Caltrain, California

This is not a well rounded post. The opinions here are narrow and ill-informed. 

1.

I am at the Tamien Caltrain station in South Bay Area and there is a train for 5 58 pm that I am supposed to take. A train is waiting right in front of me for the last 15 minutes and I am not sure if this is the one i am to board. There are no indications on the train to match the information displayed on the electronic indicator! I ask the only man sitting on a bench at the station, who tells me this is not the one mentioned on the electronic display. 

When no other train arrives until the time in the schedule, except the one standing, I climb into it following another passenger (who herself was confused) and hope that it will be the train I need to board. A few minutes later, i realize that it is indeed the train I had to take, quite contrarily to what the waiting passenger on the station bench directed.

The Caltrain is a double-decker train with a central aisle. There are two seats each on either aisle on the lower level and one row of seats on each side on the upper. Absolutely empty probably since it is the opposite direction for the time. The young lady equally perplexed if the train is San Francisco bound, came and asked me to confirm if I ended up taking the right train. I told her that I confirm only based on the fact that it departed on the time I checked on the schedule.

The landscapes I pass through are beautiful. No one came to check my ticket. I was surprised. The announcements within the train were unclear, fuzzy, although surprisingly not standardized (like the recent ones in our local trains in Mumbai). For that matter, the announcements even in New York metro trains were not standardized. The stations try to match the level of the surrounding road, rather than the height of the train. You actually climb 4 steps to reach the level of the train. I haven't seen how the disabled actually climb up, although there are provisions for them within the train.

2.

Bay Area: The California bay around San Francisco. Peninsula region.

VTA: Valley Transit Authority

Valley: popularly the Silicon Valley. Geographically, this is actually a valley. Silicon refers to technology parks.

Caltrain: California Train, transportation service along the bay area

BART: Bay Area Rapid Transit, private transportation service along the bay area

Clipper Card: Pass for Caltrain and some other public transport services around Bay Area

Map of Caltrain in Bay Area


3.

The San Jose Caltrain station ticket vending machines / card identifying machines didn't accept either my clipper card pass or my credit card. Luckily I had some cash with me to get a ticket for San Francisco. I went up to the Amtrack dept ticket counter to ask if there was any person who could help me with my problem. However the lady flatly refused saying, "There is no one for Caltrain" in a curt tone, perhaps rightly as if it was none of her business to look into it. This is what you learn to expect out of Americans or American culture in general after living in US for two years. In fact I was quite impressed when out of the same indifference she pointed me to the ATM from where i could withdraw cash to try in the faulty machines.

All how I responded to her was with a gracious smile and a hearty thank you, although swearing by the dumbness of such etiquette in my head at that moment.  Before I move on with my analysis, I must finish explaining how I resolved the situation. After I exhausted all possible mental algorithms of trying all machines, clipper card sensors at the station, I thought of using cash, for which I was skeptical of getting the change back. (buses here in the US will never return you any change. so if your ticket costs $2 and you insert a $5 bill, your $3 are gone - essentially more lost than spent). I was thus skeptical about the Caltrain vending machines too. However it was kind enough to return me my 1 dollar. And thus, Inspite of preparing for my trip to SF in advance and working out cheaper logistics, getting a clipper card pass that would have saved me about 2 dollars one way, I ended up spending cash that I had saved up for emergency. (again remember that you seldom use cash in USA, since you have credit cards for most transactions. In addition, withdrawal of cash from atms costs you 2.5$ each time. its a lot of money in proportion to what you generally withdraw).

However, such inconsistencies in technology and its non-alignment with human dilemmas is what i despise about the over hyped development in the developed countries. I have, over time, trained my mind to get over such first world issues. Although in the pretext of streamlining and smoothening infrastructures, look what happens. There was no one around the station whom I could ask about whether my pass was faulty or if there was a problem with my credit card - both which i had recently purchased or used respectively. there was no one amongst the commuters to help. There was no one I could call. No one at the station - completely unmanned. I was disturbed at the irony of this first world situation - the mythicised glorified narrative of the developed country. in computerizing every inch of interaction into unmanned infrastructure, they continue to erase all physical social exchange leaving vulnerability looming all over - something that is never documented, or even lapped up in the over optimistic dialogues of development.

I am skeptical of technology and development in this light. I worry about this creeping sense of insecurity that latently exists among people in anticipation of overcoming or even coming to terms with technology. Because technology skips the older logical methodical steps that people are used to, quite exponentially, marketing itself as easy to access and "user friendly" it never presents its parallel narrative of the confusion it creates within the minds people. There is also a great politics of such confusion often overlooked by technologists, the advantage of which clearly goes to the company. for example, consider the extra dollars I shelled out to Caltrain inspite of all my preparation - that money essentially went to the company just because of what i like to term as politics of technology.

People living here in west coast America are overly car dependent, thus the government excuses itself of investment in public transport. (People rightfully depend on their own vehicles, since the minimum walk from one place to another will be 20 minutes, and you will feel absolutely at loss of scale while walking on wide highways - I am also talking of my experience in the suburbia, but SF too was largely spread wide apart). Except big cities, getting around this country is a big ordeal. But the difficulty of travel in the US is a narrative explicated by far too many people. What i want to point out is that people/locals thus look down upon public transportation and even those who use it. I was being mocked upon by my landlord when I would take the city buses to travel around in New Haven - "Only poor people and blacks use the buses," he said. At that time i wasn't mature enough to accuse him as a racist. But such is the sentiment that runs across people in the country. Thus, in my perspective, owing to such social pressure must also make many people to move privately. Although I feel such sentiment to public transport is only prevalent in some cities. New York is a very public-transport friendly city. 

However stories for other states and cities across the US are different. What is different here is that people almost don't care to keep a tab about public transportation for emergency situations. They just don't know anything about local ways of getting around - something I have never experienced in my life. Umm - well they depend on Google to tell them routes all the time. Google is their Godfather. Certainly this is a result of both - the individualistic social space as well as the already existing poor image of public image of transportation facilities.

Rightfully then, the Marxists of this country shout for public space and public transport and all those issues of green-ness and sustainability. But we absorb these narratives of the developed lands blindly, without understanding their socio-cultural underpinnings. In fact we never understand how adoption of their narratives and systems would eventually affect our own socio-cultural space, and do ever think if we truly desire it? And do they really apply to us. In what way do they apply, and how should we think about our issues, even if the solutions to the problems may be same?

Perhaps I come from a background where I have had an opportunity to associate a lot of positive attributes to the social space in Indian cities. Or probably I am just a person who relies and trusts real people than a dumb machine who cannot argue back intelligently. Many of my friends like being around such dumb machines, or have begun to enjoy this sterile life within which they can exert their choices without friction. they consistently attempt to convince me of staying back in this unmanned neutralised techno physical space. I am not sure I like it, even if the space in India physically or personally destroyed me. Living here is a mental torture sometimes for a person like me - for some, it is an escape to heaven.