Trapped on the Trolley

[kevin_standlee]

[Yes, I know the Santa Clara light rail isn't a "trolley."]

I intended to use a combination of light rail and a bus ride to get to BASFA last night. I was one of the first aboard the LRV waiting at Mountain View, but the car filled up completely with people heading to the 49ers football game at Levi's Stadium. This proved to be my undoing. The car was so full that the operator began to skip stops, including Reamwood, which was where I was supposed to get off, and I would have been hard-pressed to get out through the packed-in crowd of people in the car anyway. I managed to extricate myself at Lick Mill, after all of the football fans had left. I started to walk back to try and go back the other way, but it took so long (partially because of having work my way through the Security Theatre around Levi's Stadium) that I concluded that it wasn't worth it, so I took the next car heading downtown and went back to the motel instead.

Sorry that I missed folks who might have been expecting to see me at BASFA. Once again, I thank those people who offered to give me a ride back to the motel.

I guess I must have had enough sleep (although I don't feel like it) because I woke up early and ended up catching the earliest LRV back to Mountain View that I could. I had the shuttle bus to my office all to myself.

Comments

[lindadee.livejournal.com]

Was there no trolley/train heading in the reverse direction?

[rono-60103.livejournal.com]

The Thursday of this year's Comic-Con International (i.e. the first full day), a No Doubt (IIRC) concert was scheduled at Qualcomm Stadium.

Normally, for Comic-Con, we park at Qualcomm Stadium and take the trolley down to the Gaslamp stop (which is closer to the convention center than the Convention Center stop). We also did that Thursday morning. In the morning there was no attempt to keep people using the trolley from parking, no warnings about the concert, or anything.

Now, on a normal day during Comic-Con, the trolley is packed (and I mean packed - standing room only, and barely that) from Gaslamp out to Old Town. Sometimes, there is a bit of a reduction at Santa Fe Depot as people change to The Coaster and to the other two trolley lines - but most people who use the other two lines and can, take the short walk to the 12th and Imperial station instead; or so I gather. After Old Town there is usually breathing room.

But, on Thursday, the trolley kept getting more crowded - but Comic-Con types were being replaced with screaming tiney-bopper types. Of course, it only got worse when we got off at Qualcomm Stadium. The MTS was running a ticket check on the exit from the platform, and the accessible exit was on the wrong side both for where we were coming from the platform, and where our car was. Then, the traffic coming from the stadium was ridiculous.

I'll also make note that during the one year that I was taking The Coaster up to Oceanside most days, I decided not to take it on days when The Padres had a weekday day game. By the time the train got to the Sorrento Valley stop where I boarded, it was full of baseball fans in various states of inebriation on their way home. (The fact that the visiting team was The Dodgers might have added to the passenger load). Not only did I have trouble finding a seat, I had to put up with boorish behavior - including some incidents that I'd have reported as (observed) harassment had they happened at work or a con.

So, while I'm in general very supportive of the idea of using public transportation to get to and from sporting venues, I have a personal aversion to being on public transport for unrelated reasons during those same times.

[msconduct.livejournal.com]

Argh, that happened to me in San Francisco. I was trying to get to Swensen's for ice cream (they used to have an outpost in Auckland that was a staple of my teenage years), and I failed to take into my calculations that the SF trolleys are tourist attractions in their own right. I was so jammed in that we sailed past Swensen's without me being able to do a thing about it. Oh well, I thought, I'll catch up with Swensen's in Las Vegas. Got to Vegas. Both outlets closed. (Been back to SF since - STILL haven't been to Swensen's! Although, oddly, I've been to ones in Hong Kong and Singapore. Apparently they're now huge in Asia.)

[melchar.livejournal.com]

I had wondered why you weren't at the meeting [and figured you didn't have the time for it]. I regret you were a victim of Monday night football. I'm glad it wasn't worse, but wish you hadn't been caught in it in the first place.

[wild-patience.livejournal.com]

Yup. I now have to plan my route home based on whether there is a "stadium event." At least they have a sign proclaiming such things (with the date and time) several days in advance on 237. Even going the other way home yesterday, traffic was heavier than usual for a Monday, presumably because of that. What joy to have the stadium between work and home. Bleah.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi, Kevin. I ran into the same crowd-control measures on Tasman Monday night as I walked to the Amtrak station on the far side of the stadium from my office. If you run into this again, it looks like the north side of Tasman (away from the stadium) is the side to be walking on if you want to bypass the stadium. The south side is normally shorter for me, but not Monday night.

Dave Wallace

[delosharriman]

I recall having been stuck on the Dallas light rail owing to a combination of the infamous Texas/Oklahoma football game on the one hand, & a mechanical breakdown on the other, which resulted in a huge jam-up in the downtown surface-running district. There are reasons I believe that surface-running & grade-separated systems should be distinct, & this only confirmed them.

And then there was my experience in Austin...