From: loren@netcom.com (Loren Hart)
Subject: Re: (B)ART & (C)alTrain to stay on SMCo. ballot
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 20:37:04 GMT

lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
: In article <1992Oct6.201040.22880@ntmtv> adrian@ntmtv.UUCP (Adrian Brandt) writes:

: 	That may well be the case, but BART outperforms CalTrain very
: handily. And a BART-level CalTrain will probably have BART-level
: costs, such as big parking lots and garages, a _completely_ separated
: right-of-way, new rolling stock, and so forth.

I think Caltrain outperforms BART today by an extreamly wide margin.

Time to get from Light Rail to Mountain view via CalTrain:
    30 minutes if you make the transfer, 90 minutes if you just miss it.

Time to get from Light Rail to Mountain view via BART:
    13 yeas with your most optomistic estimate, 25 years is more likely.
    Never if we don't waste our money on BART and choose spend our
    money enhancing CalTrain.

: Based on the BART to the airport
: >time-frames, BART to Menlo Park ("throughout the county") could 
: >easily take another 10 years or more for a completion date of around
: >2012 or later... 
: 
: 	Well, it depends on when they start work on it. A BART line is
: scheduled to be in SFO by 2000, not 2002; and if they start work on a
: line through the Peninsula in the late 1990's, then it could all be
: done in 2005 or so. Simply check on the timetables and expected for
: the extensions now under construction. I suspect that the cost will be
: about $50-$100 m/mi, including stations.

Not bloody likely that BART will be down the peninsula as soon as
2012.  And BART's very own estimates are more like $118 M/mi.

: >Another kicker: Santa Clara County has no official interest in having
: >BART.  They have slowly and quietly come to the realization that BART
: >is not the answer.
: 
: 	Or they are not willing to commit to BART just yet. There were
: meetings on a feasibility of BART extensions into Milpitas and San
: Jose last month, which _does_ indicate some official interest.

The only way that Santa Clara will commit to BART is if BART gives up
the outragious idea of an $800 Million buy in.  BART would probably
have to give up the idea of a buyin altogether to convince Santa Clara
to go with BART.

: Their new Measure A is careful not to make any
: >mention of BART into Santa Clara County.  What it *does* say, is that
: >it will fund a "rail link" to Fremont/Warm Springs BART.
: 
: 	I can tell what kind of a rail link there is going to be,
: since the SC LR system will be extended to Milpitas, and by the time
: the line gets there, BART should be at Warm Springs. Then, it is
: either BART into Milpitas or the SC LR into Warm Springs.
: 
: 	Compared to SC's LRV's, BART's trains will go 2 or 3 times
: faster into downtown San Jose, however. The choice is between cheap
: and slow, or fast and expensive.

Try more like 50% faster.  You are constantly representing BART's
average speed as faster than it really is, and the LRT speed as slower
than it really is.  Bart's average speed is about 33 MPH and the LRT
averages about 26 MPH for the sections that are exclusively freeway
median.  It is MUCH cheaper to build LRT that doesn't have grade level
crossings than to build BART.

:  How much
: >sense does it make for San Mateo County to build BART at great cost,
: >disruption and delay to Menlo Park when the system will merely end
: >there (in a characteristically huge BART parking monstrosity)? 
: 
: 	Just like Tamien :-)
: 
: 	You might want to visit it sometime and cry, because Tamien
: looks suspiciously BARTified.

The Tamien Caltrain Station cost less than Half what a BART station costs.
-- 
=============================================================================
Mr Loren L. Hart                                       The Ada Ace Group, Inc
loren@netcom.com                                       P.O. Box 36195
				                       San Jose, CA  95158