Battle brewing over BART extension to Livermore (Oakland, Montclair: cost, centers)

[OrangeSunset]

The plan is to always have 2 stations, one at Vasco (where infrastructure is already there for ACE and it's close to the labs) and another one either at freeway OR downtown. The people of Livermore already spoke and the chances of getting a station downtown is slim to none. People don't want all the growth in downtown, they want to keep it small and filled with local businesses. People don't want anything like downtown Walnut Creek or worse...Oakland. The freeway extension makes sense and BART to Livermore will happen because it has been paid for already.

[jade408]

Originally Posted by NorCal Dude

Trying to link ACE and Bart is shortsighted in that Ace funnels valley commuters into Silicon Valley.Most riders get off in fremont, santa clara, or san jose. They have no need to ride bart. You could just extend bart all the way down the freeway to the vasco exit and ace riders could shuttle up vasco at a much cheaper operating cost. You have to remember, Livermore arterial roads can not accommodate the entire 209 commute base anymore than pleasanton can. It makes more sense to keep the thing on the freeway over there.

Bart most certainly needs to be extended to brentwood and san jose as well.

Lots of people in Modesto/Stockton/Tracy work in other parts of the Bay Area. There only choice is to drive since ACE doesn't connect to anything else.

BART focuses all of its efforts to increase capacity during the peak hours, but BART doesn't have the capacity for more people at peak. New stations in the urban areas of the Bay Area will increase ridership in the off peak times. After commuting to SF, most BART trips originate in Oakland and end in Oakland. BART has a ton of capacity in off hours in is under-utilized. It is far too expensive to keep spreading out in the suburbs to find more commuters -- and BART can't handle the load.

BART to San Jose or anywhere else doesn't solve the real problem: the last mile. No one will take BART to work or anywhere if where they need to go after they leave the station is more than a 10 minute walk. If the stations aren't near denser areas, and growth isn't planned near BART, it becomes a giant dead zone disconnecting the cityscape. A gold plated parking lot for most hours of the day.

Dublin has mad huge strides in the past 10 years or so at building up the area around the BART station. People are actually walking to their offices and walking around the area. It has become Dublin's town center. On the flip side Castro Valley and San Leandro BART stations are big parking lots and the traffic doesn't add vibrancy to the surrounding neighborhood.

[tetka_grunya]

Originally Posted by Nexis4Jersey

They don't measure HSR per mile , or even commuter Rail , its done per station...

It doesn't matter how they measure, it matters how much each ride will cost

[NorCal Dude]

Originally Posted by jade408

Lots of people in Modesto/Stockton/Tracy work in other parts of the Bay Area. There only choice is to drive since ACE doesn't connect to anything else.

BART focuses all of its efforts to increase capacity during the peak hours, but BART doesn't have the capacity for more people at peak. New stations in the urban areas of the Bay Area will increase ridership in the off peak times. After commuting to SF, most BART trips originate in Oakland and end in Oakland. BART has a ton of capacity in off hours in is under-utilized. It is far too expensive to keep spreading out in the suburbs to find more commuters -- and BART can't handle the load.

BART to San Jose or anywhere else doesn't solve the real problem: the last mile. No one will take BART to work or anywhere if where they need to go after they leave the station is more than a 10 minute walk. If the stations aren't near denser areas, and growth isn't planned near BART, it becomes a giant dead zone disconnecting the cityscape. A gold plated parking lot for most hours of the day.

Dublin has mad huge strides in the past 10 years or so at building up the area around the BART station. People are actually walking to their offices and walking around the area. It has become Dublin's town center. On the flip side Castro Valley and San Leandro BART stations are big parking lots and the traffic doesn't add vibrancy to the surrounding neighborhood.

I get what you are saying. Coming from Chicago I understand the value of urban neighborhood stations. But coming from there I also understand that a commuter rail has to balance its service to the people who pay for it as well. It's a tough road a head either way you try to slice it.

[geoking66]

Originally Posted by jade408

Lots of people in Modesto/Stockton/Tracy work in other parts of the Bay Area. There only choice is to drive since ACE doesn't connect to anything else.

BART focuses all of its efforts to increase capacity during the peak hours, but BART doesn't have the capacity for more people at peak. New stations in the urban areas of the Bay Area will increase ridership in the off peak times. After commuting to SF, most BART trips originate in Oakland and end in Oakland. BART has a ton of capacity in off hours in is under-utilized. It is far too expensive to keep spreading out in the suburbs to find more commuters -- and BART can't handle the load.

BART to San Jose or anywhere else doesn't solve the real problem: the last mile. No one will take BART to work or anywhere if where they need to go after they leave the station is more than a 10 minute walk. If the stations aren't near denser areas, and growth isn't planned near BART, it becomes a giant dead zone disconnecting the cityscape. A gold plated parking lot for most hours of the day.

Dublin has mad huge strides in the past 10 years or so at building up the area around the BART station. People are actually walking to their offices and walking around the area. It has become Dublin's town center. On the flip side Castro Valley and San Leandro BART stations are big parking lots and the traffic doesn't add vibrancy to the surrounding neighborhood.

Exactly. So much I hear from anti-smart growth people that ridership is low when train lines get built so there's no reason to try and create modal shifts away from BART, but that's because they don't understand that public transportation is only part of the broader equation: you need well-designed, compact, and walkable neighborhoods within walking distance of a station entrance or you've just wasted millions of dollars.

[EdJS]

Originally Posted by evergraystate

And thats the cold hard truth. You can't argue with this fact. If we eliminated BART completely tomorrow, hardly anyone would notice. As a mass transit system BART is a complete failure.

The trains are packed every single weekday. Those riders would notice, I'm sure. I don't think that any mass transit system is a "failure" when it is so heavily used.

[evergraystate]

Originally Posted by EdJS

The trains are packed every single weekday. Those riders would notice, I'm sure. I don't think that any mass transit system is a "failure" when it is so heavily used.

Its a failure when it benefits so few people at such high cost.

[Ceece]

Originally Posted by evergraystate

Its a failure when it benefits so few people at such high cost.

I don't know how it could be much different. Some stations don't have transit villages around them, it's true. That's not the way people thought when BART came into being. But I can't imagine living in the Bay Area and having to get to and from and around SF without it. Seriously.

Now the cost..yes...probably there is A LOT of crap going on there that shouldn't be but that's a whole other debate.

[sav858]

Originally Posted by jade408

Sorry, Livermore expansion (although technically funded) is equally as pointless as the Airport Connector. They estimate that the station will attract 10,000 boardings a day. In contrast, and infill station in East Oakland between Fruitvale and Lake Merritt stations would attrack 50K boardings no problem.

There are at least 3 better locations in Oakland and another few in SF that are more practical and would have more boardings. They'd also have a lower impact at peak, especially considering BART really doesn't have much capacity to handle more peak commute hours passenger traffic under the bay.

There is already existing service between the Coliseum station and the airport. The connector will barely carry anymore passengers than the existing service and it will cost a half a billion dollars too. The OAC is a huge waste of money that is basically replicating existing service and not increasing ridership along the corridor to come close to justifying the cost.

No rapid transit service exists in Livermore than connects it to the rest of the East Bay and SF. And you're trying to compare extending a transit line to building an infill station, that is not the same thing. BART is mostly a suburban system, not some mostly urban rail system. Not saying infill stations don't make sense but trying to equate extending BART to Livermore versus the OAC is ridiculous.

[sav858]

Originally Posted by jade408

After commuting to SF, most BART trips originate in Oakland and end in Oakland.

I'm really curious to where you are getting this from because I've seen you say it before but I don't see how you come to this conclusion based on data. Based on people entering stations, far more people enter through stations outside of the city of Oakland than within. From the data I've seen a little over 60,000 people enter stations in Oakland. Over 130,000 enter stations outside of Oakland not including SF. Most BART boarding originate outside of Oakland.

http://www.bart.gov/docs/StationProf...Report_web.pdf