BART's Vision For The Future
Now 50 years old, BART looks to the future with a 50-year plan for vast system improvements and expansions throughout the Bay Area including a new transbay tube between Oakland and San Francisco, and an East Bay station in downtown Martinez.
"It was 50 years ago this month that the Legislature formed the Bay Area Rapid Transit District. BART officials figure now is a good time to plot a big-picture vision for the next 50. That effort coincides with a regional rail plan being prepared by a variety of Bay Area transportation agencies."
"At a meeting in Oakland on Thursday, transportation experts discussed their ideas for what BART should become by the time it hits its centennial."
"The shape suggested Thursday seems to be compact and focused on the core BART system instead of dependent on far-reaching extensions. Along with building the planned extensions to Warm Springs and San Jose, an Oakland airport connection and a light-rail link known as eBART in eastern Contra Costa County, BART's plans call for the system to boost its capacity in the central part of its system -- in San Francisco and the East Bay."
"The BART of the future also should offer express trains from destinations such as Concord and Walnut Creek that would skip some stations en route to San Francisco, cutting several minutes from the trip. To offer that service, BART would need to install additional stretches of track that would allow trains to pass each other."
"But the biggest -- and costliest -- improvement would be the addition of a second Transbay Tube. By 2030, the current tube will be at capacity, unable to handle additional trains, said Tom Matoff, a transportation planner working on the regional rail plan."
"The I-680 line would start at the future Warm Springs Station, connect with the Dublin/Pleasanton and Walnut Creek stations, and end in downtown Martinez, where it would meet the Capitol Corridor, San Joaquin and long-distance Amtrak trains."
- Login or register to post comments
- Email this page
Related News Stories
S.F. Looks To Kick Cars Off Market Street - Jul 24, 2008
Highway Funds Losing Money - Jul 22, 2008
Most Walkable City: San Francisco - Jul 18, 2008
FasTrak Toll Hacking: Dangerous Or Ridiculous? - Jul 14, 2008
Networked Parking System Alerts Drivers to Free Spots - Jul 14, 2008
Bay Area planners stuck in Old School era.
We should be skeptical of 2nd BART trans-bay tube. It seems to me that urban planning is evolving toward "Regionalism"; that is, rather than a few skyscraper-shrouded City Centers, many dozens of smaller commercial and historic centers within a metropolitan area are more likely to reduce the nightmarish traffic miasma.
BART trains are overloaded during the rush hours and underutilized off-rush hours and in the reverse-commute direction. Not coincidentally, so do most Bay Area freeways face this same imbalance of utilization. Will a 2nd transbay tube do much other than increase rush hour capacity and the need to get from 'Nowhereville' to Glitz City? Will increasing BART's rush hour capacity concurrently increase rush hour freeway utilization and gridlock? Probably so.
And what does express tracking do but encourage even more long-distance travel? What percentage of the increase in travel demand will be met on the freeways? 50%? 70%? Why bypass stations that will 'always' need economic development and access?
I sense a reversion to 'Old School thought' with this latest planning direction for the Bay Area. Finish the BART connection from Fremont and San Jose. Direct development around BART stations. Extend to Martinez. But most of all, plan and develop as if all motorized travel will of necessity be reduced. Rush hour commuting is so 20th Century.
More suburb-to-suburb lines would be good
I agree that thinking solely in terms of suburb-to-city commuting is old hat. That's why I voted for the I-680 corridor from Warm Springs to Martinez as the best plan for the future. This would create needed connections, for example, Dublin/Pleasanton to Walnut Creek directly, which would today require a trip almost to the center (west oakland) and then back out again.
The Bay Area is truly becoming a megapolitan area, so big that even the Bay is becoming a problematic reference point (when you have the northern San Joaquin Valley and the entire Sacramento region - a metropolitan region in its own right - coming into the fold). Transportation needs to focus beyond the city centers and take into account the multi-nucleated region.
But...
A majority of the people who live in the East Bay STILL work in San Francisco. This is one of the ONLY metropolitan regions in the United States where Los Angeles-style polycentric employment sprawl is not prevalent (except for Silicon Valley).
So the type of planning that BART is doing is NOT "old hat".
If Bay Area Planners
are stuck in the old school, then San Diego and Los Angeles planners are stuck in the Paleozoic Age, with regards to urban/regional transportation planning.
Again, let's keep everything in perspective. No matter how "old school" our public transportation system may "seem" to you, we in the Bay Area still have the 3rd highest transit ridership in the nation, according to the APTA.
Get your facts straight before you are so quick to point the finger on how "bad" things are here in the Bay Area. Perhaps San Diego and its overdependence on the automobile could use a dose of your "straight-shooting criticism". It would be so much more refreshing that seeing the same old commercial on TV advertising the "300+ days of sunshine and Shamu", sponsored by the powerful San Diego Convention and Tourism Board.
By the way, BART is finishing the Fremont to San Jose line (that's a current planning project). The purpose of this VERY informative and enlightening article by the San Francisco Chronicle was just to show how BART is thinking 50 years in advance. That's more than most other metropolitan regions can say, relative to transit/mobility needs.