From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Subject: Re: Clinton, Gore, and the End of the Automobile Age
Organization: LLNL
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 00:20:01 GMT

In article <131788@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> shaw@s119.es.llnl.gov (Henry Shaw 510 423-4645) writes:
>In article <1992Jul25.060358.10421@ke4zv.uucp>, gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman) writes:
:
:|: 
:|: In NYC the subway is a necessity, but in cities like Los Angles, Atlanta,
:|: Houston, and a host of others the density is not high enough across broad
:|: areas of the city and population originations and destinations are too widely
:|: spread in all directions to be served by fixed rail. Diesel bus systems are
:|: only superior on limited routes at limited times. Thus they don't meet the
:|: diverse needs of many people.
:|: 
:|: BART has the advantage of serving a small inner city core and a geographically
:|: constrained bedroom population along the Bay penninsula. This "strip city"
:|: approach is well suited to rail transit. Los Angles, and Atlanta, have
:|: multiple cores dispersed about the area and bedroom populations scattered
:|: widely in all directions. The hub and spoke systems that try to serve their
:|: transit needs are woefully inefficient in travel time and energy efficiency.
:
:You need to brush up on your geography, as well a look at a BART map sometime.  BART does *NOT* service 
:the penninsula.  When BART was first being planned, the bay area counties were each given the option of 
:whether to extend BART service into their county.  Counties that voted to have the service were required to 
:"buy into" the system through an increase in the county sales tax.  Both San Mateo county (most of the 
:penninsula) and Marin county (to the north of SF, across the Golden Gate) opted out, primarily, I believe, 
:because they feared that the presence of BART would encourage further development.  As time has shown, however, 
:development of both counties has proceded apace, and their mass transit problems have only gotten worse for 
:their shortsightedness.

	Marin County's problem was that a BART line would have to go
over the Golden Gate Bridge, and bridge engineers were worried about
the safety of sending BART trains over it -- picture a 400-ton train
going 60-80 mph.

	San Mateo County? There was a leading developer who had been
worried about making San Francisco _too_ accessible to SMC residents,
who would then go to SF shopping malls instead of SMC ones. There were
also those who felt that the CalTrain commuter train was good enough
and that they didn't need BART. Now, the SMC extensions will cost a
lot more than they might have if they had been part of BART's original
system.

	Marin County? I don't know of plans for _any_ kind of rail
service anytime soon.

:BART serves the San Francisco, Alameda, and Contra Costa counties.  Only San Francisco Co. can be considered 
:geographically constrained.  Both Alameda and Contra Costa Counties extend some 40 miles eastward from the 
:east shore of the Bay.

	That is certainly true. Interestingly, one thing that helps
for BART is its abundant park-and-ride lots, which make BART
accessible for those who cannot be troubled to use the various local
buses, or those who find the buses too awkward to use. And the BART
park-and-ride lots are usually _full_. All the more reason to build
extensions :-)

	Part of the reason for the extensions is political -- those
living in the eastern parts of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties have
been paying BART taxes for 20 years without getting anything more than
bus service.


Xref: sparky sci.environment:10167 sci.physics:11820 sci.energy:3743