But it was true, a fresh new paintjob apparently appears to be in the works for the middle child in the trolley family. I don't think they've been painted since they were first put into service in the mid-'90s.

Strangely, the trains are getting a thin black stripe near the very top of the car, probably to try and match their S70 siblings. The stripe winds up looking like an afterthought.

They're also featuring the new livery that the U2 trolleys started getting two years ago after the last time the Super Bowl was in town. MTS then had outfitted some trains with advertising wraps to pay for the new paint. It's unclear where the funding is coming from for the new paint, but it's good to know the upcoming fare increases are being spent wisely. (Yes, that was sarcasm.)

In other news, on the Green Line, the mixed-consist trains are back in service. They have been, honestly, for about a month now, but I just kept forgetting to post about it. Still unclear why they were taken out of service, but there you go.

In other site news, we now have a brand-new, entirely reconfigured trip planning system. You might have noticed the additions to the pop-up station menus on the Google mashup, and that's thanks to the new system. It doesn't have the bus integration like Google Transit does, but, then again, Google Transit is far more advance and far more complicated than a site like mine could ever hope to be.

Much love to High Class Software for their help designing the system.

We've still got plenty of stickers to hand out, too.

On a personal note, the office where I work (my "day job") moved to Logan Heights, which is perfectly serviceable by trolley. I live in Mission Valley, and found that it took an hour to travel (Green Line to Blue line) to work each direction. For a destination that's 7 miles away (as the crow flies), an hour is a LONG time to spend commuting. So I'm driving again. I know, I know -- it's not what I'd like to be doing, either, but getting home before 7 p.m. is really nice.

I still plan on keeping the site running and current, though! Don't worry about that. Hopefully I'll be blogging a little bit more often, too.

Thanks, as always, for your support and kind words!

This is a bittersweet moment -- it's great for the ridership, but sort of puts this site to shame.

Well, go with good fortune, and enjoy.

Want a free sticker? Just fill out the form, and up to five will be on their way to you. Get yours now!

What, pray tell, does this cost? Why nothing, good sir (or madam)!

(And, in the words of Shepard Fairey: "Please use common sense and consideration when applying stickers ... we all have to live here.")

Was that the end of that? I hope not. The two-car SD-100 trains are just too small for the Mission Valley morning commutes. (It isn't to say the S70 trains have gone away entirely. There are two-car S70s in service, too.) Having the extra room in the S70 train gave you a little more personal space.

Actually, there was always room for my bike in the SD-100, because everyone would treat it like the red-headed stepchild when there was an S70 in the consist.

In other S70 news, it looks like some of them are getting some new upholstery for the seats. I guess cloth seats don't last the 20-plus years that the vinyl ones do.

Ew -- what if they did? Gross.

I know I said before that I "wholeheartedly endorsed" the downtown Loop proposal. I love the idea of a downtown loop, but after time to think about it, the execution is what's bugging me. It's like communism: it's looks great on paper.

I can't get away from the fact that both MTS's and Downtown Partnership's proposals are going to cost a metric buttload of money. I know some money will be spent anyway. For instance, to run the new S70 trains downtown, the same platform improvements that were made in Mission Valley (raising the platform height by a few inches) will need to be made downtown. Fair enough. And then MTS has to buy those trains. That's a few bills.

But spending a full buttload of money on a half-assed solution just isn't going to work. Looking at it now, all of the plans on the table are lacking some part of an ass.

So let's get back to basics. Objectively, we're looking for options that increase the amount of people transported along the C Street corridor. Remember? That's what all this is about. Let's set aside the track improvements, and focus on what we can do with the infrastructure we have.

Why not just have more frequent Blue line headways from (say) Old Town to 12th & Imperial? MTS could run two-car U2s (or SD-100s, at least until they buy more S70s) twice as often, and meet their goal of carrying more people.

Orange line trains could also double in frequency just around the downtown area, originating and terminating at 12th & Imperial. If MTS timed it right, we'd have a train every two or three minutes around the downtown area. Seems pretty awesome to me, and although it means buying more trains and hiring more drivers, it doesn't necessarily mean laying down miles of new track.

Increasing headways on any line (Orange, Blue, Loop or otherwise) could, however, ludicrously wang up vehicle traffic on downtown streets. It would be very easy to have gridlock along C Street. A dire scenario has trolleys advancing only one block every time the signal changed. The benefit to riders would obviously go down, since the time it would take to get from City College to America Plaza would be slower than walking. Drivers would be pulling their hair out waiting for trains to pass, and we all know they don't make it all the way through the intersection on time.

And then, of course, there's MTS's proposal to block off lanes or close streets around Seventh Ave. in order to maintain the headway frequency the way it is now, and run longer trains. This still wangs up traffic on Sixth and Seventh, because the streets will be narrower. Or closed. But the degree of the wangage compared to the other proposals is what will probably make or break the solution.

So: A giant douche, or a turd sandwich?

First, let's look at how things are. The track through downtown looks like this. (I've removed the positions of some stations for clarity.)

You can see that the track was designed specifically for the headways we have now: Orange Line trains terminating from the east, and Blue Line trains taking the C Street and Park Boulevard corridors to the South Bay.

The problems evidence themselves when we try to apply the new scheme to the existing infrastructure. A part of the new Loop Line scheme is to have Blue Line service skip downtown, and take the Bayside Corridor to 12th & Imperial. When we try to do this, we can see where the existing track falls short:

There's the little problem of the single track down by 12th & Imperial that really has to be improved. We can't have Blue line trains and new Loop service going through a single piece of track. Nuh uh.

On top of that, when we try to apply the new Loop service, things get really dicey elsewhere:

We don't want trains colliding head-on, so there will need to be some kind of interlocking between Santa Fe Depot and Seaport Village. Secondly, the track around 12th & Imperial needs a serious overhaul.

One solution is obviously to build more track. This is easier said than done; only MTS knows if it has the land, right-of-way, and permission to lay down more track in these areas. But, since I'm playing Railroad Tycoon here, I can just draw little lines and all the problems go away:

This solves the problem of routing Blue Line trains around downtown:

And the Loop can run in both clockwise and counter-clockwise directions, according to the mayor's memo.

In order to provide transfer service at Santa Fe Depot, the driver would have to change cabs there. My spider-sense tells me that this would probably royally mess up all the vehicle traffic on Broadway and Kettner. To have Loop trains doing turnarounds, and Blue Line trains coming straight through, the timing will have to be really precise. The frequency of the Loop will rest heavily on this, I think.

Instead, having passengers transfer at Seaport Village instead might solve that problem. It obviates the need for the interlocking tracks between Santa Fe Depot and Seaport Village, but means that Blue Line passengers going to jury duty or City College will have to backtrack a little to get back up to C Street.

So it's not an easy road ahead. I'm not even considering the impact on vehicle traffic, the cost of building all this new infrastructure, and how it affects commuters compared to MTS's proposal of tearing up Seventh Ave. In terms of building costs, maybe that option is more reasonable. Of course, it's bad for businesses in the area, and that shouldn't be ignored.

The bottom line is this: Someone will spend a lot of money on all this. And it's probably us.

Of course, BetterTrolley wholeheartedly endorses the new loop line, and I think it will better serve the downtown area, and provide better service to the Convention Center. I can't think of a situation where higher-frequency service hurts the ridership.

An interesting difference between the memo and previously-floated ideas is that the mayor is requesting that riders transfer to the new line at Santa Fe Depot. This could require driver turnarounds at Santa Fe Depot (similar to what happens now at Old Town). There's no interlocking tracks at the Broadway Y, so it will be interesting to see how they would do that. (Personally, I don't see a problem with having people get off at Santa Fe, and walk across the street to America Plaza.)

First, the meeting I mentioned in the last post went more-or-less as expected: the Downtown Partnership showed their plan, and MTS said the equivalent of "fine, show us your study that proves your plan works better than ours, and we'll do it." So now they're planning a study. It's a step, but just more money spent. You can read more about the meeting at Voice of San Diego.

Second, some sweet BetterTrolley swag will be available at the Move San Diego booth at the Earth Day Festival in Balboa Park on April 22. More details about said swag will be available soon.

Third, some major changes to the trip planning system are in store ... of course, after I get back to the mainland.

No trolleys here in Hawaii, but the Hele-On buses are a treat to see. Aloha!

But you should go! The meeting is at 3:45 p.m. at CCDC headquarters (225 Broadway, 11th floor).

Among the changes discussed is a high-frequency loop that would replace Blue and Orange line service to stations along C Street and Park Bl. This is something that should have happened a long time ago. Blue Line riders could change to the new Loop Line at Seaport Village or 12th & Imperial. Of course, they could get off at Santa Fe Depot, and walk across the street to America Plaza, too.

Also -- and not to exude Stephen Colbert-ian chutzpah here -- but they're also considering using more reasonable two-car S70 configurations along the new Loop Line. As you can see, they fit perfectly:

Who called that one? Money quote:

This would increase MTS efficiency as cars on both lines would not have to slow down to go through the centre city. Of course, it would also obviate the need for MTS' 273-foot (3 car) or 364-foot (4-car) trolley that it says it needs in order to meet its future capacity. MTS' new low-floor cars could still operate on C Street and Park, but in a much more sensible 2-car alignment that fits in with the scale of the block size.

Awesome. I think this new line with low-floor trains would be a great service for both intra-downtown commuters and Blue Line riders that ride into downtown.

Images courtesy Downtown San Diego Partnership. With thanks to reader Kevin!

If trolley cars are too long, and city blocks are too short, the solution appears blindingly simple to me: Run shorter trains more frequently. The 15-minute service window is not set in stone, unlike sidewalks and platforms. With two-car, wheelchair-friendly S70 vehicles run twice as often, the ridership would benefit and jackhammers would lay silent.

(A new S70 train with two cars holds about as many people as an older U2 or SD-100 train with three cars.)

The only cost would be to MTS — it would need to hire more drivers for the additional runs. The additional tickets sold to the ridership that MTS claims to be demanding more service would provide revenue for the scheme.

Though I'm no transit planner, I would imagine that the cost of adding more drivers would be far less than the financial impact on downtown neighborhoods should streets be closed.

You might have some time to take that last drag, though: the ordinance cannot be enforced unless there are "no smoking" signs posted. As we know with MTS, posting those signs at every station could take some time.

The first is 511, part of a program that many large cities have implemented. According to 511sd.com, the system should be available ... uh ... today. And it looks like that website isn't quite fully-baked yet (a lot of those "links" are ersatz pictures of text). Calling 511 results in a "We're sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed" message.

It sounds neat if and when they get 'er done.

The second new number is a new 24-hour safety watch line. If you see something strange, dangerous, vandalized or unsafe, you can call 619-557-4500 to talk with MTS staffers directly. (Of course, if it's an emergency, call 911.) Help will be available in both English and Spanish.

*Note: not actually beautifully-designed.