The Bay Area is in the midst of a transportation and housing challenge as jobs grow faster than housing and commute trips get longer. In the South Bay, multiple commuter and passenger rail projects are in the works — BART to San Jose, Caltrain upgrades, high-speed rail — but most of them target just a few travel corridors. Left behind are many areas with more limited transit options and a high dependence on automobiles.
One of them is South Santa Clara County, which follows the rail corridor south of Tamien Station. With an estimated population of more than 200,000 people, the south part of the county is mostly residential. VTA and Caltrain do provide some bus and rail services along the corridor, but they are neither frequent enough nor time competitive enough to be an attractive option. As a result, most of the corridor’s residents commute by driving, and more than 35 percent of South County commuters drive more than 45 minutes each way on congested freeways.

But this corridor has an under-utilized asset: the Caltrain/Union Pacific rail tracks from San Jose to Gilroy. Currently, Caltrain shares tracks with freight along the corridor and runs only three trains per direction each day of the week. But the State Rail Plan, released in 2018, identifies this as a key growth corridor linking the heart of Silicon Valley to South Santa Clara County and other areas such as Monterey County. A recent paper by James Lightbody, a senior transportation manager at AECOM and a member of SPUR’s San Jose Policy Board, explores why increased rail service is needed and how it could be developed in the coming decade. This article explores some of the key findings of the paper’s analysis.
Why Do South Santa Clara Residents Need More Transit Service?
Residents of South San Jose, Morgan Hill, San Martin and Gilroy currently have limited transit options, experience long commutes, mostly drive alone to work and travel on some of the most congested roadways in the county, including routes 85, 87, 101 and 280. Bus routes and light rail serve parts of the corridor, but they don’t provide time-competitive service outside of central San Jose. More than 25,000 residents commute to North County jobs daily. These commuters are potential Caltrain customers. Currently 3 percent of all trips in the corridor are taken by transit. Substantially increasing this number would greatly help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Projected Growth in People and Jobs Around Caltrain Stations by 2040

South Santa Clara County stations could play an important role in the sustainable growth of our region around transit. These stations alone could welcome more than 500,000 additional people (shown in light blue) and jobs (shown in dark blue) within 2 miles of the stations by 2040.
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According to analysis Caltrain has done for its forthcoming business plan, South San Jose station areas have population sheds comparable to other Peninsula stations that have more frequent service, and several areas have been, or have potential to be, developed at higher densities. The station areas around Morgan Hill, San Martin and Gilroy, while smaller, have been growing rapidly in recent years. Overall, stations south of Tamien could significantly help in supporting the sustainable growth of our region around transit. But to do so, these places need access to frequent and reliable rail service. Otherwise, driving will remain the most convenient way to move around.
Many of the estimated 25,000 people who commute from South County to North County currently drive and park at the Tamien and Diridon stations. Increased transit service along the corridor could significantly reduce the demand for parking at these stations by providing many commuters with a good transit option closer to home. This would leave more room for people to live and work close to Diridon Station, where more than $10 billion in transportation investments will connect all the main regional rail services over the next decade.
Station | Population 2017 | Households (2017) | All Jobs |
Within 1-mile radius of the station | |||
Blossom Hill | 17,893 | 5 |