SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA: Transit/Transportation News

[pdxstreetcar]

I don't think its really about serving Marin as much as its about a key regional connection between BART and SMART that happens to be in Marin. Its looking like the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge is going to have to be replaced in the near future. Given BART currently terminates in Richmond and a new Richmond-San Rafael Bridge could theorically include a rail right of way that gets you to Marin and also gets you much of the distance. San Rafael is also a natural terminus (traditional downtown and local transit hub) and is not too far from the bridge. San Rafael could also be the only BART station in Marin (or there could also be a more park-n-ride focused one near 580 and San Quentin).

Sure there is the complexity of bringing Marin into the BART district and the fact that Marin is a world-famous hotbed for hypocritical eco-NIMBYs.

The other option is getting SMART to Richmond but thats probably harder with its terminal now in Larkspur. Personally I think BART makes more sense to cross the bridge given its the main regional transit system for the Bay Area so its the more logical one to span between close-in counties. SMART is a great system but in my opinion better suited to the NWP corridor with good but somewhat infrequent service linking more distant towns.

Maybe SMART could be extended further south to Corte Madera, Mill Valley and North Sausalito and then San Rafael could be the big regional hub transfer point for BART?

[mthd]

Originally Posted by pdxstreetcar

I don't think its really about serving Marin as much as its about a key regional connection between BART and SMART that happens to be in Marin. Its looking like the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge is going to have to be replaced in the near future. Given BART currently terminates in Richmond and a new Richmond-San Rafael Bridge could theorically include a rail right of way that gets you to Marin and also gets you much of the distance. San Rafael is also a natural terminus (traditional downtown and local transit hub) and is not too far from the bridge. San Rafael could also be the only BART station in Marin (or there could also be a more park-n-ride focused one near 580 and San Quentin).....

i think it's an interesting question. deep tunnels with TBMs have become pretty commonplace elsewhere in the world, so i'd phrase the question like this:

if a new bart line in 2030 crosses the bay into the south of market/mission bay and ends up going west under geary, how many riders are served and what are the capital costs and operating costs of the following two scenarios:

a) turn right under park presidio, put a station at california street, a station somewhere in the presidio, a station in sausalito, corta madera, near 101 and francisco (blow up all that big box stuff for a massive TOD), and then in downtown san rafael. 15.4 miles of tunnel, 6 stations, a new regional rail connection, and a one seat ride from san rafael to downtown san francisco to oakland and beyond.

b) keep going down geary to lands end, possible turning left and creating a small spur that links up with the N judah. do some medium scale TOD out there where the safeway is, the underutilized strip between the great highway and la playa, etc. 3.5 miles, 5ish stations.

i'm guessing the latter actually gets more riders, although a HUGE percentage of them would be already riding muni light rail and electric buses, which are powered by the PUC and totally carbon neutral. the riders being removed from the golden gate bridge are driving those 15 miles...

[Busy Bee]

Just to nitpick a bit but a Geary BART that turned north at Park Presidio and roughly tunneled under Veterans Drive through the Presidio and over the Golden Gate would only have about a 3 mile tunnel from when it comes off the GG coming up in Marin City. From there it could roughly parallel 101 above ground within the r.o.w. all the way to San Rafael.

[mthd]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

Just to nitpick a bit but a Geary BART that turned north at Park Presidio and roughly tunneled under Veterans Drive through the Presidio and over the Golden Gate would only have about a 3 mile tunnel from when it comes off the GG coming up in Marin City. From there it could roughly parallel 101 above ground within the r.o.w. all the way to San Rafael.

cool as it might be to see that, there is virtually no way that above ground grade separated heavy rail will be built over the golden gate and into marin county. the impact on the bridge and the freeway along with the aesthetic impacts would be insurmountable. better to suck it up like they have in most of asia and europe and just go deep with TBMs. there's no infrastructure down there to avoid. the biggest issue besides ventilation would be the depth of the bay - it would have to go down around 300 feet. not that much deeper than tunnels in europe, japan, turkey...

once the TBM is down there, construction is pretty much site unseen until you get to the stations. if we could get the cost down to say $250m per mile (more than the rest of the world and what elon says it'll cost, but much less than what the US often pays) a project like this might pencil for around $5B total.

[Busy Bee]

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But that isn't necessary. It's not rocket science. After some back and forth way back in the 1950s, it was finally determined in the 60's that the Golden Gate could easily accomodate a BART lower deck after some minor alterations that wouldn't affect the aesthetics of the bridge. You can't tell me this would be more expensive than a mega-deep bored tunnel. Not to mention the obvious appeal and preferrence riders would have with a routing over the bridge with the views that would afford and not being 300 hundred feet under the bay. I can't imagine how hard on the ears that would be.


There's a good Gate article about the ideas over the years here. A couple of images:


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[SFBruin]

From one of the linked articles:

On BART, it was promised, you'd be able to get from Powell Street in San Francisco to either Santa Rosa, Napa or San Jose in just over an hour, or Palo Alto in 43 minutes.

...

Engineers, the reporter continued, had "been working for two years to make it faster, cheaper and probably more convenient than your own private automobile."

Boy, did they oversell this project (BART) at the beginning. Although, it is more convenient than driving if you have to cross the bridge or the Caldecott.

[mthd]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

But that isn't necessary. It's not rocket science. After some back and forth way back in the 1950s, it was finally determined in the 60's that the Golden Gate could easily accomodate a BART lower deck after some minor alterations that wouldn't affect the aesthetics of the bridge. You can't tell me this would be more expensive than a mega-deep bored tunnel....

yes, yes i believe it would. it cost $600 million to retrofit the golden gate, and it's not done yet. it cost $6.4 billion to build the new east span of the bay bridge. hanging a bunch of NETS from the bridge is going to cost $198 million, and counting. tunnels would have to emerge from underneath the current approach ramps after being bored UNDER the freeway and adjacent structures, pass through the very dense southern arch structure, all above/in a national historic site. at the other end they have to somehow get through the north buttress and then back underground or through the freeway (?) to an above grade alignment.

this is exactly the kind of thinking and project that causes infrastructure costs in the US to be 10x what they are in the rest of the world. the rest of the world would just dig a big tunnel, avoid all the hairy iconic historic world-famous engineering marvels in between, and connect point A to point B.

i bet a 2 mile bart alignment attached to the golden gate bridge would cost $10 billion just by itself.

[Busy Bee]

I think it's safe to say neither of us really know what the costs would be, though I would presume they wouldn;t be as high as you are proclaiming nor the engineering as challlenging.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

I think it's safe to say neither of us really know what the costs would be, though I would presume they wouldn;t be as high as you are proclaiming nor the engineering as challlenging.

Whatever the costs of building a railroad over or under the Golden Gate, you will hit a political obstacle - the Golden Gate Bridge Authority.
https://www.goldengate.org/
They are also the authority running those very efficient ferries and buses crossing the Golden Gate as well. But there is a key limitation placed upon them providing the transit services (bus and ferry) by the law establishing it; they can only provide inter county services, not local intra county or intra city services. That's why their bus services are more akin to Greyhound that Muni.

So if they ran a train track over the Golden Gate Bridge, and the authority owned it, they would be allowed just just one train station per county at the worse, or one train station per city at the best. Even SMART has more than one train station per city, and could build more if they wished. Of course to get around that pesky law, the Golden Gate Bridge Authority could allow other operators to run trains over their bridge. But why would they allow others to undercut and lay waste to their honey pot, money making bridge.

When the Golden Gate Transit was established in the 1970s, it cost them $20 million to buy all the buses and build all the bus transit centers. Building the ferry ports probably cost more, but no where near as much as it would be to tunnel under the Golden Gate or all tracks to the bridge itself. They don't even have to buy the ferries or buses, they could just lease them.
There are economic reasons why they chose to run buses and ferries instead of trains 40+ years ago.

[Busy Bee]

Something tells me their bridge tolls are their bread and butter, not bus and ferry fares.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

Something tells me their bridge tolls are their bread and butter, not bus and ferry fares.

And to add, nor would trains either.

But the buses and ferries have allowed them to continue to charge tolls, the transit and ferry operations were initiated near the same time the original bonds to build the bridge were paid off. Without the money losing, subsidy requiring, bus and ferry operations, the bridge would have long paid off all its' bonds.

Come on and get real, greedy politicians can't afford having millions of dollars collecting in a trust fund they can never tap for other purposes. They always find a way, come hook or crook, to get their hands on that money

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

Something tells me their bridge tolls are their bread and butter, not bus and ferry fares.

Yes. According to wikipedia, "The District's primary revenue source is tolling on the southbound lanes of the Golden Gate Bridge. (The last of the bridge's construction bonds were retired in 1971, with principal and interest raised entirely from bridge tolls.) A mix of tolls, transportation subsidies, and grants is used to support bus and ferry services."

[38R]

Oakland Assemblymember may revive Bay Bridge bus lane proposal
Rob Bonta exploring legislation with support of BART board member

Assemblymember Rob Bonta (D-Oakland) has directed his staff to research legislative solutions to reviving a bus-only lane on the Bay Bridge, spurred by a suggestion from one of his constituents.

To be clear, his spokesperson Jerome Parra said, Bonta is “not committed to a bill,” but he is “researching the idea.” Yet even at this early stage the effort has the support of a member of the BART Board of Directors.

Bonta’s interest in bus-only lanes on the Bay Bridge was sparked by Oakland resident Carter Lavin, who responded to a call from Bonta on Facebook to “please share your best bill ideas with me! The more transformative and impactful, the better!”

Lavin’s suggestion was quickly seconded by BART board director Rebecca Saltzman, who responded “Absolutely this! AC Transit and BART would love to work with you on this,” to which Bonta replied “Let’s do it Carter Lavin & Rebecca Saltzman! Reaching out to you separately now! Rob.”

https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/oakland-assemblymember-may-revive-bay-bridge-bus-only-lane-proposal

[38 Geary]

Is the J Church San Francisco's worst Muni line?
By Amy Graff, SFGATE Updated 7:10 am PST, Thursday, January 23, 2020

"I hate the J Church" are words I've read from my teenagers many times. Our family lives near San Francisco's Muni light-rail line that runs between Noe Valley and downtown, and my kids hop on the train to get around the city. But often, they end up waiting so long that they become frustrated and fire off texts, alerting their parents to the train's unreliability.

"The app keeps saying it will be here in five minutes but it doesn't come. I'm going to be late for school!!!" is just one example of a text I have saved from her on my phone.

...

There are many ways of evaluating each of the lines, and for this story I decided to focus on the percentage of time the trains are late or very late, looking at data from December 2018 to December 2019. Here's what my math revealed:

-KT Ingleside/Third: 50.1%, late or very late

-E Embarcadero: 47%, late or very late

-J Church: 46.5%, late or very late

-M Ocean: 45.9%, late or very late

-N Judah: 39.5%, late or very late

-F Market: 38.9%, late or very late

-L Taraval: 38%, late or very late

The exercise reveals that the J is the third worst and, if you look at the chart in the gallery above, you'll see that the train's recent improvement in performance in November and December helped this line not fall into the worst category. The L Taraval, mainly serving the Parkside District, wins as the best.

https://www.sfgate.com/public-transporta...ne-San-Francisco-data-SFMTA-14995692.php

^ Speaking of which, where has J Church been?

[SFBruin]

I recall the 43 Masonic being both (a) pretty bad at being on time and (b) taking forever to get anywhere.

I would give it a run for its money with the J Church.

[CharlesCO]

I once heard the J as described as being there when you don't need it, not being there when you do.

[craigs]

I'm closest to the J Church, but it's almost never the line I eventually end up taking downtown.

[Pedestrian]

The concept of a Muni vehicle being "late" is one I just don't understand. It suggests there is a schedule and anyone expects it to be followed. No one I know does and no one I have known in 40 years ever has.

It's more sensible to expect the busses or trains to come along more or less at the advertised interval--every 8 minutes, every 15 or whatever--and we all know that's a struggle for Muni as well (the infamous no bus for half an hour, then two together is far too common).

One problem the J-Church has, aside from a long slog on city streets, is the junction behind the Market St. Safeway where it joins the main sub-Market St. line and where it may have to wait to join a line of Ks, Ls and Ms.

PS: I'm closest to the cluster-F sometimes known as the Van Ness BRT project and am wide-eyed with expectations as to how that's actually going to work if it's ever finished.

[hallelujah]

You could get off the J at Church and walk to Van Ness quicker than the train.

[craigs]

"Get off the J at Church?"

It's a line, not a stop.