Travel Time Comparisons
Here we have a couple of examples for our best guess for travel times using the VTA-Sprinter. Obviously, these times will have to be clarified when boarding times and scheduling conflicts with other train services are taken into consideration. They are simply presented here to get a feeling for the potential impact of adding this service.
| Northbound Weekday | Southbound Weekday | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blossom Hill | 8:00 | 8:30 | Alviso | 8:00 | 8:30 |
| Capitol | 8:05 | 8:35 | Great America | 8:05 | 8:35 |
| Tamien | 8:10 | 8:40 | Santa Clara | 8:13 | 8:43 |
| Diridon | 8:15 | 8:45 | College Park | 8:17 | 8:47 |
| College Park | 8:18 | 8:48 | Diridon | 8:20 | 8:50 |
| Santa Clara | 8:22 | 8:52 | Tamien | 8:25 | 8:55 |
| Great America | 8:30 | 9:00 | Capitol | 8:30 | 9:00 |
| Alviso | 8:35 | 9:05 | Blossom Hill | 8:35 | 9:05 |
Here is a look at game day at Levi’s stadium, starting at Tamien, where the Light Rail and VTA-Sprinter would both stop. The Light Rail numbers are from the VTA Santa Teresa to Levi’s schedule. We used the times for the special train that does not require a transfer from the Alum Rock to Mountain View routes.
| Light Rail (special) | 57 Minute | Light Rail (normal) | 52 Minutes | VTA-Sprinter (normal) | 30 Minutes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Santa Teresa | 10:16 | Winchester | 10:26 | Blossom Hill | 10:23 |
| Capitol | 10.28 | Bascom | 10:31 | Capitol | 10:28 |
| Tamien | 10:33 | Diridon | 10:38 | Tamien | 10:33 |
| Convention Center | 10:39 | Convention Center | 10:44 | Diridon | 10:38 |
| Civic Center | 10:51 | Civic Center | 10:56 | College Park | 10:41 |
| Tasman | 11:05 | Tasman | 11:10 | Santa Clara City | 10:45 |
| Levi's / Great America | 11:13a | Levi's / Great America | 11:18 | Levi's / Great America | 10:53 |
Could you explain how you estimated those travel time numbers please?
Hello and thank you for your question
– The baseline was the existing Caltrain and ACE/Capitol Corridor timetables
Caltrain: http://www.caltrain.com/schedules/weekdaytimetable.html
ACE: http://www.acerail.com/Getting-You-There/Timetable-and-Fare-Chart
CC: http://www.capitolcorridor.org/route_and_schedules/train_schedules.php
– We cut dwell times down to 15 seconds (this service will have level boarding from day one). This saves over 2 minutes at Diridon each way.
– We estimated travel times improvements based on future capital improvements:
. Complete redesign of the Diridon north and south station throats
. Elimination of the 15 MPH MT-3 speed restriction south of CEMOF
. Double-tracking between Santa Clara and Great America
– We estimated improved travel times based on faster acceleration of the EDMUs (same as the VTA light rail) both under the wire and off-grid. See Alphabet soup post for the range of possibilities.
– We assumed travel between Diridon and Tamien on MT-2 (up to 1 minute faster than MT-1).