Bullet?" And no winking or anything? 
Are they that clueless, or hyper-clued? Of course, I always figured 
"Jackie Speier" was just someone's drag name . . .


	--Andy--

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Baby Bullet Wins Tranny Award
5/27/05

  http://caltrain.org/news_2005_5_27_tranny_award.html

Caltrain's popular Baby Bullet service is being recognized by the 
California Transportation Foundation as the 2004 Program of the Year. 
The service also recently received the Metropolitan Transportation 
Commission's Grand Award.

Baby Bullet service received the Tranny Award based on the innovative 
infrastructure and operational improvements that have lead to 
ridership increases of more than 17 percent.

"The service has been so well-received that less than one year after 
launching it we've already added two more bullets to meet the demand 
and help raise additional revenue," said Michelle Bouchard, 
Caltrain's manager of rail transportation.

The overwhelming success of the Baby Bullet service is netting more 
than $2 of revenue for every $1 local trains are bringing in, a 
testament to the heavy ridership and the long-distances the trains 
are carrying passengers.

As a result, Caltrain is planning to add another 10 bullets to help 
bridge a budget shortfall. In fact, in the space of 14 months 
Caltrain will have gone from 76 weekday trains to 96 weekday trains.

The Baby Bullet service operates between San Francisco and San Jose 
in under an hour with stops in Millbrae, Hillsdale, Palo Alto and 
Mountain View.

California State Senator Jackie Speier (D -San Mateo/San Francisco) 
received Legislator of the Year at the Tranny Awards for her role in 
conceptualizing the Baby Bullet service along with Caltrain's 
retired-Chief Development Officer Howard Goode and current Executive 
Director Michael J. Scanlon. Speier was also critical in securing 
$127 million of state-funding for the project.

Caltrain will implement a new 96-train schedule on Aug. 1 that 
includes 22 Baby Bullet trains. The bullets will be divided into two 
stopping patterns; Pattern A will stop at San Jose, Mountain View, 
Palo Alto, Hillsdale, Millbrae, 22nd Street (reverse-commute only) 
and San Francisco; Pattern B will stop at Tamien, San Jose, 
Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Menlo Park (reverse-commute only), Redwood 
City, San Mateo, Millbrae and San Francisco.

The California Transportation Foundation is a non-profit organization 
that supports the career-development, employee and agency recognition 
for California's transportation agencies. The forum sponsors 
educational events and career development activities. CTF was founded 
in June 1988. For additional information visit 
www.transportationfoundation.org.