Level Boarding Soon, Fast, and Cheap

Caltrain is working on their level boarding roadmap. If their recent work on grade separations is anything to go by, the capture of the agency by the layers of consultants belonging to the transit industrial complex is likely to result in a gold-plated mega-project approach to delivering level boarding in the late 2030s, where each station platform must be reconstructed from the ground up at a system-wide cost easily topping $2 billion.We don’t need to let them turn level boarding into another costly and delayed mega-project. Existing platforms need to be raised by just 14” and are perfectly suitable as foundation slabs with built-in drainage, electric, plumbing, grounding and bonding. It can all be done without pouring a single cubic yard of concrete. Better yet: stations don't ever need to be closed during construction!Note: in this article, we will not revisit the urgent need for level boarding, its advantages for reducing trip times and attracting ridership, improving punctuality,…