From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Newsgroups: rec.railroad,ba.transportation,talk.politics.misc,talk.environment
Subject: Re: Cost of transit systems vs highways
Date: 15 Aug 92 01:10:32 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: LLNL

In article <1992Aug14.153829.21025@Veritas.COM> joshua@Veritas.COM (Joshua Levy) writes:
>In article <1992Aug13.031357.28165@mercury.cair.du.edu> tkoppel@cassandra.cair.du.edu (Ted Koppel) writes:
>>  MARTA will eventually move into Cobb, Gwinnett, and other Atlanta counties,
>>  but it won't be easy.  It may take another fuel crisis, or some other
>>  cathartic event .... but eventually it will happen.

>Don't bet on it.  At least not in your lifetime.  BART sounds like the
>San Francisco Bay Area's version of MARTA.  It was voted in by 3 counties
>about 25 years ago.  Two other local counties voted it down then, and
>have still not bought into it.  Based on how much BART costs, I doubt
>either of them ever will.  Basically you pay a billion dollars to get
>one train line.  What's the point?  You could by dozens, if not hundreds
>of mile of freeway for that price, and more people would use it.

	I am confident that you are dead wrong. One might get only 10
miles of freeway -- if in a relatively unpopulated area -- and a lot
less in some heavily urbanized area.

	Some rebuilding of a wrecked freeway in Oakland will cost
about $400 million/mile, a lot more than it is costing to extend BART,
which is about $50 to $100 million/mile.

	And BART is a heck of a lot environmentally cleaner than a
traffic-jammed freeway.

	And it works -- only half of the San Francisco -- East Bay
commute traffic goes by the Bay Bridge. The other half goes by BART,
which travels in a tunnel beneath the Bay. Guess who has the more
comfortable and less stressful ride?

	I've read a glossy book full of rather neat-looking apartments
in the Bay Area, and a sizable fraction of them advertise their
proximity to BART.

	The only criticism I consider really serious of BART I have
seen is its cost, but I think it is difficult to avoid that for a
system with its performance. If there is any good reason to think
otherwise, then give reasons, rather than flames.

	There is a big story behind why there are only 3 counties in
BART (San Francisco, Alameda, and Contra Costa). When it was planned
in about 1960, Marin County, San Mateo County, and Santa Clara County
were also slated to be BART counties. But Marin County pulled out
after arguments over whether or not it would be safe to send BART
trains over the Golden Gate Bridge. San Mateo County pulled out, after
Marin County shrunk the tax base, because some thought that CalTrain
was good enough rail service, and after a leading developer decided
that BART would make San Francisco's stores too accessible for SMC
shoppers. Santa Clara County pulled out because it was relatively
undeveloped at the time (that was well before SCC became known to all
the world as Silicon Valley :-).

	Now, BART is being extended in Alameda and Contra Costa
Counties, and an extension is being built out to the San Francisco
airport, in San Mateo County. SMC is now in the process of "buying in"
to BART, and there are arguments over extending BART beyond the
airport.

	Santa Clara County? They will probably argue over whether it
will be worth the money for some time.
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