Hoorah for BART!
Jun. 25th, 2003 03:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aI've been meaning to post for a couple of days on something that I thinks a very big deal on this side of the world: Over FIFTY years after originally planned, BART finally goes to to the San Francisco International Airport. It went live on Sunday.
BART is, of course, Bay Area Rapid Transit. Or, more correctly, it's the San Francisco and East Bay Rapid Transit Except in the Middle of the Night (SFEBRTEMN), which doesn't have quite the same ring.
At the time of its conception the abbreviation was relatively correct. BART would circle the entire bay and allow people easy transit to everywhere in the Bay Area region. At the time I doubt the planners could have foretold the extreme suburbanfication of much of the east bay and the growth of San Jose till it became a major urban center all on its own. They definitely could not have foreseen the establishment of a high tech business cluster on the southern peninsula. That they wanted to circle the entire bay, even knowing only what they did then, is remarkable.
Less remarkable is the fact that a number of counties pulled out before construction even started. Thus we have no BART trains running under the Golden Gate bridge to the northern peninsula ... and no BART trains running south of San Francisco to the San Francisco Airport.
When I moved up to Berkeley in 1989 BART expansion seemed stagnant. There were four lines, going from Richmond in the north to Fremont in the South, from Daly City in the west to Concord in the east.
Since then the lines have slightly edged out, thanks no doubt to increased public funds brought in from higher corporate taxes during the dot com boom. The Concord line extended a couple of stops east to Bay Point and the Daly City line extended one stop south to the cemetary-town of Colma. More notable a short, new line came into existance, heading east of the East Bay into Dublin. I can't say any of these stops made that much of a difference to me personally; they headed further out in directions I didn't usually travel, and the Dublin line stopped just a bit too far from the DunDraCon hotel, one of the few places I tend to visit on that side of the world. Still, it was cool to see the expansion.
At the same time, however, the balkanization of the public transit systems in the Bay Area continued, even worsened. We have 9 different counties adjoining the Bay; I've seen some sources count a total of 16 closely interconnected counties which people commonly commute to and from. The transitions from county to county have always been hard to manage, with very little interconnectivity of transit systems and very few long-haul transits, other than expensive alternatives like Greyhound.
Caltrain, a long-haul train that goes down the southern peninsula, is a great example of the balkanization. Last time I took Caltrain, to get down to the Mountain View area for a job interview, I was forced to take BART into the city, then tromp a mile and a half through questionable parts of the city, buy an additional ticket, then wait an interminable amount of time for the next (non-coordinated) Caltrain to head out. (More recently you could take BART into the city, hop on the quasi-linked MUNI train that was built to get to the new ball park, then walk a short distance to the Caltrain terminus, but that still sounds like a pain to me.) Recent systems like ACE, an easterly train, haven't done much better in hooking up to the existing systems.
The new BART stations have finally started to fix that. First, there's the train into SFO itself, which suddenly lets airplain travellers directly access part of the Bay Area Public Transit system. Previously I've tended to use Oakland airport, which at least makes half-assed attempts to link up BART to local bus systems, but now I'll be heading straight in to SFO all the way.
Perhaps more importantly is the new end-of-the-line BART station at Millbrae. It's what they call an intermodal transportation station. That means BART hooks up directly to Caltrain (and less importantly the local bus systems) at this one station.
This means that I can now hop on a train in Berkeley and go not just to SFO, but also to Mountain View, Sunnyvale, and anywhere else Caltrain goes (including Gilroy, but only on weekdays). This means that through certain Caltrain stops I can now hook into the Santa Clara VTA system and visit the San Jose Convention Center or in a couple of years when the line is finished, my father's house. (The new lightrail is literally running right next door to his house, but he may well be moved to Hawaii by the time it's done.)
And, beyond that, Caltrain is working to synchronize its train schedules with BART.
And, beyond that, folks are working to create passes which may be used at multiple different transit agencies.
And, beyond that, plans are underway to put a bullet train into Millbrae from Southern California within the next decade.
Granted, there's still a long ways to go. A solid intermodal transit station is now needed on the east side of the bay so that it's easy to hook into the Santa Clara VTA from that direction (and Amtrak and ACE). Right now to get to San Jose I'd have to go west into the Peninsula and back, probably wasting an hour, and to connect to Amtrak I either have to take a slow bus down into Oakland or else head north into Richmond then come back for a, usually, southernly trip.
But still, it's a very nice start, and some good attention given to public transit in this area. I just hope it doesn't dry up with deficits looming due to financial mismanagement at the state and federal levels and massive tax giveaways to Bush's rich buddies in the face of those deficits.
I like this article because it has a cool map of the new SFO trams: History is Here.
Here's the entire BART system map: BART map.
This is a somewhat confusing diagram which shows the balkanized Bay Area transit systems: Bay Area transit map.
BART is, of course, Bay Area Rapid Transit. Or, more correctly, it's the San Francisco and East Bay Rapid Transit Except in the Middle of the Night (SFEBRTEMN), which doesn't have quite the same ring.
At the time of its conception the abbreviation was relatively correct. BART would circle the entire bay and allow people easy transit to everywhere in the Bay Area region. At the time I doubt the planners could have foretold the extreme suburbanfication of much of the east bay and the growth of San Jose till it became a major urban center all on its own. They definitely could not have foreseen the establishment of a high tech business cluster on the southern peninsula. That they wanted to circle the entire bay, even knowing only what they did then, is remarkable.
Less remarkable is the fact that a number of counties pulled out before construction even started. Thus we have no BART trains running under the Golden Gate bridge to the northern peninsula ... and no BART trains running south of San Francisco to the San Francisco Airport.
When I moved up to Berkeley in 1989 BART expansion seemed stagnant. There were four lines, going from Richmond in the north to Fremont in the South, from Daly City in the west to Concord in the east.
Since then the lines have slightly edged out, thanks no doubt to increased public funds brought in from higher corporate taxes during the dot com boom. The Concord line extended a couple of stops east to Bay Point and the Daly City line extended one stop south to the cemetary-town of Colma. More notable a short, new line came into existance, heading east of the East Bay into Dublin. I can't say any of these stops made that much of a difference to me personally; they headed further out in directions I didn't usually travel, and the Dublin line stopped just a bit too far from the DunDraCon hotel, one of the few places I tend to visit on that side of the world. Still, it was cool to see the expansion.
At the same time, however, the balkanization of the public transit systems in the Bay Area continued, even worsened. We have 9 different counties adjoining the Bay; I've seen some sources count a total of 16 closely interconnected counties which people commonly commute to and from. The transitions from county to county have always been hard to manage, with very little interconnectivity of transit systems and very few long-haul transits, other than expensive alternatives like Greyhound.
Caltrain, a long-haul train that goes down the southern peninsula, is a great example of the balkanization. Last time I took Caltrain, to get down to the Mountain View area for a job interview, I was forced to take BART into the city, then tromp a mile and a half through questionable parts of the city, buy an additional ticket, then wait an interminable amount of time for the next (non-coordinated) Caltrain to head out. (More recently you could take BART into the city, hop on the quasi-linked MUNI train that was built to get to the new ball park, then walk a short distance to the Caltrain terminus, but that still sounds like a pain to me.) Recent systems like ACE, an easterly train, haven't done much better in hooking up to the existing systems.
The new BART stations have finally started to fix that. First, there's the train into SFO itself, which suddenly lets airplain travellers directly access part of the Bay Area Public Transit system. Previously I've tended to use Oakland airport, which at least makes half-assed attempts to link up BART to local bus systems, but now I'll be heading straight in to SFO all the way.
Perhaps more importantly is the new end-of-the-line BART station at Millbrae. It's what they call an intermodal transportation station. That means BART hooks up directly to Caltrain (and less importantly the local bus systems) at this one station.
This means that I can now hop on a train in Berkeley and go not just to SFO, but also to Mountain View, Sunnyvale, and anywhere else Caltrain goes (including Gilroy, but only on weekdays). This means that through certain Caltrain stops I can now hook into the Santa Clara VTA system and visit the San Jose Convention Center or in a couple of years when the line is finished, my father's house. (The new lightrail is literally running right next door to his house, but he may well be moved to Hawaii by the time it's done.)
And, beyond that, Caltrain is working to synchronize its train schedules with BART.
And, beyond that, folks are working to create passes which may be used at multiple different transit agencies.
And, beyond that, plans are underway to put a bullet train into Millbrae from Southern California within the next decade.
Granted, there's still a long ways to go. A solid intermodal transit station is now needed on the east side of the bay so that it's easy to hook into the Santa Clara VTA from that direction (and Amtrak and ACE). Right now to get to San Jose I'd have to go west into the Peninsula and back, probably wasting an hour, and to connect to Amtrak I either have to take a slow bus down into Oakland or else head north into Richmond then come back for a, usually, southernly trip.
But still, it's a very nice start, and some good attention given to public transit in this area. I just hope it doesn't dry up with deficits looming due to financial mismanagement at the state and federal levels and massive tax giveaways to Bush's rich buddies in the face of those deficits.
I like this article because it has a cool map of the new SFO trams: History is Here.
Here's the entire BART system map: BART map.
This is a somewhat confusing diagram which shows the balkanized Bay Area transit systems: Bay Area transit map.
