From: mjvande@pbhye.PacBell.COM (Mike Vandeman)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,ca.environment,ba.transportation
Subject: The Insanity of Building Parking atCommuter Rail Stations
Date: 14 Dec 92 01:42:54 GMT
Followup-To: sci.environment
Organization: Pacific * Bell


                                   December 12, 1992
BART Board of Directors
c/o Sherman Lewis
800 Madison Street
Oakland, California 94607

Re: BART Parking Construction

Gentlepersons:

     What, another letter opposing parking construction? What was
wrong with the last five letters? Nothing, except that they were
all ignored by BART and the MTC. Obviously, what we have here is
not a democracy, but an elected auto-cracy (government by the
automobile). Like most government bodies in the Bay Area, BART
needs to listen more to its consitituents, and start restoring our
quality of life, by helping to eliminate our dependence on the
automobile and its relatives.

     Please stop the offensive "Dear Passenger" letters that assert
that "the added parking capacity of the new garage will benefit all
BART passengers using the Walnut Creek Station". Will the whole
structure be devoted to bicycle parking? How else could it benefit
me? Certainly not by allowing more cars to pollute the air around
the station, or get in the way of the buses. Certainly not by
spending several thousand dollars on each auto user in order to get
them to do us a favor and use BART. Certainly not by ensuring that
BART stations are surrounded by a wasteland of concrete whose only
function is to store automobiles for 10 hours a day and be even
less productive (if possible!) the other 14 hours.

     Bicyclists who use the Walnut Creek station are treated to
parking which is not safe (witness several bicycle skeletons still
locked to your racks), and is not even protected from the rain!
There are only a few secure lockers, and several of those get
dripped on by water leaking through the station. Of course,
bicyclists have to pay to use those lockers, whereas auto users are
given free use of spaces that cost about 10-20 times as much!
Further insults are forcing bicyclists to use the stairs (have you
ever tried carrying a bicycle out of Civic Center Station! in
Montreal you are allowed to use the escalators) and to ride only
during off-peak hours. Baby carriages, which are quite similar to
bicycles, don't get this treatment.

     As extreme examples of BART's break with reality, witness
Director Joe Fitzpatrick's proposal to provide free valet parking
(presumably not available to bicyclists), and Wil Ussery's
fantasies about Maglev (which even the Japanese haven't been able
to make commercially viable, after decades of research). Like most
branches of government, BART could use an injection of fiscal and
scientific reality. You could get both by simply opening your ears
and minds to the public.

     The very least you should do with the parking is charge a
realistic fee for its use, and make sure that it is constructed
using road funds (since it benefits only auto users), not scarce
transit funds. But ideally, the area around the station should be
developed with stores, hotels, and other amenities that make better
use of the fact that the stations are our most transit-accessible
locations. Stations that aren't in the middle of a freeway (and
hence noise and pollution)(which, by the way, should be all
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stations) would make excellent places for schools and universities
(whose students commute from all over the Bay Area) to build extra
classrooms. Space that is that accessible should receive constant
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use. Even housing, which sits idle for 10 hours a day, is not a
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good use of a transit hub. Making the best use of all of our
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resources is the only way we can reduce the national debt and
survive in the world economy. When we consider that our supplies of
oil will run out around 2020, laying more asphalt and concrete is
clearly unwise.

                                   Sincerely,


                                   Michael J. Vandeman, Ph.D.
                                   Alliance for a Paving Moratorium
                                   Auto-Free Bay Area
Newsgroups: sci.environment,ca.environment,ba.transportation