Tag Archives: SamTrans 140

Titanic Tidbits & Musings

1. National Geographic has decided to look back at the 1990s in an upcoming documentary called The ‘90s:The Last Great Decade? As is usual they send out press releases and even previews to media. Sadly TNC seems to never get those media packets. At any rate James Cameron’s Titanic is tied with Forrest Gump as best movie of the decade. Sadly for Kate Winslet, Jennifer Aniston was the female icon with Christina Applegate coming in second. And a show about nothing about four self-centered people barely beat out the X-Files. While Aniston was the babe, sadly the rest of her Friends were pushed aside by the show about nothing. Then again what was Friends about anyway?
Source:Titanic,’ ‘Seinfeld’ Top Best Of ’90s Poll(25 June 2014, Popwatch)

2.The Titanic Hotel at Liverpool’s Stanley Dock (not to be confused with the other Titanic hotel in the former White Star headquarters) is nearing completion reports Liverpool Echo. The first guests are slated to be International Festival For Business delegates. Prices for staying at the new hotel will be between £129-£200 a night (about $203-$339).
Source: Sign That Liverpool’s New Titanic Hotel Is Getting Ready To Open For Business(23 June 2014,Liverpool Echo)

3. In order to raise money for St John’s Hospice a group of fundraisers decided to have a Sink The Titanic food challenge. The challenge will be to eat a mammoth 3 foot, six inch burrito in 30 minutes at Lancaster’s Go Burrito. Calling Adam Richman from Man Vs Food! It is a daft idea, as one person notes in the article, but it certainly gets a notice and awareness of St. John’s Hospice. Have the antacid standing by. Eating that much burrito is bound to have after effects. You can click here to contribute.

4. MasterChef:Mutiny On The Beach Update
Joe Bastianich had the following to say about this recent episode. On Team Red he writes:
Sadly, the same cannot be said for the red team. Leslie was a disappointing leader, but at least he owned up to his incompetence. The rest of his team didn’t help much either, and for that alone they all deserved to lose. Their collective dislike of Leslie helped make a bad situation worse, so at the end of the day, it was everybody’s fault. Who knows how many people flew to California to experience this auspicious event? I have a restaurant and B&B in northeast Italy called Orsone. If my team there ever mishandled a wedding—one of the most important events in a couple’s life—I’d die of embarrassment. The end result on the plate was pleasing to the wedding party, but if we judges hadn’t been there, that would not have happened.

I did not delve into the other team members actions in my write-up. And Joe is right on this. They all wanted to throw Leslie under the bus for the failure not looking at their parts in it as well. Had they been left to their own devices and no one checked them at all, the result would have been very bad indeed. But perhaps they ought to let it happen if nothing else to teach them a lesson in being responsible. In fact, I suggest MasterChef do that at least once or perhaps twice a season. Let them take full and total responsibility for the cooking without any of the Culinary Trio telling them to correct things.

As for the Ahran and Leslie dustup:

Last night’s episode suffered no shortage of drama. Leslie continues to allow himself to be sucked into Ahran’s ridiculousness. As a seasoned adult, he should have recognized that with her he is not dealing with a peer. She is ruining this for herself, but it would be a real shame if Leslie lets her take him with her on the way down. Most of the kids from MasterChef Junior exhibit more poise and emotional maturity—look at last year’s winner, 13-year-old Alexander Weiss.

Ahran is still in high school, at least when the show was filming (she may have graduated by now) and pretty young to compete on the show. She already has shown how anger colors her thinking in a previous episode when she wanted to take Courtney down. And she all but accused the judges of favoritism when it comes to Courtney. That she dislikes Leslie is obvious. While he mispronounced her name at team selection, it was not intentional but she took as such. And in her rant against him said that was the reason she did not like him. At that point Leslie ought to have cut it off and walked away. Instead he decided to take her on at told her to get some cojones (paraphrasing again). The other gals did not like that. Ahran has her own problems and Leslie ought not to be sucked into them. He made it worse when he decided to put up three for the pressure test. To the judges, he showed he could be just as immature. Something they are going to be watching down the line. You know Ahran is in trouble when Joe believes 13-year-old Junior Masterchef winner Alexander Weiss is more mature.

5. Caltrain San Bruno Station
Okay for folks in and around San Bruno, CA, this is for you. The new Caltrain station at San Mateo & San Bruno Avenues was opened for use in April. Construction is still going on the underside (putting in steel plates etc). And use of San Mateo Ave at Huntington is still limited forcing drivers to divert San Bruno Ave and turning left to San Mateo Ave. The good news is that the elevated platform is spacious. The shelters are big allowing a lot more people to stand in them during inclimate weather. When it is windy the shelters come in handy. The downside is that there is no crossover to the other tracks, you have to access them from the street. It sucks but they could not build a wide platform that would allow an island configuration (where people can access trains in either direction from the center) for arrivals and departures. Parking is still an issue because Granite Construction still has it office and other things in that area. And both SamTrans 140,141 have Caltrain stops. The eastbound 140,141 stop near Chuy’s while the westbound stop is at Euclid. Unfortunately for eastbound bus riders who get off, there is no crosswalk at Euclid to cross over to the station. You have to walk up to San Bruno Ave for the crosswalk. San Bruno ought to put a crosswalk at Euclid.

Overall the new station is a vast improvement than the old one at Sylvan. There was no direct bus service to it. Of course being elevated means no more risks of cars stalling on the tracks in the downtown area. It has an easy access area for people with wheelchairs (ramps that lead up to the station on both sides of the station). The elevator is not done but once done, people who have problem walking up stairs can use it. Another plus it is a lot closer to Tanforan and San Bruno Bart. Instead of a 30-40 minute walk from Sylvan, it is 10 minutes or less by foot.

6. SamTrans Makes No Changes To 140/141
The recent schedule changes for SamTrans came into effect on 15 June. Neither of these routes had any schedule changes except that with schools out, runs that made trips to schools now run without going to those schools. Unfortunately some transit apps like Roadify seem to think SamTrans has shut down for the summer!


Update:SamTrans Changes To 140,141 and Others Coming 26 Jan

[Off topic but important info for those who live in, near, or around San Bruno,CA]

Well it is a New Year and time for SamTrans to implement changes to routes on 26 Jan. Some changes are going to be major while others are tweaks to service.

140
Sam Trans busThe 140 will begin servicing the AirTrain station (near the car rental area) at SFO and it means altering the entire schedule to make this possible. Just about the entire schedule has been changed except for the school bus trips in the morning and afternoon to Parkside Intermediate. However to make the route streamlined for the airport run, service on San Bruno Avenue between Huntington and El Camino Real is being dropped. That means the eastbound stop by the Wash N’Dry and the westbound stop by the Green Valley Market are going away. The 140 will turn left on El Camino after the stop on San Bruno (west side) and El Camino. There is an ECR stop on El Camino at the gas station which the 140 will stop for people wanting to get off there. The 140 will turn right at Sneath and El Camino to San Bruno BART and after dropping off passengers there, heads off to the AirTrain station. For those wanting to use Caltrain when that station opens, both eastbound and westbound buses to/from AirTrain stop nearby. Eastbound the closest stop is at Chuy’s deli. Hopefully they will move this further south since you nearly always get off right in front of parked cars. The westbound stop does not have that problem but could be moved further south to be closer to the station (not that far away right now but pulling it back would make it more convenient)

A major change is also the start times of most routes. Currently westbound buses from San Bruno BART leave at 20 after the hour outside of commute hours. That changes to 41 minutes after the hour for most runs since the run starts earlier at AirTrain. Most eastbound runs will start earlier with some exceptions so check the schedule because it is likely your favorite bus time has changed. On weekends both east and westbound runs start on the hour from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The last bus in both directions on weekdays is 11:00 p.m.

You can view the new schedule here.

141
I think they cannot make up their mind about this route at SamTrans. First they wanted to eliminate San Mateo Ave and 3rd Street along with dropping most of Jenevein and running the bus more on San Bruno Ave. Then that changed and then they were going to keep San Mateo Ave (going all the way to BART) and Jenevein and drop the crossover to Angus & Third except for school runs. The current description of the change is “Realign route via San Bruno Avenue to improve direct service to San Bruno BART; only serve San Mateo Avenue on select trips. ” However the map you bring up for the new schedule shows something different. What is dropped is the Angus crossover and the bus will go to San Bruno BART via San Mateo Avenue to Huntington. Unless there is a correction made, this is the final schedule for the 141 beginning 26 Jan. If you take this frequently, be sure to check the schedule as many times of bus runs have changed.

ECR
Once again San Bruno BART is being serviced by an El Camino bus. Previously the 391 had done this but was discontinued when the ECR was implemented for weekday runs. Beginning 26 Jan, the ECR now will go into San Bruno BART. Because the ECR consolidated two bus routes, it now runs more frequently than either the old 390/391. You can view the new ECR schedule here. The downside is that Millbrae BART has been downgraded to stops on El Camino rather than going into the transit area.

398
This limited route will run between Redwood City Transit Center (where Caltrain stops) and San Bruno BART via SFO daily and on weekends. You can view the schedule here.

Other important route changes/modifications:

123-Eliminated. This route went from Colma BART to Skyline. The 121 services Colma BART so students and others going to Skyline can catch it. Eliminated because it was redundant.

133-As of 26 Jan, this route will no longer serve Serramonte and drops service on Huntington between Spruce and Sneath. This bus will run from San Bruno BART via El Camino Real and Spruce to Airport/Linden. People wanting to go to Serramonte from San Bruno BART can transfer to 131 at Airport/Linden.

Source:SamTrans