Roadshow: Free rides bring elbow-to-elbow crowds to Caltrain, BART, VTA

by Gary Richards

 the bay Thursday, starting in Campbell on light rail at 8 a.m., and jumping onboard Caltrain in downtown San Jose, switching to BART in Millbrae and returning home on BART through the East Bay, then taking the bus and light rail from Fremont to Milpitas and back to Campbell by 1:33 p.m.

Ridership numbers for most agencies won't be known until today. But on Bay Area ferries, the counts were staggering: up more than 100 percent on the Golden Gate ferries, from 2,168 daily riders to 4,552 on Thursday. And on the Sausalito ferry, the daily count of 435 soared to 2,170.

I figured trains would be jammed, just not this jammed.

Then, of course, there is a big reason for leaving one's car at home.

"Gas," said Elizabeth Daugherty, a Palo Alto-to-San Francisco commuter moaning over $4.61 a gallon for a fill-up. "The train is so much cheaper than driving to San Francisco and paying for gas and parking."

If Daugherty, a book editor, drove, her commuting bill would approach $450 a month. Her Caltrain bill: $194 a month.

Riders had numerous reasons for taking transit Thursday. Retired buddies Craig Stephan and Ray Jelesky of San Jose were headed to San Francisco on Caltrain, where they caught a ferry to Sausalito for lunch. Teenage brothers Courtney and Michael Turner of Pacifica jumped onboard BART when they heard about the free rides, volunteering to hand out fliers for an event their church is hosting next week. Ram Kumar of Fremont stood in the aisle of a bus headed to the South Bay, something he has been doing since gas reached $3.50 a gallon a year ago.

"This is so less stressful than driving," the software programmer at Cisco Systems said. "Plus, I can sometimes nap."

There were young moms with toddlers in tow, taking them to a favorite park in Burlingame. Sonya Austin of Dublin moved here a week ago from Kansas, her husband a captain in the U.S. Army. She took her 9-year-old daughter, Arianna, and teenage sons Talyn and Justin on BART to explore how to get to Great America and navigate other spots.

And Christina Martinez of San Leandro used the day to visit family and run errands in the South Bay.

"Wow, is this bus ever filled," she said, eyeing the 180 line that had a half-dozen people standing. "BART really needs to go all the way to San Jose."

Not everyone was ecstatic about Thursday's turnout, which cost nearly $2 million, money local agencies will get back from federal and state grants. Caltrain was so jammed that once onboard, people could not move an inch without bumping into a fellow passenger.

"Oh, great," muttered one fellow, as he tried squeezing his bicycle into the front car reserved for two-wheelers.

And other regular riders said they were going to drive Thursday, not wanting the hassle of jammed trains.

The crowds didn't stop. Sunnie Simmons of San Jose, who had been thinking of testing light rail in the South Bay and used the hook of free fares as her opportunity to ride from the East Side to Oakridge and then to Campbell.

"What a great idea," said Simmons, 75. Even if she has to pay, she vowed, "I'll do this again."

Contact Gary Richards at (408) 920-5335.