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Chapter 1 x Executive Summary 1-15 In the rail alternatives, train services attract about two-thirds of the demand that public express buses would carry in the express lanes alternatives. Among the rail alternatives, Rail Commuter Double-Track (Alternative 9) carries the most ridership by collecting transbay trips, local trips within the Dumbarton Corridor (e.g., Redwood City Caltrain Station to Facebook), and trips along the Peninsula to San Francisco and San Jose. Strictly focusing on transbay ridership, the Rail Shuttle (Alternative 7) carries the highest rail ridership due to its higher frequencies compared with the Rail Commuter alternatives. The range of rail forecasts, 12,500 to 15,300 daily riders, is within the range found on comparable segments of existing Bay Area rail services, such as BART through Union City to Fremont and Caltrain through Redwood City, Menlo Park, and Palo Alto. The rail alternatives also offer the corridor throughput and traffic congestion control advantages as well as the ability to establish a fixed and visible public transit investment in the Corridor suited to stimulating compact transit-oriented development in one of the region’s primary jobs- growth markets. While a high-employment scenario would boost the projected ridership of all alternatives, Alternative 11 confirms the incremental benefits of pairing robust transit infrastructure and high-density development in the East Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Redwood City employment centers. If the projections of the Corridor’s major employers bear out and densities reach the high levels accommodated in the cities’ general plans, the rail alternatives could see transit ridership exceed that of the other alternatives. The Combined Bus and Rail Alternative (Alternative 10) consists of the highway improvements and express bus service from One Express Lane in Each Direction (Alternative 5) and the rail service from the Rail Commuter Double-Track (Alternative 9)—the highest-ridership individual bus and rail alternatives. As such, it can be viewed as a best-case scenario for transit crossing the Dumbarton Corridor. Within the Bus and Rail Alternative, while the bus and rail elements trade- off against one another and do not perform as well individually as they do in the One Express Lane in Each Direction and Rail Commuter Double-Track scenarios, the combined benefits of the two modes increase total transit ridership by 21 to 52 percent. In other words, the Bus and Rail Alternative is forecast to have slightly lower bus ridership than One Express Lane in Each Direction and lower rail ridership than Rail Commuter Double-Track, but the Combined Bus and Rail Alternative exhibits the highest aggregate and transbay ridership for any alternative based on Plan Bay Area employment projections. The high-employment scenario (Alternative 11) differs from the Rail Commuter Double-Track only in its land use assumptions, and not in the transportation networks. Nevertheless, the high- employment scenario is forecast to generate approximately 50 percent more total transit riders as compared to the Rail Commuter Double-Track. This increase is commensurate with the 150 percent increase in employment within the Corridor cities of Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Redwood City, and Mountain View in the high-employment forecast. Transbay transit ridership for the high-employment scenario is approximately 170 percent of Rail Commuter Double-Track transbay transit ridership. The forecasts also assume businesses in this area will be subject to trip caps requiring them to achieve higher transit shares. The substantial increase in transfers to Dumbarton Rail from ACE in the high-employment scenario highlights a need for the Altamont corridor to absorb the housing growth required to support such a large increase in employment. 6.1.D. - Page 24