CalTrain's cuts to Silicon Valley services are off the rails

Train travel in San Francisco is an awkward experience for a European and there are plenty of them in town this week for the Global Green Cities conference. California is the perfect place to come to discuss topics such as "liveable, compact, transit-oriented cities" as there is much work to be done here and transport authorities want to make further cuts to services.

A few weeks ago, I took the CalTrain that serves Silicon Valley to interview an entrepreneur. I'm going to ignore the fact that it took me 2.5 hours in total to get there. I enjoyed the hour from the city centre to Palo Alto on the impressive, two-deck diesel trains. It was clean, punctual and cheap. And it was a rare opportunity to sit and read a newspaper, plan my day and sit quietly and think…

Transport part one: California's aversion to mass transit turns bus drivers into heroes