From: adrian@ntmtv.UUCP (Adrian Brandt)
Subject: BART *into* SFO update
Followup-To: ba.transportation
Keywords: SFO BART CalTrain Kopp JPB
Organization: Northern Telecom Inc, Mountain View, CA
Distribution: na
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 01:59:31 GMT

From the Peninsula Times Tribune, 1-7-93, page A-3:


Kopp withdraws initiative blocking 'people mover' between airport, CalTrain

Doug McMillan
Peninsula Times Tribune

State Sen Quentin Kopp, I-San Francisco, announced Wednesday he is
withdrawing a San Francisco referendum that would have blocked San
Francisco Airport from building a "people mover" system to connect
with CalTrain.

Kopp said he instead plans to circulate a revised ballot initiative
that would force the Airports Commission to build a BART station under
the airport.

The revised initiative also would allow the airport to build an
on-site people mover, or monorail, before the BART extension is
tunneled into the airport, early in the next century.

And it would allow the airport to extend the people mover across the
Bayshore Freeway to connect with a CalTrain station proposed on
airport land west of the freeway.

Both projects are paart of a $2.2 billion airport expansion that
airport commissioners and the city of San Francisco already have
approved.

Kopp made his announcement to the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers
Board, the tri-county agency governing CalTrain.  The board moved its
meeting from San Carlos to San Francisco to hear testimony on the
controversial initiative that Kopp still hopes to place before San
Francisco voters in November.

The independent senator, who represents the northern half of San Mateo
County and part of San Francisco, raced from legislative hearings in
Sacramento to try to head off opposition to the initiative from the
nine-member CalTrain board.  But despite his offer to revise it, the
board unanimously passed resolution condemning the initiative as
originally written.

San Francisco Supervisor Tom Hsieh, a CalTrain board member who led
opposition to Kopp, the powerful chairman of the Senate Transportation
Committee, said even a revised initiative would be "very dangerous".

"This initiative will disrupt our regional transportation system for
the next 20 years," Hsieh said.

Airport Director Lou Turpen said the initiative would derail airport
plans to link all airlines, car rental agencies, parking lots and air
cargo and maintenance facilities to a public transit station that
eventually would be served by both BART and CalTrain.

Turpen also presented preliminary estimates from the San Francisco
engineering firm AGS Inc. pegging the extra cost of Kopp's proposal to
build BART underground to the center of the airport at $524 million.
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission previously estimated that
an underground station would add $425 million to the base price of
$650 million for the 6.7-mile San Mateo County BART extension.

Extending the people mover across the highway, by contrast, would add
only $20 million to the $396 million for the airport light rail
system, which the airport will build at no cost to taxpayers, Turpen
said.

Kopp said the escalating estimates for an "internal" BART station were
the work of "those who have deliberately misrepresented and distorted
the initiative."  However, he admitted his original initiative had
"ambiguous language" that made it "susceptible to misinterpretation."

Drafting a new one means Kopp will have to throw out 3,000 to 4,000
signatures his supporters already have collected.  However, the
lawmaker said he anticipated no trouble collecting the 9,700 names
needed to qualify the revised measure for the November election.

Several Kopp supporters predicted it would capture at least 70 percent
of the city's vote.

However, most of the more than 30 people who testified at Tuesday's
hearing spoke against it.  They included airline representatives, San
Francisco business leaders, San Mateo County Supervisor Mary Griffin
and representatives of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group formed to
campaign against the referendum.

The hearings precipitated several heated exchanges.

Kopp denied the debate was a "clash of egos" between himself and
Turpen, and accused Turpen and airline representatives of spreading
"untruths".

San Francisco political consultant Jack Davis, who managed successful
campaigns for Kopp and San Francisco Mayor Frank Jordan, told Hsieh:
"Your flip-flop (from his 1990 support of an underground BART station)
may be an indication of your bitterness over your third-place finish
in the mayor's race."

-- 

Adrian Brandt (415) 940-2379
UUCP: ...!ames!ntmtv!adrian
ARPA: ntmtv!adrian@ames.arc.nasa.gov