BART to Hercules, Supervisor says yes (San Diego, San Jose: purchase, luxury, subsidized)

[DocGoldstein]

Originally Posted by jade408

How do you explain the staged roll-outs of hard floors, vinyl seats, and the recently ordered contract of new BART cars?
BART - New Train Car Project

Or th Macarthur transit village? (with phase one of a parking garage due to be completed in about 1 year or so): MacArthur Transit Village

Or the the Airport connector? BART - Oakland Airport Connector (it is almost done!)

Vinyl seats? How much does it cost to add those? $2 a pop?

The Oakland airport connector was supposed to be done and completed in the EARLY 2000s (I know, it was in the papers during that time). Then they said 2010. Then when they got funding finally, they said 2014. My guess is 2016-2018. So nearly 20 years past schedule to do a connector that is literally... what... 2-3 miles of track? That's like a DECADE a mile. Not exactly a great accomplishment.

[18Montclair]

Originally Posted by Nexis4Jersey

Capacity wise , your system is in bad shape.... Its in good structural shape....although it needs some seismic upgrades.. Just like certain parts of our system are in bad shape , the solution is to expand our Regional Rail system into the Urban areas to take the pressure off the Urban Transitways... Regional Rail or S-Bahn can be converted into a hybrid , however Subways or U-Bahns tend to be more expensive you try to design them like S-Bahns.... The Suburban People are overcrowding your Urban system , so by the time the Urban users often get on or attempt to get on the train is already near capacity. You really don't have these issues in regions or cities with Equal systems....the Ridership is evenly spread out.

Once again, the inability to find seats hardly qualifies as justification to throw around so strong and utterly inaccurate a term as 'collapsing' to describe the state of BART.

As if.

[18Montclair]

Found an article that basically says the same thing I saw on KPIX.

BART board member wants to extend service north along I-80 corridor - Inside Bay Area

I didnt know this:
Mallett says that for West Contra Costa, an alignment along I-80 is the only one that makes sense.
"In today's 21st century, the development in suburban communities follows freeways, not railroads," he said. "The freeway is where everyone goes to get in and out of town. If we want to competitively capture that market of travelers, we must be in the near vicinity of the freeway. Commuters will not inconvenience themselves by traveling an extra length (to the railroad) to access transit."

He said El Cerrito Del Norte is the most congested regional transfer station in the BART system. Another statistic he likes to cite: Nearly 60 percent of the ridership at El Cerrito Del Norte consists of commuters who reside north of El Cerrito and Richmond.

"The likelihood of someone using transit is in part a function of how far they must travel to access transit," Mallett said.

[/quote]

[DocGoldstein]

Originally Posted by 18Montclair

Found an article that basically says the same thing I saw on KPIX.

BART board member wants to extend service north along I-80 corridor - Inside Bay Area

I didnt know this:
Mallett says that for West Contra Costa, an alignment along I-80 is the only one that makes sense.
"In today's 21st century, the development in suburban communities follows freeways, not railroads," he said. "The freeway is where everyone goes to get in and out of town. If we want to competitively capture that market of travelers, we must be in the near vicinity of the freeway. Commuters will not inconvenience themselves by traveling an extra length (to the railroad) to access transit."

He said El Cerrito Del Norte is the most congested regional transfer station in the BART system. Another statistic he likes to cite: Nearly 60 percent of the ridership at El Cerrito Del Norte consists of commuters who reside north of El Cerrito and Richmond.

"The likelihood of someone using transit is in part a function of how far they must travel to access transit," Mallett said.

[/quote]

Agree with all of the above.

Anyone who has driven on I80 knows how congested it has become. It's probably single worst highway section in terms of congestion in the Bay Area.

[Gentoo]

Originally Posted by 18Montclair

Found an article that basically says the same thing I saw on KPIX.

BART board member wants to extend service north along I-80 corridor - Inside Bay Area

I didnt know this:
Mallett says that for West Contra Costa, an alignment along I-80 is the only one that makes sense.
"In today's 21st century, the development in suburban communities follows freeways, not railroads," he said. "The freeway is where everyone goes to get in and out of town. If we want to competitively capture that market of travelers, we must be in the near vicinity of the freeway. Commuters will not inconvenience themselves by traveling an extra length (to the railroad) to access transit."

He said El Cerrito Del Norte is the most congested regional transfer station in the BART system. Another statistic he likes to cite: Nearly 60 percent of the ridership at El Cerrito Del Norte consists of commuters who reside north of El Cerrito and Richmond.

"The likelihood of someone using transit is in part a function of how far they must travel to access transit," Mallett said.

[/quote]I can attest to that Del Norte station. I get on at Richmond. Not a problem, plenty of seats. At times so many people get on at Del Norte, just the next stop that when we get to the third stop on the line, EC Plaza, it's often standing room only.

Oh and yeah, BART was way ahead on realizing the freeway things. All of the existing lines follow freeways. Even the commuter trains some love to mention tend to follow the freeways.

[DocGoldstein]

That's exactly why a North Bay train would help I80 so much. Imagine a station in Vallejo that funnels a large portion of the Fairfield-Suisun, and Vallejo traffic to S.F OFF the freeway.

[sav858]

Solano Express Route 90 already funnels a lot of Fairfield, Suisun, and Vacaville commuters to EC Del Norte BART. It would even carry more if parking at the Fairfield Transportation Center wasn't at capacity. I really don't think extending BART across the Carquinez Straight makes much financial sense. Plus Vallejo already has a direct Ferry and Express Bus connection.

[Gentoo]

Originally Posted by DocGoldstein

That's exactly why a North Bay train would help I80 so much. Imagine a station in Vallejo that funnels a large portion of the Fairfield-Suisun, and Vallejo traffic to S.F OFF the freeway.

I think I mentioned the Vallejo thing before

[jrb724]

I'm sure BART is not funded as well as it should be but keep in mind that operating/maintenance costs (repairs, etc) and capital costs (extensions, new stations, new cars) are two completely different pots of money and generally funds are earmarked for one or the other. I don't know the specifics of BART's funding but that's how government accounting usually works. I hope safety related maintenance is priority #1 but with all the government budget cuts, who knows. By the way, I may have been in grade school, but I was here in 1989 and I was old enough to remember it all too well. Then it took more than a decade to rebuild the Nimitz - 880.

A commuter train originally went on the Bay Bridge. If only there was the foresight and $ to incorporate some sort of transit with the new bridge (rather than build another expensive BART tube). The tube is the biggest bottleneck in the system.

The DC metro system is an interesting comparison in that the DC system was built shortly after BART and DC used BART as a guinea pig so they did not make the same mistakes as BART during development. There was an article several year ago about DC vs the Bay Area systems. One main difference is the DC system is more focused on high density housing around the stations and has far fewer freeway park and ride type stations compared to BART.

BART to Hercules has been discussed for decades. I use to live there and people there would love a station instead of driving to EC Del Norte. Unfortunately, there's a lot of dreaming involved in all transit proposals. These are big ideas but where is the $$ and political will to do them? You need both to get things done. Look at the high speed rail project - those folks on the peninsula near the current Caltrain tracks don't want the train or they want the train underground at huge additional cost. It will take years, if ever, to get it through the heavily populated areas.

[Gentoo]

Originally Posted by jrb724

I'm sure BART is not funded as well as it should be but keep in mind that operating/maintenance costs (repairs, etc) and capital costs (extensions, new stations, new cars) are two completely different pots of money and generally funds are earmarked for one or the other. I don't know the specifics of BART's funding but that's how government accounting usually works. I hope safety related maintenance is priority #1 but with all the government budget cuts, who knows. By the way, I may have been in grade school, but I was here in 1989 and I was old enough to remember it all too well. Then it took more than a decade to rebuild the Nimitz - 880.

A commuter train originally went on the Bay Bridge. If only there was the foresight and $ to incorporate some sort of transit with the new bridge (rather than build another expensive BART tube). The tube is the biggest bottleneck in the system.

The DC metro system is an interesting comparison in that the DC system was built shortly after BART and DC used BART as a guinea pig so they did not make the same mistakes as BART during development. There was an article several year ago about DC vs the Bay Area systems. One main difference is the DC system is more focused on high density housing around the stations and has far fewer freeway park and ride type stations compared to BART.

BART to Hercules has been discussed for decades. I use to live there and people there would love a station instead of driving to EC Del Norte. Unfortunately, there's a lot of dreaming involved in all transit proposals. These are big ideas but where is the $$ and political will to do them? You need both to get things done. Look at the high speed rail project - those folks on the peninsula near the current Caltrain tracks don't want the train or they want the train underground at huge additional cost. It will take years, if ever, to get it through the heavily populated areas.

*sigh* You people and comparing DC to the Bay Area. Where do you people come from? How many times do you have to be told that DC is on the East Coast which has a coastal plain and therefore fewer barriers to building compared to California, on the west coast which has coastal mountains? You can't just build whatever, where ever you want. yes, there were once trains on the bridges. There were also once trains through the cities as I mentioned. There is a reason why they no longer are. For starters, the train companies that offered passenger service (in this case Southern Pacific) got rid of it's passenger service. Not to mention that company itself no longer exist. Any new commuter trains would either have to a.) have a new company created to operate them or b.) run on the existing tracks I already mentioned wouldn't work. Let's say they attempted it: Those tracks are owned by Union Pacific (SP's successor in this area). Those tracks are heavily used. Between The delta and Emeryville, Amtrak operates three (3) lines. UP operates its freight trains and between Oakland and Richmond, BNSF has trackage rights. Both UP and BNSF are higher volume than either of your east coast trains (Norfolk Southern and CSX) Now we want to add yet another train??? Not gonna happen. To you east coast people, we did not come down with the last drop of rain. We didn't somehow miss this stuff you guys keep suggesting. Things are done the way they are here for a freaking reason! The way to expand around here is by BART which is why they are going that route.