Assessment of Community Planning for

Mass Transit: Volume 8—San Francisco

Case Study

February 1976

NTIS order #PB-253686
OFFICE OF TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT

DIRECTOR’S OFFICE

Emilio Q. Daddario, Director

Daniel V. De Simone, Deputy Director

URBAN MASS TRANSIT ADVISORY PANEL

George Krambles, Chairman, Chicago Transit Authority

Walter J. Bierwagen

Amalgamated Transit Union

Robert A. Burco

Oregon DOT

Jeanne J. Fox

Join/ Center for

Political Studies

Lawrence A. Goldmuntz

Economics and Science Planning

Dorn McGrath

George Washington University

Bernard M. Oliver

Hewlett-Packard Corporation

Simon Reich

Gibbs and Hill

Thomas C. Sutherland, Jr.

Princeton University

Frederick P. Salvucci

Massachusetts DOT

Stewart F. Taylor

Sanders and Thomas, Inc.

OTA TRANSPORTATION PROGRAM STAFF

Gretchen S. Kolsrud, Program Manager

Mary E. Ames Larry L. Jenney

V. Rodger Digilio Bev Johnson

Thomas E. Hirsch, III Teri Miles

CONTRACTORS

Skidmore, Owings and Merrill System Design Concepts, Inc.

. . .

111
PREFACE

This report on urban transportation planning in the San Francisco,

California metropolitan area is one of nine case studies undertaken by the

Office of Technology Assessment to provide an information base for an

overall assessment of community planning for mass transit.

The findings of the overall study are reported in the summary

document, An Assessment of Community Planning for Mass Transit, which forms the

first volume of this series. The assessment was performed at the request of

the Committee on Appropriations of the U.S. Senate, on behalf of its

Transportation Subcommittee.

The study was directed by the Office of Technology Assessment’s

Transportation Program Staff with guidance and review provided by the

OTA Urban Mass Transit Advisory Panel. The firms of Skidmore, Owings

and Merrill and System Design Concepts, Inc., were contractors for the

study. This assessment is a joint effort, identifying different possible points

of view but not necessarily reflecting the opinion of any individual.
INTRODUCTION

This report assesses how one of nine major

United States metropolitan areas made its decisions

about the development or modernization of rail

transit.

The assessment of the nine cities attempts to

identify the factors that help communities, facing

critical technological choices, make wise decisions

that are consistent with local and national goals for

transit. The study investigates the following issues:

● Are there major barriers to communication

and cooperation among governmental

agencies involved in transit planning and

operating? Do these barriers interfere with

making sound decisions ?

. Do transit decisions reflect the combined

interests of all major public groups, including citizen organizations, trade unions,

the business community, and others?

● Does the planning process provide enough

information about the advantages and

disadvantages of alternative courses of

action to provide a solid basis for making

decisions ?

● Does the availability or lack of financing, or

the conditions under which financing has

been provided, unnecessarily limit the

range of options that are considered?

The ultimate purpose of the work has been to

cast light on those prospective changes in national

transit policy and administrative programs which

might improve, in different ways and to different

extents, the way communities plan mass transit

systems. The nine cities were selected to represent

the full range of issues that arise at different stages

in the overall process of planning and developing a

transit system.

San Francisco, for example, has the first regional

rail system built in decades, while Denver is

planning an automated system, and voters in

Seattle have twice said “no” to rail transit funding

proposals.

The assessment of transit planning in each of the

nine metropolitan areas has been an inquiry into an

evolving social process. Consequently, the study

results more closely resemble historical analysis

than classical technology assessment.

This study employs a set of evaluation guidelines

to orient the investigation in the nine metropolitan

areas and to provide the basis for comparative

judgments about them. The guidelines were

derived from issues identified during preliminary

visits to the metropolitan areas, a review of Federal

requirements for transit planning, and an investigation via the literature into the state-of-theart in the field.

The evaluation guidelines cover major topics

which were investigated during the case assessment process. They deal with the character of the

institutional arrangements and the conduct of the

technical planning process.

GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSMENT:

INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT

Some of the most significant influences on

transit planning are exerted by the organizations

responsible for conducting the planning and

making the decisions. Three guidelines were used

to evaluate the institutional arrangements in the

nine metropolitan areas:

●

●

●

Agencies responsible for various aspects of

transit decisionmaking should cooperate

effectively in a clearly designated “forum”.

The participants in this forum should have

properly designated decisionmaking

authority, and the public should have

formal channels for holding decisionmakers accountable for their actions.

Citizens should participate in the transit

planning process from its beginning and

should have open lines of communication

with decision makers.

vii
.——. . .

GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSMENT:

TECHNICAL PLANNING PROCESS

The technical planning process provides the

information that public officials and their constituents draw upon in making plans and decisions.

Four guidelines were used to assess the technical

planning process in the nine metropolitan areas:

●

●

●

●

Broad, explicit goals and objectives should

guide technical planning and decisionmaking.

A range of realistic alternative solutions

should be developed.

The evaluation of these alternatives should

give balanced consideration to a full range

of goals and objectives.

A practical and flexible plan for financing

and implementation should be developed.

During visits to each of the nine metropolitan

areas, the study team interviewed the principal

representative of the transportation planning

institution and other main participants in the local

planning process. The visits were supplemented by

interviews with UMTA officials in Washington.

Pertinent documents—official plans, reports,

studies, and other material—were reviewed in each

case.

The information thus collected was used in

compiling a history of the transit planning process

in each case area, organized around key decisions

such as the decision to study transit, the selection of

a particular transit system, and public ratification

of the decision to pay for and build the system. The

main political, institutional, financial and technical

characteristics affecting the conduct of the planning process were then assessed in light of the

evaluation guidelines.

The same set of guidelines used in assessing each

case metropolitan area was employed in making a

generalized evaluation of the metropolitan experience. The results of the generalized evaluation are

summarized in the report, An Assessment of Community Planning for Mass Transit: Summary Report, issued by

the Office of Technology Assessment in February

1976.

VIII
CONTENTS

SUMMARY AND HIGHLIGHTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

METROPOLITAN SETTING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

General Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Existing Passenger Transportation System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Transportation Planning Institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

CRITICAL HISTORY OF TRANSIT PLANNING AND

DECISIONMAKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Toward A Decision To Build BART . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

The Building of BART . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Recent Evolution of the Planning Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

CHRONOLOGY OF THE TRANSIT PLANNING PROCESS . . . . . . . 29

ASSESSMENT OF THE PLANNING AND DECISIONMAKING

PROCESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Institutional Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Technical Planning Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

SUMMARY CASE ASSESSMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

ix

68-642 0- 76 -2

Summary and Highlights

● Conditions were favorable for regional

rail rapid transit in the San Francisco Bay

Area during the Bay Area Rapid Transit

(BART) system planning period of 1945 to

1962. There was a high-density, transitoriented central city; a linear regional

development pattern with numerous

important subcenters; geographic

barriers that constrained travel to a few

congested corridors; and a “freeway

revolt” that turned voters to BART as an

alternative.

. The Bay Area has had an exceptionally

fragmented political and institutional

structure with no strong regional agencies until recently. San Francisco contains only 17 percent of the nine-county

population; there are almost 100 cities.

The State traditionally has stayed out of

regional affairs. Strong traditional

rivalries between the leading cities have

hindered regional solutions, despite the

strong need for regional approaches to

many of the area’s problems.

. The city of San Francisco has made an

extraordinary commitment to transit. Its

voters led the region in passing the largest

local bond issue of any type in U.S.

history with no promise of State or

Federal assistance. San Francisco was

the first city (191 1 ) to assume public

responsibility for transit operations and it

provides the highest per-capita transit

subsidy in the country ($1 12 per person in

1974-75). Its transit system offers more

service per square mile than any other

city, and its per-capita ridership is second

only to New York City.

. Two apparently competing hypotheses

have been offered by different observers

to explain how the decision to build BART

was made. The “conspiracy theory”

claims that a small group of businessmen

conceived BART as part of a grand plan to

1
shape San Francisco into the center of a

vast business empire. The “rational planning theory” claims that BART evolved

through a model planning process as a

result of enlightened and courageous

leadership that considered BART to be

the best solution for the Bay Area’s

transportation and land development

problems. Both explanations are substantially correct.

● Despite the major challenge brought by

the taxpayer’s suit in 1962-63, the Bay

Area Rapid Transit District (BARTD)

failed to correct problems in management

that were at the root of later serious

difficulties. BARTD’s board had no real

ability to evaluate or oversee the work of

the consultant team and little inclination

to do so. The contract gave the Parsons,

Brinckerhoff-Tudor-Bechtel team exceptional authority with no incentive to

economize.

● BARTD’s relationship with the public

changed dramatically during the periods

before and after the bond issue election of

1962. The initial public relations effort

was well organized and successfully built

up a strong pro-BART consensus by

election day, Following the vote, the

relationship steadily deteriorated as the

inflexible construction and financing

program was undermined by spiraling

inflation and costly delays.

● The quality of the original planning and

engineering work has proven to be

remarkably good when allowance is made

●

●

●

for unforeseeable events such as

Vietnam-fueled inflation, the advent of

participation politics, and other shifting

values. The cost estimates were surprisingly accurate; ridership forecasts

were only moderately overoptimistic;

growth and land development forecasts

were exceptionally well prepared.

By contrast the implementation effort was

marred by poor management of the

system engineering processes, including

technological development, testing, and

operations planning.

Again by contrast with earlier efforts, the

BART extension studies have provided

examples of successful procedures for

community participation, and evaluation

of alternative systems. The difference can

be attributed in part to lessons learned, in

part to new actors including the

Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), and perhaps in part to the fact

that BARTD must again sell its plans to

the voters if it wants to build extensions.

MTC is one of the more important new

(1970) metropolitan agencies nationally.

It has virtual veto power over all regional

transportation projects, authority to

allocate about $35 million per year of

regional taxes among the competing

transit operators in the nine-county

region, and responsibility for determining

how the funds are to be used. MTC has

major influence over programing of all

regional transit and highway projects.

2
Metropolitan Setting1

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS

Until recently San Francisco was unquestionably

the most important metropolitan area on the West

Coast. Today, although exceeded by Los Angeles in

population, San Francisco is still the most important governmental, corporate, financial, cultural,

and transportation center in the west,

Three major cities are within the San Francisco

Bay Area. To the south is San Jose, a rapidly

growing SMSA of over one million people in 1970.

Oakland on the east side of San Francisco Bay, had a

population of nearly 400,000 in 1970. S a n

Francisco, the economic and cultural center of the

region, had over 700,000 people in 1970. S a n

Francisco and Oakland are the central cities of the

San Francisco SMSA and make up 34.7 percent of

the population. The data on the accompanying

figures cover the San Francisco SMSA only and

exclude the San Jose SMSA.

The recent growth in the SMSA has occurred

entirely in the suburban ring, with San Francisco

loosing 3.3 percent of its population between 1960

and 1970 (see Figure 2) and Oakland loosing 1.6

percent during the same time. (The low density

characterizing most of this recent growth contrasts

sharply with the high population density of the city

of San Francisco. With 15,764 people per square

mile, San Francisco is the second most densely

populated major central city in the U.S. But the

SMSA is slightly less densely populated than the

average among the 33 largest SMSA’s in 1970.

The difference between the city and suburban

development patterns also can be illuminated by

comparing transit ridership. In 1970, 35 percent of

all work trips by San Francisco city residents were

made on public transit, while only 8 percent of the

suburban residents used transit (see Figure 3).

EXISTING PASSENGER

TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM

Outside of the city of San Francisco an extensive

network of freeways and bridges provides good

I See Figure 1, pages 18 and I ~. This map and other figures in

this section cover only the San Fr~ncisco SMSA and exclude San

]ose

highwa y access within the suburban area and to

San Francisco. Within the city, however, freeways

are limited, and the emphasis is on transit.

The city-owned Municipal Railway (Muni)

provides extensive service that carries about

400,000 revenue passengers on an average weekday. The city-owned system was set up in 1912 and

has encouraged transit ridership in the city to the

point where San Francisco now has more transit

riders per capita than any other U.S. city except

New York. Muni is a multimodal operation with the

largest fleet of cable cars and trolley buses in the

United States as well as one of the Nation’s largest

streetcar fleets. Transit service is supplemented by

over 600 diesel buses, and the streetcar service is

speeded through the extensive use of tunnels.

In the East Bay region the Alameda-Contra

Costa Transit District (AC Transit) has provided

bus service since 1960, when this public body took

over operations of the privately owned Key

System. This system handles less than half the

number of riders on Muni.

The third largest transit system in the Bay Area

is BART, which, since opening in 1973, has been the

most advanced rapid rail operation in the country

(see Figure 4). The 7.5 miles of tracks serve three

corridors in the East Bay while connecting these

communities with San Francisco and Daly City in

San Mateo County through a transbay tube. In

1975 BART is expected to serve about one-quarter

the number of passengers on Muni and one-half

the passengers on AC Transit.

Other major transit operations are Golden Gate

Transit, which serves Marin County and provides

commuter service by bus and ferry to San

Francisco, and Santa Clara Transit, which serves

San Jose and Santa Clara County.

The Southern Pacific Railway’s operations

between San Jose and San Francisco provide the

only commuter rail service west of Chicago.

The support for transit in the Bay Area has been

expressed not only by a willingness to support

these transit services with local taxes and taxing

authority but also by ridership figures. The San

Francisco SMSA was one of only three major

metropolitan areas to show an increase in transit

3
LAND AREA (1970)

(square miles)

Center City 45. 4

Suburban Ring 2,434. 6

Entire SMSA 2,480. 0

POPULATION

Suburban Cente r

Ring Cit y

1960 1,908,44 6 740,31 6

1970 2,392,34 8 715,67 4

DENSITY

(population/square mile )

Suburban Cente r

Ring Cit y

1960

1970

784 16,30 7

983 15,76 4

POPULATION

Percent Change 1960-1970

+25%

-3.3%

Suburban Cente r

Ring Cit y

FIGURE 2 : SAN FRANCISCO METROPOLITAN CHARACTERISTIC S

Source : Urban Transportation Fact Book , American Institute of Planners, and the

Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association of the U.S., Inc .

A Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA) includes a center city (or cities),

usually with a population of at least 50,000, plus adjacent counties or othe r

political divisions that are economically and socially integrated with the centra l

area .

4
WORK TRIP DISTRIBUTION

WORK TRIP MODE

1960

Remaining

stayed a t

workers

Center City to Suburban Ring

Suburban Ring to Center City

Beginning and Ending in Center City

Beginning and Ending i n Suburban Ring

1970

Residents Using Public Transportation

Suburban Ring

Residents Using Autos Center Cit y

either walked to work ,

home, or did not report mode.

FIGURE 3: SAN FRANCISCO TRAVEL CHARACTERISTICS

Source : Urban Transportation Fact Book, American Institute of Planners and

the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association of the U.S., Inc., 1974 .

A Standard Metropolitan Statistical Are a (SMSA) includes a center city (or

cities) , usually with a population Of a t

least 50,000, plus adjacent countie s

or other political division s that are economically and socially integrated

with the central area .

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11111111111111111111111 EXTENSIONS UNDER STUDY

AREA FOR FUTURE RAPID TRANSIT STUDY

FIGURE 4: BAY AREA RAPID TRANSIT SYSTE M

Source : Bay Area Rapid Transit District, November 1971 .
riders between 1960 and 1970. In this period transit

patronage increased 4 percent in Washington,

D. C., 2 percent in Miami, and 1 percent in San

Francisco, while the 33 largest SMSA’s averaged a

13 percent decrease. The San Francisco increase

occurred without the help of BART, which did not

begin full operations until 1974.

Residents have voted taxing authority for AC

Transit, and San Francisco subsidizes Muni. With

relatively low fares (25 cents is the base fare for

Muni and AC), these subsidies are high. San

Francisco city residents pay well over $100 per

capita in transit subsidies, which is the highest per

capita rate in the Nation.

Table 1 shows total Federal transit capital and

technical assistance grants to transit programs in

the San Francisco metropolitan area.

TABLE I.—Federal Assistance to San Francisco

Transit Programs From F.Y. 1962

to May 31, 1975

Type of Assistance UMTA Share Total Costs

Capital Grants . . . . . . . . . . . $469,137,000 $931,279,000

Technical Studies . . . . . . . . 7,839,000 15,916,000

TOTAL . . . . . . . . . . . . $476,976,000 $947,195,000

Source: Urban Mass Transportation Administration

TRANSPORTATION PLANNING

INSTITUTIONS

In the Bay Area the regional transportation

planning agency has been playing an increasingly

significant role in transportation planning at the

expense of the transit operators, which traditionally dominated decisionmaking. The local

governments act through the regional bodies and

thus do not play a great public role in the planning

process.

Metropolitan Transportation Commission

(MTC)

MTC has greater powers than most regional

transportation planning bodies. The Commission is

mandated to develop the regional transportation

plan for highways, bridges, and mass transit. It is

also the regional A-95 review agency for transportation and the designated Metropolitan

Organization. 3

TABLE 2.—Federally Recognized

Regional Agencies

Planning

Designation Agency

A-95 Association of Bay Area Governments

(the Metropolitan Transportation Commission has been delegated responsibility

for transportation reviews)

MPO Metropolitan Transportation Commission

In 1971 MTC was given authority to allocate

about $3.5 million per year from the Transportation

Development Act funds (.25 percent of all local

sales taxes) among the several transit operators in

the nine-county region. MTC has the authority to

determine whether the funds are to be used

immediately or kept in reserve for future needs,

and to determine how the funds are to be used: for

planning, operation, or construction, and in the

more rural counties, for either highway or transit.

Fourteen of the Commission’s 19 members are

appointed by Bay Area county supervisors and

mayors. One member each is designated by the

2 Circular A-95 of the Federal Office of Management and

Budget requires one agency in each region to be empowered to

review all proposals for Federal funds from agencies in that

region. Circular A-95 replaced Circular A-82, which was created

to implement Sectmn 204 of the Demonstration Cities and

Metr(}politan Development Act of 1~66 (42 U.S. C. 33o1 ). MTC

has been delegated responsibility for reviewing transportationrelated appllcat ions by the Associa t mn of Ba y Area

Governrnents, which retains A-95 review responslbi]ities for

other sublects.

-I The Urban Mass Transportation Administration and the

Federal Highway Administration require Governors to

designate a Metropolitan Planning Organization (M PO) in each

area to conduct a “con tin uing, comprehensive transportation

planning process carried out cooperatively .“ (the “3-C”

process) mandated by the Federal-Ald Highway Act of I Q62 and

the Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of I ~TJ.

According to joint UMTA-FHWA regulations published in

September I Q75, MF’O’S must prepare or endorse ( I ) a longrange general tran spc~r ta tit>n plan, including a separate plan for

impr(}vemen ts in management of the existing transport tion

sys tern; (2) an ann LIally updated list t>f speci fic projects, called the

tra nspor tcl t I(ln Improvement pr(>g ra m (TIP), to implement

p(>rtl(>nb of the I{mg-range plan; and (3) a multiyear planning

pr[>spectus supplemented by annual unified planning work

pr[~grarns,

7

68-642 0- 76 -3
Association of Bay Area Governments, the Bay

Conservation and Development Commission, the

California Secretary of Transportation, and U.S.

Department of Transportation and Housing and

Urban Development. To permit citizen participation, MTC conducts regular town meetings in each

county and informal meetings with community

groups.

Association of Bay Area

Governments (ABAG)

ABAG is the regional planning agency for the

nine-county Bay Area. The Federal A-95 review

power is lodged with ABAG, but MTC reviews

transportation plans, subject to ABAG concurrence.

Membership in ABAG is voluntary. As of 1970,

eight of the nine counties in the Bay Area were

participating, as were 84 of the region’s 91 cities.

ABAG consists of a general assembly, comprising

the mayor or a councilman from each county, An

executive committee includes a supervisor from

each member county and one representative to all

the cities in each county; six at-large members

appointed by the general assembly; and an elected

president and a vice president, one representing a

county and the other a city.

Bay Area Rapid Transit

District (BARTD)

BARTD was established by the California State

Legislature in 1957 to plan, construct, and operate a

regional rapid transit system.

Until recently, BARTD’s board members were

appointed, four from each of the three participating

counties. As a result of criticism and evolving

interest in more direct community control, board

members are now directly elected. In general, five

members come from Alameda County, three from

San Francisco, and one from Contra Costa, but one

district overlaps San Francisco and Alameda counties.

San Francisco Municipal Railway

(Muni)

San Francisco’s city charter of 1900 calls for

public ownership of utilities, including transportation. When it was created in 1912, Muni became

one of the Nation’s first public transit authorities. It

is directed by a general manager who is responsible

to the city’s Public Utilities Commissioner and its

general manager. The Public Utilities Commissioner is appointed by the mayor.

To meet increasing costs without going to the

polls, the city set up a nonprofit corporation in

1968. The San Francisco Municipal Railway

Improvement Corporation is able to issue bonds,

backed by city credit, to raise money for purchasing

equipment. This equipment—rolling stock and the

like—is leased back to Muni to pay off the bonds.

Alameda-Contra Costa Transit

District (AC)

AC was established by the State legislature in

1956. Since AC took over the Key System in 1960,

patronage has increased by 60 percent. The AC

district includes all of Alameda and the urban

portions of Contra Costa County.

AC’s seven-member board of directors is elected

by the voters of the two counties. As of 1970 most

of the district’s operating costs were met by fares,

but deficits are increasing. (An operating deficit of

$13 million was expected in 1974.)

The local share of capital improvements is

financed by AC’s taxing powers.
Critical

This section provides an assessment of selected

major aspects of the history of Bay Area Rapid

Transit (BART), rather than attempting to narrate

the entire history of transit in San Francisco.

Numerous excellent descriptions of the history of

transit planning in the area already exist.4 More

importantly, a long and complex historical

narrative of Bay Area transit planning would

distract the reader from those elements of BART’s

history most relevant to an evaluation from a

national perspective. The key events in the history

of transit planning in San Francisco are summarized in the chronology that accompanies this

history (see page 29).

An assessment of transit planning in the San

Francisco region naturally focuses on BART. More

UMTA support has been provided to BART than to

any other new transit system in the Nation. The

Bay Area probably has committed more of its

resources to BART than any other U.S.

metropolitan region has committed to a single

public project in any field.

In its original concept, BART was viewed as a

completely comprehensive regional transportation

system. However, in operation BART is a regional

system that is largely supplementary to the region’s

existing transit systems. 5 It did not replace most of

~ Three of the more complete histories are: (1) Frank C.

Colcord, Urban Transportation Dec/slonmaklng. 3: San Franc~s(o: A Case

Study, M. I. T., Cambridge, Mass., May, 1971; (2) Norman

Kennedy, .San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit: Promises, Problems,

Prospects, a paper presented at the 1971 Convention, Society of

Automotive Engineers, Melbourne, Australia, October 1971;

and (3) Stephen Zwerling, Mass ‘Transit and the Po/lfics of Technology,

A StuJy of BART and /he San Francisco Bay Area, Praeger Publishers,

N. Y., 1974. A fourth and most complete history became

available as final editing of this report was being prepared:

McDonald & Smart, Inc., A H/story of /he Key Decisions in the

Development of Bay Area Rapid Transit, prepared for the

Metropolitan Transportation Commission, September, 197s.

~ It is Important to recognize that, as explained in the

Metropolitan Setting section, BART is not the only transit

operator in the San Francisco region. It is not even the largest; it

is the third largest of the region’s five major publicly owned

transit operators in terms of ridership. In addition to BART and

three major regional operators (AC Transit, Golden Gate, and

Southern Pacific), there are literally dozens of other local

operators including one (Muni) which dwarfs BART in ridership

and which operates an extensive light rail system and is

completing a major subway construction effort.

History of Transit Planning

and Decisionmaking

the existing services nor is it primarily meant to

provide new local transit service within the many

communities of the region where a sore need for

local service is perceived.

Thus, BART is now but one part of a diverse

regional transportation system that has developed

over a long period to serve a multicentered urban

region.

The Bay Area probably was better suited to a

regional rail transit system than any other U.S.

metropolitan area that did not already have

regional transit service. The high density of the city

of San Francisco and the geography of the region—

in addition to the city’s well established transit

tradition—created favorable preconditions for a

regional transit system.

San Francisco’s transit orientation stems from an

early decision by the city to operate transit. San

Francisco’s city charter of 1900 authorized public

ownership of utilities, including transportation,

and in 1911 the San Francisco Municipal Railroad

(Muni) was established. It is believed to be the first

publicly owned transit system in the country. San

Francisco offered high quality, frequent local public

transit service, with complete citywide coverage,

long after transit ceased to be a profitable private

enterprise.

San Francisco’s dense pattern of development

resulted in large part because unlike most other

western cities, it grew to maturity in the

preautomobile era.

Finally, the Bay Area’s water barriers encouraged

development of relatively independent cities in the

region with significant commercial centers of their

own. By fortuitous geographic happenstance, these

several centers developed generally in linear

patterns around the shores of the Bay. The

mountain barriers and the great cost of constructing regional transportation links across the wide,

deep Bay and the Golden Gate reinforced the

tendenc y for development to concentrate in San

Francisco and the region’s other cities,

On the other hand, the opening of the two major

bridges (Golden Gate and Bay Bridge) in the mid1930’s and the construction of major regional

9
Geography was a major factor in San Francisco’s linear pattern of

development, well suited to a regional rail system

highways linking the region’s cities tended to period leading to the decision to build BART, (2) the

encourage a pattern of more sprawling and period of BART construction, and (3) the recent

scattered development. These effects were limited, evolution of the planning process. The discussion is

however, in comparison to other metropolitan organized under headings corresponding to these

areas. Tolls and long travel distance over these decisionmaking periods.

gateways were restraints on auto commuting while

relatively good public transportation service linked

the major centers. ” Topography continued to

constrain development significantly. Meanwhile,

affected relatively little by the Depression and

aided by the improved access, San Francisco’s CBD

grew as the regional financial and institutional

headquarters.

The following narrative focuses on three periods

in the history of BART decisionmaking: (1) the

~ Electric rail on the Bay Bridge connected with a series of

routes serving all major East Bay centers. The Southern Pacific

provided commuter rail service on the peninsula, and Muni

provided streetcar service to northern San Mateo County. In

aclditic)n, express bus routes crossed the bridges. (The bridges

put ferries out of business until recently when ferry service was

restored between San Francisco and Marin County.)

TOWARD A DECISION

TO BUILD BART

By World War II, there was a consensus that the

growth of San Francisco and its CBD would be

seriously constrained unless major new transportation facilities were provided. There were—and still

are—only six arterials entering the city, and traffic

volumes on these routes rapidly had begun to

approach capacity. Manufacturing and distribution

industries were beginning to locate outside the city,

and constraints on office growth and other CBD

activity threatened serious economic consequences. This context gave rise to the decision to

build BART.

10
Two apparently conflicting views have been

articulated to explain the origins of this decision.

The “conspiracy theory” holds that BART was

mastermind by a self-interested business elite.

The “rational planning theory” views BART as a

logical answer to the region’s transportation and

growth needs. The findings of this assessment

indicate that both explanations are essentially

correct.

The “conspiracy theory” perhaps has best been

expounded through a series of articles that

appeared in the San Francisco Bay Guardian,

in publications of the Pacific Studies Center, and in

the book The Ultimate Highrise.7 The thesis is that a

very small group of the top San Francisco industrialists and bankers conceived of BART as a key

element in a grand plan to shape San Francisco into

the “imperial headquarters” of a vast Pacific

business empire. BART would make possible the

growth of a concentrated headquarters center,

which would be like Manhattan in both form and

role. This type of regional structure, with a highly

centralized nerve center directly linked with all

parts of the region by rapid transit, was understood

to be essential to the functioning of a major

international business capital. Although BART was

to be conceived and brought into being as part of

this grand plan by, and in the interests of, these

giants of San Francisco banking and industry, it was

to be financed primarily through regressive taxes

on all Bay Area residents.

In contrast, the “rational planning theory” is that

BART was an optimal solution for the transportation and land development problems which faced

the Bay Area in the 1940’s and 1950’s. BART and its

supporters contend that it evolved as a result of

enlightened and courageous leadership through a

planning process that should be seen as a model for

other metropolitan areas.

- Bruc c f3rugmclnn and Greggar SIettelancf, editors, T/Je

L/ltInfIl/, Illx)lr{+, ~[1~[ [r[ltl, J~t o’. Vnd Ru>ll TLmf~r-d ill~ SLY, Sa n

Francisco Bay (juarclian Boc~ks, 1971,

Susan Thistle, L’icki Smith, and William Rlstow, “BART:

Fc~rcing the Mlssic>n Undergr[]und, ” %t] Fr[~r/il~~ o B~y Gu~rJl[~tl,

N{~\enlber 15-28, 1 Q73,

Burton H. Wolfe, “BART: Steve Bechtel’s $2 Million Toy: A

Spec-Ial Guardian Probe,’” San Francisco Bay Guardian, February

14, IQ72.

“Re~l~)naljsm and the Bay Area, ” 5FXXI a ! ISS u e of the P[7~ ~llc

l{,., iir~ II ({ 11,/ Lk’orl(i r~lt,:rmu, published by Pacific Studies Center,

East Pal[) Alto, C-all f , L’(JI. I k, No 1, No\ember-December,

1 Q72

“\’ietnam, Allen de, and BIg Bad BART: Rapid Transit as a T(xll

of F(~relgn Policy, ” Gene Marine, (publisher and date unknown).

This view holds that BART planning illustrates

well how a transportation plan should relate to the

desired urban form of a region. Its exponents argue

that the BART process demonstrates how to

develop a consensus through the involvement of

elected officials at all levels of government in a very

complex institutional-political setting. Finally, they

suggest BART was the product of a model planning

process in that the technological system selected

grew out of local planning, arrived at quite

independently—and indeed in spite of—any biasing

influences of State or Federal financial incentives,

regulations, or political pressures.

The conspiracy theory is on target in many

respects. There is no doubt that early business

leaders were involved, nor that they stood to

benefit from BART through increases in land

values, through involvement in the construction of

BART, and through increased efficiency in conducting their Bay Area business. Nor is there any doubt

that they were prime movers in persuading

legislators, supervisors, and others to act at key

decision points, nor that they (along with other

private interests who joined them over the first

decade of planning) were the principal financial

backers of the campaign to sell BART to the voters

(see Table 3).

TABLE 3.—Key Figures in BART’s History

Steve Bechtel—President of the worldwide engineering firm,

Bechtel Corporation, a founder of Bay Area Council (BAC);

member of Board of the Stanford Research Institute, Fortune

Magazine's ninth richest man in the U.S. in 1957, responsible

for getting his firm into the BARTD top management role in

1959; and major property owner in the Bay Area. The San

Francisco Bay Guardian credits him with conceiving of the

BART system as a cornerstone of “imperial headquarters” of a

vast Pacific business empire.

William E. Waste-Vice President of Bechtel, became Chairman of BAC in 1950.

Adrien Falk—President of S&W Foods, President of California

Chamber of Commerce, member of BAC Board, first BARTD

President, a key organizer of the public relations campaign

that preceded the 1962 referendum.

John M. Pierce—An executive of the Western Oil and Gas

Association, State Director of Finance for 5 years before

becoming BARTD’s first General Manager in 1957.

James D. Zellerbach—Chairman of the Board of CrownZellerbach Corporation, former U.S. Ambassador to Italy,

member of finance committee of Citizen’s Committee for

BART campaign, and a major supporter of rapid transit in preBART period.

11
Carl F. Wente-Chief Executive officer of Bank of America,

member of BAC's Rapid Transit Committee, chairman of fund

raising effort for BART campaign.

Henry Alexander—Public relations consultant, full-time

manager of BART election campaign; later he was advertising

consultant to BARTD.

B. R. (Bill) Stokes-Oak/and Tribune journalist and supporter

of BART in the BARTC period, Director of Information in early

BARTD period and first BARTD employee; General Manager

of BARTD from 1963 to 1974.

Marvin E. Lewis—San Francisco Supervisor and corporate

lawyer, chairman of BAC’s rapid transit committee and BART

Commission Chairman.

Edgar Kaiser—President of Kaiser Industries, a major BART

supplier; member of Board of Stanford Research Institute;

member of BAC Board and a principal contributor to the BART

campaign; supporter of stronger regional organization

(Golden Gate Authority).

Mortimer Fleishhacker, Jr.—A director of the Clocker Citizens

Bank, member of BAC’s rapid transit committee.

Kendric Morrish—Vice President of American Trust (a major

East Bay Bank); President of the Oakland Chamber of

Commerce, later Vice President of Wells Fargo Bank; member

of BAC’s rapid transit committee, and later member of BART

election campaign committee.

Kenneth M. Hoover—Consultant to PBHM during initial

system planning; later Chief Engineer for BARTD overseeing

PBTB work.

Walter S. Douglas—Partner of PBHM, key person in getting

lead role for his firm in the 1954-56 planmaking process.

John Charles Houlihan—Mayor of Oakland, 1961-62, key

political supporter of BART in lining up East Bay businessmen

and local elected officials.

George Christopher—Mayor of San Francisco during the

BART election campaign and a key supporter of BART,

closely linked with BAC.

Tom Clawson—President of Bank of America; President of

BAC; key BART supporter.

Tom Mellon—City Administrator of San Francisco and close

associate of Governor Earl Warren; principal supporter of

early legislative efforts.

Cyril Magnin—San Francisco business leader, member of

BAC and prime promoter of BART.

Alan K. Browne—Bank of America top executive, a principal

BAC expert on finance and political aspects of the formation

of BARTD.

Nils Eklund—Vice President of Kaiser, Chairman of Bay Area

Transportation Study Commission, worked for BART support

in East Bay.

Jack Beckett—Governmental Relations executive with

Hewlett-Packard Corporation; member of initial BART Commission and committee to select BART system planning

consultant in 1953; present Chairman of Metropolitan

Transportation Commission and generally identified as a

12

supporter of BART extensions, particularly in San Mateo and

Santa Clara Counties.

Stanley McCaffrey—Executive Director of BAC during

creation of BART, now President of University of the Pacific.

From numerous quotes it is clear that these men

had a vision of the future of San Francisco that was

modeled after Manhattan: a vision of high-rise

offices (many of them their headquarters offices)

served directly by a regional rapid transit system.

The business elite was convinced of the importance

of this pattern to the proper functioning of a

business center for shipping, banking, and investment in industry throughout the Pacific’s rim,

However, it is equally clear that a large number

of planners, other professionals, and community

leaders came to essentially the same conclusion

about the desirable regional urban form and

transportation system. And most of them came to

this conclusion, it seems clear, quite

independently—without undue influence from

those who stood to gain most—through participation in a planning process that was a model for its

time in almost all aspects, and a model even today in

at least two ways: (1) the participation of local

planners in the metropolitan transit planning

process and (2) the conscious use of transit to

produce a given urban form.

Need for a Coalition of Interests

Considering the obstacles that had to be overcome and the number of times the plan was nearly

killed, one must conclude that under the circumstances that prevailed during the 1945 to 1962

period, the BART system could not have been built

without a surprising identity between the small

group of business elite and the larger body politic

that came to express itself through the recognized

transit planning process.

When the Bay Area Rapid Transit Commission

was created in 1951, there were massive amounts

of Federal and State funding available for

highways —and none for transit. No Federal funds

would be forthcoming for over a decade, and there

was a constitutional prohibition on the use of State

highway funds for transit. In addition, the State

legislature was unwilling to finance even a major

portion of the transit planning, except through a

loan matched by local funds. Thus, no State money

could be counted on to help pay for the cost of
construct ion, which was bound to be many

hundreds of times the cost of planning.

In addition, the State put constraints on the

regional bonding capacity. A general State requirement called for 66-2/3 percent voter approval of

any regional tax-supported bond issue. Attempts to

lower the percentage met strong resistance from

Senator Randolph Collier, a powerful chairman of

the California Senate Transportation Committee

who also was father of the State’s freeway

program. Legislatively imposed limits on bonded

indebtedness meant that additional revenues

would be needed to construct a regional system.

Raising funds for BART necessitated direct

confrontation with highway interests. In order to

get legislative approval for using Bay Bridge toll

funds for transit construction, BART backers had

to muster support for a bond issue of at least $500

million by November 1962. In addition, as part of

the agreement to get the legislation, BAR T

supporters were forced to accept the removal of rail

tracks from the bridge to make room for more

motor vehicle traffic. (This agreement in effect

made it more difficult for BART to attract transBay patronage, the heart of its market.)

The financing problems were in part a reflection

of the fact that the region had no preexisting

institutional framework for transit initiatives.

There was no established transit lobby and no

significant support for transit from outside the Bay

Area, which constituted only about a quarter of the

State’s population and representation in ‘the

legislature.

In addition, there was still no regional transportation planning organization, and there were major

obstacles to the creation of one. A long-established

rivalry assured that any proposals originating in

San Francisco were greeted with great suspicion in

the East Bay. Major retail business interests with

investments outside San Francisco (in Oakland and

San Mateo counties particularly) tended to oppose

the proposed system because they were afraid that

their customers would be drawn to the city.

Due to the way BARTD’s legislation was written,

there was difficulty gaining support from counties

with large populations in rural areas and outlying

towns. The legislation provided that a county had

to be taxed as a unit, if at all, even though BART

could offer rail service only to the higher-density

areas. Rural areas and outlying towns could be

counted on to vote against BART taxes because

they did not stand to benefit from the transit

system directly. In particular, Contra Costa

County was split about evenly between urban and

rural, for and against. It required special wooing

and the promise of special favors. s

Other problems undermined BART support in

San Mateo and Marin counties. g BART was

rejected by San Mateo County in part because of

opposition from conservative taxpayers who

considered the plan fiscally irresponsible, in part

because of opposition of politically powerful real

estate interests, and in part because the county was

already served by the Southern Pacific commuter

system,

This withdrawal had further repercussions

because transit planners had counted on San Mateo

County’s hefty tax base to balance out the weak tax

base in Marin County. Once San Mateo withdrew,

there was no feasible way to finance the remaining

four-count y system because of the high cost of the

Marin portion of the system relative to its tax base,

In addition, the Golden Gate Bridge Board of

Directors had rejected the use of BART on the

bridge to serve Marin County. The announced

8 Joseph S. Silva from the outlying area of Brentwood held the

swing ballot on the July 1962 Board of Supervisors vote to take

the BART bond issue to referendum the following November.

Silva was hosted at breakfast the morning of the vote by San

Francisco Mayor George Christopher and Oakland Mayor John

Houlihan. Houlihan, in an interview, said that Silva was

primarily Influenced by the personal appeal of the mayors, but

he acknowledged that Silva’s later appointment to the BARTD

Board may have been his reward for the favorable vote.

Houlihan denies that the mayors also promised Silva that

Contra Costa County would get the first BART extension.

Several others interviewed, however, believe that such a

promise was made, although no direct witness to the promise

has been identified.

g Of the original nine counties included in the 1956 longrange master plan, three counties (Napa, Solano, and Sonoma)

were not to be served by the first stage system because of their

remoteness and low population. No real effort was made to

include them in the 1957 BART District legislation. Santa Clara

County’s omission, however, was a more complex matter and

one that still may be seen as a decision of long-lasting

consequence to the Bay area. The decision to stay out of the

District was made during the legislative process in 1%7 largely

because PBHM’s first-phase plan provided service only to the

edge of the county rather than to its core in San Jose’s CBD. The

selection of the terminus for this line was based on technical

criteria. However, this made it politically infeasible to convince

Santa Clara County’s elected leaders to accept inclusion If it

meant countywide taxation on the same basis as other counties

more fully served by the system. Efforts to work out a special

taxation district for the area served proved politically infeasible

as well.

1 3
opposition was based on technical engineering

grounds, but in the view of many observers it was

motivated by concern over the affect of BART on

toll revenues,

These two events, coupled with approaching

deadlines to get a plan on the November ballot,

caused BARTD to force Marin County out of the

District.

BART never would have succeeded in overcoming these and many obstacles if there had not

been a common interest uniting the business elite

and the larger public in support for BART.

Evidence of Consensus

This assessment has found no direct evidence for

the claim made by the Bay Guardian writers and

others that business leaders originated the BART

concept. For a while after they formed the Bay Area

Council (BAC) in I94 5

10 the business leaders

appeared to support regional highways and bridges

as their main transportation goal—in particular by

urging the construction of a second San FranciscoOakland Bay crossing. Business leaders began to

push for a regional approach to rapid transit only

when they became convinced that a regional transit

system was the best way to achieve the goal they

shared with many Bay Area planners: to improve

regional access to San Francisco’s CBD. BAC, to

achieve its goals, picked up the lead in promoting

regional rapid transit only after the concept had

been developed out of a planning process that

focused on technical considerations.

During the Second World War military considerations gave rise to increased concerns over

congestion and lack of regional access. The 1947

Army-Navy Board Report is believed to be the first

serious proposal for an integrated regional rapid

transit system with a tube under the Bay directly

connecting transit systems on both sides. The

Congressional resolution that initiated the study

was introduced by San Francisco Congressman

10 The Bay Area Council, which is governed by a board

composed overwhelmingly of representatives of the region’s

major industries, has been the prime mover since 1945 for most

efforts to ~r~an ize regional government, regional planning, and

public works projects which support regional integration. lt has

consistently played a powerful role in shaping new regional

lnstitu t ions; half of the original BART commissioners came

from the BAC in 19.s1. See “Bay Area Council: Regional

Powerhouse,” by Les Shipnuck and Dan Feshbach, in RPgI(JHalISJH

(I td t)It’ BiIy Arm, Pacific Studies Center, op. cit,

Richard J. Welch. The motivation, for the request

apparently involved technical military concerns—

partly a concern over the vulnerability of the

bridges and the city to attack and partly a

realization that the constraints on regional

transportation access throughout the Bay Area had

proven to be a handicap to the development of

wartime industries. 11

By the time BAC people joined with key political

leaders to setup a special rapid transit committee in

1949, concerns over the role of transit in regional

development began to predominate over wartime

concerns, From 1949 on, BAC and the interests it

represented were the nucleus of support for BART.

These interests seem to have played the lead role in

initiating legislation, obtaining regional political

backing, and raising funds to support the 1962

BART bond issue campaign. Marvin E. Lewis, a

corporate lawyer, San Francisco Supervisor, and

chairman of the Bay Area Rapid Transit Committee, is given credit for much of the hard work in

getting support for the formal legislative establishment of the BART Commission (BARTC) in the

1949-51 period. Despite later allegations that he

sought to “Manhattanize” San Francisco, Lewis,

who was later chairman of BARTC, has been

quoted as saying that his goal was to alleviate

congestion and provide regional access among Bay

Area cities.

The charge that business interests were masterminding BART in a covert manner behind the

scenes is an exaggeration. In fact, there was little

need for covert activity. The business community

did not try to hide its efforts, for it considered that

it was acting in the public interest. It used the media

to draw attention to what it considered to be goals it

shared with elected leaders and the public.

It has been alleged that BAC dominated the

choosing of the consultants and the content of their

reports. No supporting evidence for this allegation

can be found during the early period when the basic

BART system concept was being developed.

DeLeuw, Cather & Company, the first consultant

hired in 1952, was a local firm that had done

11 In 1943, war Pt-ociuction had become so hampered by

constraints in the regional transportation system that a

subcommi t tee of the House Naval Affairs Committee

recommended that, due to the lack of regional planning, defense

work should not be allowed to expand any further in the area.

See “BART: Rapid Transit and Regional Control” by Greg De

Freltas, in l<t:~lotlillt,m LId ~ht’ B(7y Arm, Pacific Studies Center, op

cit,
previous transit studies for the city—no specialinterest relationship has been identified between it

and BAC. That study resulted in the BART

Commission’s conclusion that a regional rapid

transit system was needed, and it laid out the

formal planning process which was to follow.

DeLeuw, Cather lost out in the 1953 competition

for the major system planning contract but again

no special-interest relationship has been identified

between BAC and the new consultant, Parsons,

Brinckerhoff, Hall and MacDonald (PBHM). This

team was chosen because it had extensive rapid

transit experience in Manhattan and the advantage

of not being associated with one specific part of the

region. The work of this consultant team resulted

in the basic master plan for the BART system.

The Stanford Research Institute (SRI), which was

hired under a separate contract to prepare recommendations on the organizational and financial

aspects of the proposed system, was the first transit

consultant whose personnel were directly involved

with BAC. Several BAC people were on the SRI

board at the time, including Kaiser and Bechtel and

several San Francisco bankers. The recommendations on taxes were similar to those eventually

used: property and sales taxes and bridge tolls. Less

regressive taxes on business or income were

apparently not considered; gasoline taxes were

considered and rejected. 12

It was not until after PBHM and its associated

planning team had prepared the original ninecounty master plan and the permanent BART

District (BARTD) had been established that local

firms with strong BAC ties began to play major

roles in technical aspects of transit system planning

and engineering. In 1959, BARTD signed a contract

(the first of several) for $600,000 with the threefirm joint venture of “PB-T-B”: Parsons ,

Brinckerhoff, Quade and Douglas (the new name

of PBHM), the Tudor Engineering Company, and

the Bechtel Corporation. The latter two both were

based in San Francisco. The contract was

negotiated without competition. Steve Bechtel

used his long-standing BAC relationship to advantage in obtaining a major role for his firm for the

remainder of the system planning work and the

12 Norman Kennedy, “San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit:

Promises Problems, Prospects, “paper presented at the 1971

Convention, Society of Automotive Engineers, Australia,

October 1971; and San Franclsco Bay Guardian, op. cit.

dominant management role for all engineering

work after 1962. 13

Steve Bechtel does not, however, appear to have

had a dominant role in shaping the basic rail plan.

By 1959, when his firm first became involved, the

basic system plan had been well established

(although it was to shrink in 1962 from a 123-mile,

five-county, system to a 75-mile, three-county

system). The process of developing the basic plan

during the 1954-56 period had been shaped to a

great extent by a team of urban designers and

planners working with PBHM in a fairly independent capacity. This mechanism had been established

at the insistence of BAC’s Bay Area Planning

Committee, which was composed of planning

directors of cities and counties of the region. The

planning team, headed by Norma Westra of the

Connecticut firm of Adams, Howard and Creeley,

worked closely with planning directors of the

region to develop the regional land use plan upon

which the rail plan was based. 14

At that time there was widespread agreement

among area planners and the planning profession

generally on the concept of how a large urban

region should develop. Urban renewal was needed

to save the dying heart of cities; the good urban life

could only be achieved through high density

development of the city cores and well-defined and

well-linked system of modes with clear identity.

When these and related concepts were applied to

la According to But-ton Wolfe’s article in the February 4, 1973,

Bay Guardian, Bechtel received 90 percent of the eventual $150

million management fee paid PBTB. McDonald & Smart (op.

cit.), however, report that Bechtel received 25 percent of the

Joint Venture’s fee in the 1959-62 period and 45 percent after

1962. The total fee was $142 million through July 1, 1972. All

agree that Bechtel exerted his personal power to achieve the role

for his firm.

1A Somewhat surprisingly, the importance of the role of local

planners and the BARTD urban planning team in shaping the

plan is completely missed in most of the histories. In particular

Zwerling (op. cit.) and McDonald& Smart (op. cit.) both take the

engineers to task for presuming a regional land use plan of their

own in the absence of any officially recognized plan. One might

reach this conclusion by talking only to the engineers and by

reading only the final 1956 report, However, numerous

interviews with those involved, both in and out of the team, and

members of various professions confirm that the urban

planners working with PBQD in the 1954-56 period did prepare

a very thorough regional land development plan in close

coordination with local planning staffs, and that this plan did

form the primary rationale for the BART system in terms of its

basic regional configuration.

1 5

68-642 0 -76-4
existing Bay Area conditions a plan emerged with a

high degree of concensus, fairly precisely defining

the BART system and even its station locations. 15

It seems clear that BART was the result of both a

rational planning process and the promotional

efforts of businessmen. BART was achieved

because almost all interests involved shared the

initial goals of relieving congestion and preserving

and rejuvenating the older city centers. However,

each aspired to these goals for different reasons:

the businessmen wanted to develop a regional

economic headquarters center and to integrate the

labor markets and productive centers of the Bay

Area; whereas most elected officials and much of

the public were concerned about congestion and

the negative impacts of freeways. Most urban

planners coupled these concerns with a strong

vision of the role of transit as a catalyst in the city

renewal process.

Local planners and major local officials were

involved in the formal process of developing the

plan, but lesser officials and the general public were

not. Instead, an attempt was made to enlist their

support for an already fully formulated plan

through a public relations campaign that was

financed by BAC members (although they did not

in this case work through BAC) and by the

consulting firms and other firms, including several

who expected to sell their products to BARTD. The

campaign itself did involve some substantial efforts

on the part of other political leaders who were not

identified with BAC, notably Oakland Mayor John

Houlihan. But it is commonly accepted that BAC

people were the principal force behind a well-run

campaign that enlisted most of the newspapers,

radio, and television stations.

The pre-election campaign followed 6 years of

extensive press coverage that began after publication of the master plan. However, despite the fact

that the approach to the public by BARTD and its

supporters was entirely promotional, the public in

general seems to have had a good comprehension of

the plan and of its financial impacts (insofar as they

were known at the time of the election).

1S Even though this view is generally accepted, one critic,

Martin Wohl, has pointed out several instances where the

overriding consideration was to maximize overall speed in order

to serve outlying areas well and compete with the auto.

16

The results of the election of November 1962,

when the bond issue for financing BART was

presented to the voters for approval, testified to the

degree of consensus in San Francisco. The 61.2

percent favorable vote was one of the highest

metropolitanwide votes ever obtained (before or

since) for a major transportation bond issue and

was probably the largest local bond issue of any

kind ever passed. The vote was a tribute to the

durability of the political alliance that had helped

the BART plan obtain an amazingly high level of

support.

Support for the bond issue was predictably high

in San Francisco and in the most urban parts of the

East Bay where high-quality service was to be

provided. The vote breakdown by county was as

follows:

County Percent

San Francisco

Alameda . . . .

Contra Costa

Average

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66.90

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60.04

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54.48

The bond issue

original BARTD

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61.22

passed, as was required in the

legislation, in the three-county

District as a whole-rather than on a county-bycounty basis.

In only 17 of San Francisco’s 1322 precincts was

the favorable vote under so percent. The vote was

very high even in the northern parts of the city that

would not be served by BART. Voting appears to

have been influenced strongly by home

ownership—there was general awareness of the

impact the bond issue would have on property tax.

In the East Bay, there was opposition to BART in

Albany and El Cerrito because of anticipated

negative impacts of elevated line and opposition of

local officials. Opposition also occurred in rural

areas removed from the routes, There was little or

no correlation of the vote with income or
socioeconomic status apart from what could be

explained by home ownership. 16

16 Wolfgang Homburger, “An Analysis of the Vote on Rapid

Transit Bonds in the San Francisco Bay Area,” ITTE Research

Rtporl No. 36, University of California, Berkeley, June 1963.

\’oting results reported above differ slightly from those

reported in several other sources, which show results before

absentee ballots were counted. Homburger notes that in

Alameda County the absentee vote was substantially more

favorable (by 12 percent) than the vote cast at the polls, putting

the county over the 60 percent mark. He attributes this to the

last-minute anti-BART campaign. Absentee ballots had to be

cast at least 3 days before election day. Two days before election

day about two million people reported to local schools for Sabin

polio vaccine. Homburger says that BART opponents wer e

handing out literature at a number of schools in the East Bay.

THE BUILDING OF BART

The building of BART has spanned 13 years,

1962-75, almost as long as it took to make the final

decision to build it, from about 1945 to 1962. It is

likely that it will have taken a total of 32 years to

conceive, plan, and build BART by the time the final

station at the Embarcadero is opened and the full

system is in operation with planned frequency of

service under the guidance of its ultimate

automatic control system.

In contrast to the first period, whose history

focuses on a single overwhelmingly important

decision (i.e., the decision to build BART), the

implementation period has several elements that

17

a

a) 2w0

-f-l

-P

I-d

l-l

c) 0

Inm

!+0

4J

19
are of significant interest to other metropolitan

areas. These include:

. The taxpayers’ suit against BARTD and

PB-T-B;

. BARTD’s battles with communities over

elements of system design;

. Financing problems and relationships with

the legislature.

There was a dramatic contrast in BARTD’s

relationship with the Bay Area community before

and after the referendum, BART’s honeymoon

with the voters was over within weeks ‘of the

election. With few exceptions, the media, political

leadership, and most organized groups supported

BART before the election, but not afterward. After

the election, BARTD seems to many to have

become a well-funded, powerful, independent

organization with relatively little accountability.

This change in public attitude was primarily due

to a change in the nature of BARTD. After the

election, BARTD changed from a public relationsoriented organization seeking voter approval to an

organization that was financially independent. As a

result, it became less interested in the voters’

wishes and more concerned with the technical and

financial problems of building a large and complex

transportation system. As this happened, the

control of BARTD shifted from the prereferendum

leadership, which had consisted of the business

community, elected officials, and public relations

experts, to PB-T-B, the engineering consultants,

who had little accountability or experience in

community relations. This basic change in the

nature of BARTD and in its relationship to the

public set a new context for the second stage of

BART’s development.

The Taxpayer’s Suit Against

BARTD and PB-T-B

One week after the election, a BARTD committee recommended approval of a new PB-T-B

contract for $47 million. The full board approved it

2 weeks later, at which time it was confronted with

the threat of a court suit by a group of engineers

who objected to the “giveaway program.” The

engineers’ efforts were frustrated when a Contra

Costa judge ruled against a temporary restraining

order for the entire BART project,

Shortly after this a second group of four East Bay

residents and elected officials filed a suit involving

seven charges. This suit was successful in halting

BART almost completely for more than half a year,

at a cost to BARTD of $12 to $15 million, primarily

due to inflation, but also to staff costs. Four of the

charges were dismissed early; the three that were

heard in court during the first half of 1963 included:

● A challenge to the validity of the November

1962 election on the grounds that public

funds had been used to influence the vote.

● A challenge to the PB-T-B contract and to

the mechanism established for determining fees.

● Challenges to BARTD staff salary

payments.

Although the court eventually absolved both

BARTD and PB-T-B of all of the charges, the case

publicized significant facts about the management

structure of BARTD/PB-T-B that were at the root

of later problems.

BARTD’s board, and in particular its Engineering

Committee, had no real ability to evaluate or

oversee the work of the consultant team. BARTD

had only 16 employees at the time, and only one,

Keneth Hoover, with engineering background.

Hoover previously had been a consultant to

Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade and Dougla s

PBQD) for about a year and a half and had been

recommended for the chief engineer’s position by

Walter Douglas, a partner of PB-T-B.

There apparently was no competition for the

consultant contract. The contract provided for fee

payment as a percentage of costs, rather than

stating a fixed fee, thus providing no incentive to

economize—to the contrary it provided an incentive to permit costs to increase. Several informed

observers have commented on the fact that the

terms of the contract were exceptionally favorable

to PB-T-B and that the BARTD board had no

inclination to negotiate more stringent terms, The

consultants were given unusually broad powers by

the terms of the contract to represent BARTD in

dealings with the public and local governments and

to negotiate subcontracts.

The board’s lack of control of the consultant’s

work can be attributed in part to the close personal

relationships that had continued to exist between

the business leaders on the board, the top staff, and

the consultant team. Walter S. Douglas admitted in

an interview with San Francisco Chronicle reporter

Michael Harris that there was greater delegation of

20
authority over basic financial matters than was

traditional in this field. 17 Harris notes that Douglas

was primarily responsible for getting Ken Hoover

the position as BARTD chief engineer, and that

Hoover in turn helped PB-T-B get its management

contract. Likewise two BARTD directors, Adrien

Falk and Thomas Gray, separately testified in the

1963 trial that they did not feel it was their

responsibilit y to be concerned over how much

profit the consultants made.

During most of the system implementation it

was difficult to distinguish between BARTD and

PB-T-B staffs. Even General Manager Stokes has

admitted it was difficult to know, in those days,

who worked for whom. 18 This lack of clear

identification of decision responsibilities was one of

the issues of the taxpayers suit.

Stephen Zwerling reflected a widespread feeling

when he asked, “. . . who really was running

BARTD—its management, its board of directors,

or the consulting engineers? The small size of the

board, the nontechnical background of its

members, and the highly technical nature of the

task to be performed suggest that the engineers

would have a great deal of autonomy, influence,

and authority with little responsibility.”19

Unfortunately, BARTD did little to correct the

problems that were raised by the taxpayers’ suit,

and there was no formal external review or

oversight of BARTD for several years afterward.

Three years later when BARTD’s financial

problems first came to the attention of the public

and the legislature, BARTD was trying to manage a

billion-dollar construction program at the peak of

its activity with only 19 employees trained in

technical fields. It was not until after serious delays

and cost overruns had occurred that BARTD began

to greatly increase its in-house technical competence. By then many of the mistakes which were

to cost BARTD greatly in credibility had already

been made.

BARTD’s Battles With Communities

Over Elements of System Design

The history of BART’s construction is one of

almost continual battles with communities over the

1 ~ Michael Hdr-r]s, 5~ H Fr~nC/scO Ch ro~l(lc, February 4, 1966.

1 ~ McDona]d & Smart, A HISIO~ O/ IhP Key D<cIsIorM, op. cit., p.

116.

IQ Stephen Zwerling, Muss Tr~mi/ and the Politics Of ~e(~ndogy: A

Study O( BART and the San Francisco Bay Area, Praeger Publishers,

New York, 1974, pp. 43-44.

design of the system. 20 It is perhaps inevitable in

any construction activity of this magnitude that

conflict will occur between communities and those

responsible for carrying out the regional mandate

to build the system. However, the intensity of the

conflict was raised to an unnecessary level that in

some instances resulted in excessive delays and

costs. Several factors were at work:

. The entire system had been specified in

considerable detail in the 1962 Composite

Report. The bond issue approval was a

commitment to this plan with very little

provision for changes in station location,

alinement, or elevation.

● Elements of system design were often

unknown to the public until after the

election because copies of the Composite

Report, or details from it, were not readily

available. Only public relations material

was available and this contained very

general information.

● Financing limitations and political considerations had forced the engineers to

prepare a system plan that contained some

design elements that were unsatisfactory

to the communities involved. BARTD had

had to get acceptable geographic coverage

within a legislatively fixed upper bonding

limit determined by assessed value of all

property in the district; thus BART

planners were forced to economize on

elements of the system design to the

detriment of several communities,

20 One of the most thorough histories of BART (McDonald &

Smart, op. cit., pp. 89-1 13) stresses the sensitivity of the staff to

the wishes of the communities and goes into considerable detail

to explain how cost increases occurred in ways that were beyond

PB-T-B’s control. This part of that history seems particularly

out of balance. Much of the text appears to come straight from

the consultants and none from any of the many available sources

involved on the other side of the various issues. Sources

referenced in this document as a whole appear overwhelmingly

biased toward the official view of BARTD’s history: more than

two thirds of the sources referenced are to BARTD/PB-T-B or

closely related persons or firms and the majority of the

remainder are to government documents or neutral observers.

Well under 10 percent of the references are to sources that

might be considered critical commentators and none are to any

of the several sources that might be characterized as propounding or even supporting the conspiratorial view of BART’s

history. Nonetheless, despite the difference in tone of treatment

of this subject, McDonald & Smart arrive at essentially the same

conclusions regarding the need for community interaction and

financing requirements.

21
● The fixed amount of funding for a fixed

system left no room for increases in the

cost of system elements during the design

and construction process. This severely

limited design flexibility.

● BARTD/PB-T-B staff working procedures

did not provide for the development and

evaluation of alternatives on most important decisions; single recommendations

were almost always prepared for BARTD

staff or board action, thus tending to bury

potential problems within PB-T-B staff.

● The engineers’ style in dealing with the

public, with local governments, and with

other professionals often tended to intensify the conflict. The leadership role within

the Joint Venture shifted from PBQD to

Bechtel, which had far less experience in

community relations.

● Eventually, increased inflation rates (and

other factors) exacerbated the cost

squeeze.

All of these factors combined to cause spiraling

conflict, delays, cost increases, inflexibility, and

polarization between BARTD and many of those it

was dealing with.

Some conflict arose even before the bond

election. Albany and El Cerrito both objected to the

elevated design through their cities and fought

BARTD unsuccessfully. Berkeley managed to get

early agreement on putting some of its downtown

section in subway. Berkeley supported the bond

issue, although that city went on record as not

being satisfied with the changes that had been

made.

In Richmond, BARTD fought against the original

plan for the central station location because of

property acquisition costs. Richmond CBD interests and others struggled to retain the original

location as a catalyst for redevelopment and to

better serve much of the city including lowerincome areas. BARTD supported an alternative

location for the terminus of the line on the route of

the existing railroad right-of-way, arguing that it

would cause less disruption, would provide greater

access from the North where additional potential

riders were located, and would be better located for

possible future extensions of the route. BARTD

got out of this fight relatively easily when the City

Council eventually took a position supporting

BARTD’s preference.

BARTD’s biggest fight with a city was over the

remaining 23⁄4 miles of planned elevated line in

Berkeley. The City Council had resolved to request

BARTD to place the entire line underground in

1960, and the Council reopened the issue in July

1963, asking for comparative cost estimates of

subway versus elevated construction. The issue

raged on for over 3 years, involving an acrimonious

hearing forced on BARTD by Berkeley, national

publicity unfavorable to BARTD, and wildly

varying cost estimates—Berkeley’s as low as $6

million, BARTD’s as high as $24.6 to $32.3 million.

At one point BARTD issued an ultimatum: if

Berkeley did not put up the funds that would be

needed to finance BARTD’s high estimate within

30 days, BARTD would proceed toward construction of the elevated design.

Berkeley, led by Mayor Wallace Johnson, eventually succeeded in its struggle by achieving

landslide support of 82 percent for a bond

referendum in 1966, which allowed up to $20

million to be committed for the extra costs of

subway construction. BARTD lost heavily in terms

of delays (almost 3 years) and resulting costs, and

perhaps even more heavily in terms of credibility,

because of the poor manner in which it handled the

issue, in terms of both technical competence and

community relations. The eventual extra construction cost to Berkeley was $12.4 million, not far

from its 1964 estimate of $11 million and well

below any of BARTD’s estimates.

A subsequent fight between BARTD and

Berkeley over the design of the Ashby station

occurred in late 1967, It was settled in Berkeley’s

favor in May 1968 in a court suit after an injunction

stopped BARTD from going ahead with construction.

The city of San Francisco and BARTD had a

series of conflicts over subway design on Market

Street and handling of Muni streetcars. Finding

itself in a cost squeeze, BARTD sought to save

between $500,000 and $1 million per station by

eliminating a columnless vaulted ceiling and adding

columns.

Another issue involved the “skylight plan.” San

Francisco wanted frequent skylights to open up the

mezzanine level to the outside. The plan required

raising the level of the ceilings and increasing utility

relocation costs. BARTD fought the plan, saying it

might cause delays of as much as 2 years. But after

public hearings, critical newspaper editorials, and

22
BART’s elevated structures created controversy in Berkeley

and other parts of the Bay Area

pressure from civic groups, BARTD had its

architects come up with a compromise plan that

included the skylights. The irony of this episode is

that after construction had begun in 1968, the city

belatedly adopted a Market Street beautification

plan that eliminated some of the skylights.

Construction on Market Street actually involved

three major projects—BART, the Muni Metro

subway on the level above BART, and the Market

Street beautification project. Because of problems

and the timing of efforts that were financed from

different sources, there were considerable inefficiencies in the overall construction effort. Perhaps of equal significance, Market Street was torn

up for almost twice as long as it might have been,

with a resulting doubling of the social and economic

disruption to the heart of the city. Allan Jacobs, San

Francisco’s Director of Planning, says this has had a

major impact on public attitudes and the chances of

implementing other subway projects in the city. He

says, only half facetiously, “You can build only once

every third generation. ”

Certainly that is an important lesson for other

metropolitan areas considering the prospect of

staged decisions on fixed-guideway transit

networks.

A final conflict representative of BART’s rocky

history is the much-publicized conflict between

BARTD/PB-T-B and its design consultants,

Lawrence Halprin and Don Emmons, over design of

the system. The two men, widely respected in

landscape architecture and urban design, had been

retained to advise on design of stations and other

system elements. They were continually frustrated

in efforts because of the constraints placed on their

design concepts by PB-T-B. Eventually in

September 1966, Halprin and Emmons denounced

the engineer’s dominance over the work of other

professionals and handed in their resignations in a

23
highly charged and highly publicized episode.

These events brought on a sharp attack from the

press and others that caused BARTD to take back

some of the power it had given the engineers, at

least to the extent of providing the remaining

architectural staff and other design consultants

with more direct access to the general manager.

Despite the attention that this fight received,

Larry Dahms, BARTD’s acting director in 1974,

claimed, probably accurately, that quality of design

is one of the BART system’s outstanding

achievements.

However, the importance of this clash is that it

brought into the open one important aspect of the

financial squeeze that BARTD was having to cope

with at that time. It gave the community a grasp of

the basic conflict between the engineering construction goal under a fixed budget and the goals of

communities as they relate to urban design.

Financing Problems and BART’s

Relationship with the Legislature

In retrospect, it is highly unlikely that BART

could have completed the system within its original

budget, for the planners made little allowance for

contingencies other than the usual percentages

allowed for engineering projects. To have kept to

the original budget and schedule would have

required no significant delays in construction, no

prolonged court fights or strikes, no major changes

in design, no major unforeseen obstacles in

technological development (although BART had to

develop much of its own technology as it went

along because it chose to push beyond available rail

technology in so many areas), no external events to

significantly increase inflation over the relatively

low rates experienced in the 1950’s, and no major

localized effect on inflation resulting from the

introduction of a billion dollars of new construction

in one metropolitan area,

The original BARTD estimates were essentially

accurate in their estimates of construction costs in

terms of prevailing prices. However, they failed to

account for contingencies beyond the level typically

encountered in conventional engineering construction (10 percent), and they assumed an unrealistic

construction schedule that did not recognize the

need for interaction with communities and the

design changes that would result. By far the most

important of the cost escalations were the 3-year

delay and Vietnam-fueled inflation.

Initial inflation estimates were about 3 percent,

but the actual inflation in San Francisco was 6.5

percent, slightly above the U.S. rate for 20 cities,

due in part to the effects of BART construction.

Delays were the other major factor in the cost

escalations. For BARTD to have kept to its original

schedule (and therefore budget), BARTD would

have had to operate with total insensitivity to

community pressures, exempt from legislative

review and judicial restraint. As it was, BARTD

frequently has been criticized for being

insensitive—for trying to push through its

program as rapidly as possible, even if it meant

running roughshod over community preferences.

BART was caught between conflicting demands.

Local communities wanted an ongoing involvement with a flexible planning and design process.

From the standpoint of fiscal economy, however,

the best way to build a transit system is to do it as

quickly as possible. Community participation takes

time and therefore costs money.

This, in fact, was a major conclusion of a 1968

review of BART’s finances on behalf of the

California Senate. Because delays were a primary

cause of BARTD’s financial problems, the review

recommended that the legislature do away with the

public hearing requirement—the only participatory

mechanism required by BARTD’s legislation.

All things considered, BART construction came

in reasonably close to the original cost estimates. In

November 1971, by which time most of the cost

escalation had already occurred, costs had risen

only about 40 percent since the 1962 Composite

Report. An article in a prominent economic journal

noted that “by comparison with other public

projects, this cost overrun is not very bad.”21 It cited

a study of weapons systems which found that, on

the average, actual cost was 3.25 times the

estimated cost; a study of Bureau of Reclamation

projects in which actual costs were 2.63 times

estimated costs; and Corps of Engineers projects

prior to 1951 with a 2.24 to 1 ratio (improved to

1.36 by 1964). Finally, a study of ad hoc projects

(one-of-a-kind projects not part of a program of

similar projects under development by the same

agency) found that the average cost overrun for

such projects was 73 percent.

21 Leonard Merewitz, “Public Transportation: Wish Fulfillment and Reality in the San Francisco Bay Area, ” Journal of the

American Economic ASSO(MIIOH, November 1971,

24
BART’s construction costs actually remained

below estimates on a project-by-project basis for

the first 20 months of construction (through

December 1965). However, BARTD became aware

of the cumulative effects of delays by May 1965,

and the San Francisco Chronicle broke news of the

money crisis in February 1966.

By July 1966, BARTD had projected a $200

million shortfall. In early 1967, BARTD General

Manager B.R. Stokes projected a complete depletion of available funds by 1968 and began encouraging a new bond issue for the November 1967

ballot. This trial balloon was immediately shot

down by the San Francisco supervisors, who,

probably accurately, read the mood of the voters to

be negative.

The debate moved to the State Legislature, with

San Francisco representatives supporting use of

funds from Bay Area toll bridges, and others

supporting use of a local sales tax. San Francisco

legislators attempted to pass a refinancing scheme

based on Bay Bridge tolls throughout the 1967

legislative session, but the plan died in the

Assembly after passing the Senate. Stokes began

announcing plans for halting construction after

only 57 miles of the 75-mile system had been

completed. The legislature continued into a special

fall session called by Governor Reagan, who had

threatened to veto toll financing because he

favored using the toll money to build a second

bridge for motor traffic between San Francisco and

Oakland. A one-half cent sales tax finally passed in

spring 1969.

A final important element in BART financing

was that UMTA did not play any substantive role

during the basic decisionmaking phase nor in the

first half of the construction period. A $13 million

capital grant received in August 1966 was the first

substantive Federal assistance BARTD received.

Subsequently—and especially as BART ran further

and further over its original estimates—UMTA

funds came to the rescue.

As BARTD ran into financial difficulties, it

became clear that its original plan to finance the

rolling stock through revenue bonds would not be

feasible, because no realistic appraisal of expected

revenues and operating costs would provide

potential investors with the required security for

bonds. Rolling stock finally was acquired largely by

means of UMTA grants that eventually totaled

$304 million, about 19 percent of the total cost of

the system and about half of BART’s total cost

overrun.

As BARTD ran into financial difficulties, there

was a realization that not only would revenues be

insufficient to secure revenue bonds, but they also

would not come close to covering operating cost.

Deficits were running about $27 million per year

and were expected to increase. 22 This inability to

cover operating costs with revenues was a national

trend. In San Francisco, however, the operating

losses were drastically increased by the delays in

beginning full-scale revenue operations caused by

extremely poor reliability y of the rolling stock, other

maintenance and operations difficulties, and

problems with the automated control system.

BARTD had no basis for financing continuing

operating deficits and would have been forced to

cease operations by late 1974 or early 1975 unless

additional funds had been provided. This financial

crisis precipitated generalized criticism of BARTD

that was focused on BART Director B.R. Stokes,

who was beginning to be blamed for all BART’s

technical difficulties with its rolling stock and

control system as well as for the financial problems.

Stokes resigned in May 1974.23 The financial crisis

was solved some 6 months later when the

legislature extended the one-half cent sales tax and

permitted its use for BART’s operating costs.

RECENT EVOLUTION OF THE

PLANNING PROCESS

In September 1970, the first permanent regional

transportation planning agency for the Bay Area,

the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, was

created by the legislature.

Prior to this, there had been two temporary

agencies involved in BART system planning. The

Bay Area Transportation Study Commission

(1963-69) had been set up to satisfy the 3-C

planning requirements of the 1962 Federal-Aid

Highway Act and to prepare the report that was

submitted to the legislature and the Governor in

May 1969. The Transportation Study’s principal

22 Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Special Report on

Tran<i/ FInatIce, April 1974.

“ The fact that Stokes landed the top job at the newly created

American Public Transportation Association in Washington,

D. C., is indicative of the respect he had within the industry and

in national circles despite his problems at BARTD.

25
product was a typical 3-C planning document,

containing the most comprehensive set of data ever

collected on the Bay Area, and a plan that included

almost all the projects that had been proposed for

the area. The plan, though certainly unimplementable in full, was a good reference document on

regional highways, bridges, and transit facilities,

and on present and projected demographic and

economic conditions and land development

patterns for the entire Bay Area. The second

temporary agency was the Regional Transportation Committee, set up in 1969 by a cooperative

mutual agreement of the Association of Bay Area

Governments and the California Department of

Transportation.

Quite in contrast to its two immediate

predecessors, the Metropolitan Transportation

Commission (MTC) is unique among regional

agencies in the power it possesses. In addition to the

usual A-95 review authority and responsibility for

Federal transportation planning requirements,

MTC was essentially given veto power over all

regional transportation projects. Furthermore, in

1971 it was given authority to allocate about $35

million per year from the Transportation Development Act funds (.25 percent of all local sales taxes)

among the several competing transit operators in

the nine-county region. MTC has the authority to

determine whether the funds are to be used

immediately or kept in reserve to be used for future

needs, and to determine how the funds are to be

used: for planning, operation, or construction, and,

in the more rural counties, for either highway or

transit.

MTC adopted a plan in June 1973 as required by

the original legislation. MTC’s plan contrasts

strikingly with the earlier Bay Area Transportation

Study plan. Instead of concentrating on long-range

forecasts and plans, MTC’s plan stresses policy

directions. Apart from the positive treatment of

new policy directions for the region, however,

much of the MTC plan is reactive. It contains no

serious effort to identify new opportunities or to

create program initiatives to achieve regional

objectives. The plan’s critics have concluded that

the MTC planning process is the type that might

stop some bad projects but it would never result in

getting a BART built, even if that was clearly what

the region needed.

On the positive side, the plan has several

interesting features:

● Twelve major corridors are defined in such

a way that the principal issues, functions,

and options in each can be examined

relatively independently in subsequent

subregional studies.

● The basic physical plan is composed of

elements that are formally assigned

“status.” The categories of status are (1)

projects recommended for implementation, (2) those recommended for planning

evaluation, (3) areas in which an issue is

recognized, and (4) projects not included in

the plan at this time. This treatment is a

technical contribution to the state-of-theart of the type of planning process that is

evolving around the country.

● The plan devotes substantial attention to

non facility programs, such as transit

system coordination, low-cost transit and

highway improvements, transportation

management programs, and incentive

programs.

● The financial plan developed is in keeping

with MTC’s legislative mandate to provide

a financial plan that is not constrained by

existing financing mechanisms or program

restrictions. An interesting attempt is

made to forecast the Bay Area’s ability to

attract Federal aid, and a wide variety of

different types of regional taxes and

bonding mechanisms are examined.

● The plan is unusual among metropolitan

area transportation plans in that its

treatment of costs gives balanced consideration to capital and operating costs. It

includes analysis of the impact of capital

improvements on overall transit system

operating costs.

● In keeping with the mandate of the MTC

enabling legislation, the financial plan

analyzes the potential of a wide variety of

different types of regional taxes and

bonding mechanisms. Part of this effort

involved an interesting attempt to forecast

the Bay Area’s ability to attract Federal aid.

● The Metropolitan Transit Federation and a

Traffic Management Council ar e

recommended to accomplish needed coordination among transit operators and to

achieve more efficient use of streets and

highways.

26
MTC appears to be an appropriate structure for

improving coordination among transit operators,

particularly through the bargaining power it has in

the allocation of the Transportation Development

Act funds. It has made some efforts to set standards

and to link funding to these standards.

MTC has substantial powers but has been

reticent to use them for fear of legislative reprisal.

It did take some initiative in exercising its powers to

influence highway programing and the use of

highway funds for transit (about $20 million per

year are being shifted). In general, however, MTC

has chosen the route of friendly persuasion, rather

than risk loss of its powers by using them in conflict

situations.

The mandate of MTC, the tenor of the times and

the reaction to past programs and their style of

management have all combined to push MTC in the

direction of crisis intervention at the expense of

more thorough and deliberate planning. MTC staff

deliberately has sought to involve operating and

implementing agencies in its planning process to

give them a stake in plan implementation.

Assemblyman John Foran of San Francisco,

author of the MTC legislation, sees it as a half step

in the evolution of Bay Area government and a

major step away from the single-mode, singlefunction approach at the State level.

Since 1970, BART extension studies have been

conducted in several corridors:

●

●

●

●

●

●

Geary Street in San Francisco

San Francisco Airport

BART-type technology versus Southern

Pacific upgrading for the Peninsula (outside BARTD’s jurisdiction)

Oakland Airport

Livermore

Pittsburg-Antioch

In contrast to earlier BART system planning,

these studies generally have been conducted in an

open manner with study direction typically coming

from local government, MTC and BARTD, with

substantial opportunity for citizen participation.

Outcomes of these studies vary widely. If all of

the extensions for which BARTD is responsible

were to be constructed (i. e., excluding the full

peninsula route), it would double the current 75

miles of system at an estimated cost of another $1.5

billion. 24 Based on past experience, even this

probably is an optimistic price estimate. The full

length of a San Mateo County extension was

estimated to cost $807 million from Daly City to

Redwood City near the Santa Clara County line.25

Cost estimates for the extension of this line to its

more logical terminus in San Jose are not available,

but it is likely that this project would add roughly

another half billion dollars to the cost for this 16-

mile length. When financing costs and more

realistic inflation costs are included, it is likely that

the full cost of all the above extensions would be in

the $3.5 to $4 billion range.26

How many, if any, of these extensions are likely

to be built is a matter of conjecture. Forecasts vary

among those interviewed from no future extensions to almost all of them.

The San Francisco airport extension is strongly

supported in San Francisco and is one of the easiest

to justify in a benefit-cost sense. However, a

decision on it is intimately linked to the consideration of an extension down the Peninsula. This

proposal raises one of the more difficult transportation issues that the Bay Area will face because of its

high cost, the existence of the S.P. commuter

service, the fact that three counties and many cities

are directly involved, and many othe r

ramifications.

The Geary Street line in San Francisco would

almost certainly be built as a Muni route rather

than a BART extension if any fixed-guideway

transit were to be built—which appears doubtful as

a result of the study.

The Oakland Airport extension has substantial

support in the East Bay even though it would

attract far less patronage than other extensions,

particularly in the short term. The San Francisco

airport extension may not be politically feasible

within the regional decision making process unless

24 Testlmon y of B. R. Stokes in hearings before the

Subcommittee on Transportation of the Committee on Public

Works, Uni ted States Senate, May 24, 19’74, in San Francisco.

~’ PB-T-B-Wilbur Smith-Klrker, Chapman, San kf~lm COUn@

Tr[~rl~l/ DWtlOlJrnetIi proleit. Alr[wr(-kfenio Purl, final draft report,

April, 1974, pp. s-14 and xvi-2.

LO Interview with Lawrence Dahms, Acting General Manager

of BART, September 1974.

27
it is coupled with the Oakland Airport extension, as

MTC found when its staff attempted to set such a

priority during the process of making its 1973 plan.

The Pittsburg-Antioch extension has a great deal

of local support, apparently much greater than the

Livermore extension. The former has the potential

for becoming the catalyst for renewal of two older

deterioratin g cities and would provide service to

substantial concentrations of population and

industrial employment. The costs of a BART-type

system are very high, however, for the levels of

ridership anticipated. The Livermore extension has

a considerable amount of opposition from opponents of growth in that area. This, plus poorer

economic justification for the route, make it

unlikely that this route will get built in the near to

medium-range future, if at all.

28
.

1900

1911

1920

1928

1929

1937

1939

1946

1947

Chronology of the Transit Planning Process

San Francisco ratified a city charter with

authorization for public ownership of

utilities, including public transportation.

San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni)

was established and began operating

streetcar routes. It is believed to be the

first publicly owned transit system in

the country.

The Commonwealth Club supported

the San Francisco Bay Regional Plan

Association in developing a land use and

transportation plan, including a rapid

transit plan for six counties.

The Golden Gate Bridge and Highway

District was formed to finance, construct, and maintain the Golden Gate

Bridge.

The California State Legislature

authorized construction of the Bay

Bridge (it was completed in 1936).

In November, San Francisco voters

rejected a $49 million subway plan

recommended by the city’s Public

Utilities Commission.

In January, rail service was begun by

both the Southern Pacific and the Key

System on the Bay Bridge from the East

Bay to San Francisco.

Public hearings were held on about 20

alternative configurations for new Bay

crossings developed by the Joint ArmyNavy Board.

National City Lines acquired the Key

System and began converting streetcar

lines to bus routes.

Harland Bartholomew and Associates

published Transit Facilities and Mass

Transportation in the Oakland Metropolitan

Area, recommending an extensive

system of rail rapid transit for the East

Bay.

Voters approved the most recent

successful Muni bond issue ($20

million), to be used primarily for rolling

stock,

On January 25, the Joint Army-Navy

Board published a report recommending

an underwater transit tube beneath San

Francisco Bay to completely integrate

rapid transit systems on both sides of the

Bay.

1948 In November, the Transportation Plan for

San Francisco, prepared by DeLeuw,

Cather & Company, and Ladislow Segoe

and Associates, recommended an extensive freeway system, a “rapid transit bus

operation” on freeways, and a bus

subway on Post Street. These recommendations later were incorporated into

the city’s master plan.

194 9 The California legislature authorized

Bay Area local governments to form a

rapid transit district, but provided no

funds or requirements. No action was

taken until the legislation was amended

in 1951.

1950 A study called The Transit Problems in the

East Bay, prepared by John G. Marr for

the Oakland Planning Commission, led

to the conclusion that public takeover in

the East Bay was needed, but no action

was taken.

1951 On July 25, the

created the San

Rapid Transit

Commission) to

problems in the

California legislature

Francisco Bay Area

Commission (BART

study rapid transit

nine-county area and

provided $50,000 for the study.

1953 In January, after a 6-month study by

DeLeuw, Cather & Company, the BART

Commission submitted its preliminary

report, which recommended development of a master plan for Bay Area rapid

transit by one central agency. The

29
legislature loaned the Commission

$4000,000, to be matched by $350,000

from the nine counties, to carry out 1958

these recommendations.

In August, a subcommittee of the BART

Commission selected Parsons ,

Brinckerhoff, Hall and MacDonald

(PBHM) to do a 2-year comprehensive

rapid transit master planning effort.

1959

1956 On January 5, PBHM submitted its

Regional Rapid Transit report to the BART

Commission, recommending a longrange nine-county master plan for a

high-speed rail system, with a first-stage

five-county 123-mile system. The “optimum plan” (tube under the Bay instead

of use of Bay Bridge) was estimated to

cost $716 million.

In March, Stanford Research Institute

(SRI) report called Organizational and

Financial Aspects of Proposed San Francisco

BART System was presented to the BART

Commission and the legislature,

recommending the establishment of a

regional agency to build and operate the

system, and the use of tolls, property

taxes, and sales taxes to finance its

construction.

After the legislature had authorized the

establishment of the Alameda-Contra

Costa Transit District (AC) in 1955,

voters approved its formation, with

taxing powers and a directly elected

board, and authorized it to take over the 1960

failing Key System and operate public

transportation throughout the urban

portion of the two East Bay counties and

into downtown San Francisco. No

funding was provided, however, to

implement these powers. 1961

1957 On January 17, the nine-county BART

Commission submitted its final report to

the legislature. The report recommended creation of the Bay Area Rapid

Transit District, based on recommendations of PBHM and SRI.

On June 4, the California legislature

created the five-county Bay Area Rapid

Transit District (BARTD) to plan, build,

and operate a rapid transit system,

provided ample funding for staff and

consultants, and established a

mechanism for issuing bonds.

The Key System discontinued the last

Bay Bridge interurban electric rail

service. The bridge decks wer e

reconstructed, removing the rail tracks

to create new highway lanes. Express

bus service replaced rail operations,

On January 23, the “freeway revolt” in

San Francisco reached a climax with a

resolution by the Board of Supervisors

to remove several freeways from the

city master plan,

Voters of the AC Transit District

approved a $16.5 million issue backed by

property taxes after the legislature

lowered the required percentage from

two-thirds to a simple majority.

Legislation to establish the Golden Gate

Authority to operate bridges, airports,

and harbor facilities in the Bay Area was

defeated.

On May 14, Parsons, BrinckerhoffTudor-Bechtel (PB-T-B) signed a contract to provide engineering services for

BART system design and construction.

The fee was $600,000.

On July 10, after a difficult fight, State

legislation authorized qualified use of

Bay Bridge tolls to finance construction

of a trans-Bay tube.

In October, AC Transit purchased the

Key System, assumed operating responsibility, and began a major program of

improving and extending service and

attracting increased ridership.

The legislature officially recognized the

Association of Bay Area Governments

(ABAG), which had begun on an informal basis in May 1960.

In August, Ebasco Services, Inc., submitted an economic evaluation of the

five-county BART system, claiming the

system would produce quantifiable

benefits of $42 million per year by 1975,

in addition to nonquantifiable benefits.

A bill was narrowly defeated that would

have established the Golden Gate

30
Transportation Commission, covering a

six-county area, to manage and plan

transport facilities.

In June, the legislature lowered the

required vote for approval of the BART

bond issue from 66-2/3 percent to 60

percent, based on a bill proposed by

BARTD. The bill passed in spite of

opposition led by Senator Randolph

Collier, the powerful chairman of the

California Senate Transportation Committee and father of the State’s freeway

system.

In October, BARTD submitted a fivecounty plan to the boards of supervisors

of each county (San Francisco, Marin,

San Mateo, Alameda, and Contra

Costa).

In December, San Mateo County officially withdrew from BARTD, citing

high property taxes and the adequacy of

service provided by the existing

Southern Pacific commuter line.

Pressure mounted to have Marin County withdraw because of the financial

unfeasibility of a four-county system.

Squabbling over technical feasibility of

BART’s use of the Golden Gate Bridge

arose, threatening to delay the bond

issue if Marin remained in the District.

1962 On May 17, Marin County officially

withdrew from BARTD after a struggle

with the BARTD board over terms of

the withdrawal.

On May 24, a three-county rapid transit

plan, embodied in the PB-T-B Composite

Report, was adopted by BARTD and

referred to the Alameda, Contra Costa,

and San Francisco county boards of

supervisors, requesting their action to

place the bond issue on the November

ballot.

In July, the boards of supervisors of San

Francisco and Alameda counties unanimously approved placing the BART

bond issue on the November ballot, as

required by enabling legislation. Contra

Costa County’s board approved the

move by a 3 to 2 vote in a cliff-hanger

decision.

On November 6, a $792 million general

obligation bond issue for the construction of a 75-mile system was approved

by 61.22 percent of the voters in the

three counties. One week later BARTD

announced its intention to continue

employing PB-T-B to design and supervise construction.

1963 The Bay Area Transportation Study

Commission (BATSC) was established

by the legislature to prepare a regional

transportation master plan.

On June 10, the Contra Costa County

Superior Court ruled in favor of BARTD

in a taxpayers’ suit challenging the

validity of the bond election, PB-T-B

contract and fees, and payments of

salaries to staff.

On July 1, full-scale design engineering

was begun by BARTD engineering

consultants, PB-T-B.

1964 The West Bay Rapid Transit Authority

for San Mateo County and the Marin

County Transit District were established by the legislature.

On June 19, U.S. President Lyndon B.

Johnson presided at the official start of

BART construction in Concord.

1966 On August 25, BARTD received its first

Federal capital grant for $13.1 million.

Another $13.2 million grant was approved in October.

On October 5, Berkeley authorized, by

an 82 percent vote, the issuance of bonds

up to $20 million to pay the extra cost of

placing 1.75 miles of elevated BART

system underground.

In November, a $96.5 million bond issue

failed in San Francisco that would have

resulted in the removal of the streetcar

system in the city and the purchase of

new equipment to replace rolling stock,

most of which had been acquired nearly

20 years earlier.

ABAG published its Preliminary Regional

Plan.

1967 Simpson and Curtin prepared a plan for

coordination of BART, Muni, and AC

Transit; it called for three Muni subway

31
lines in San Francisco, and for new

rolling stock totaling an estimated $335

million capital cost.

1968 In February, the initiation of any new

construction was halted for several

months because available funds were

committed and no new funds had been

provided by the legislature,

The San Francisco Municipal Railway

Improvement Corporation was established by the city to finance Muni

improvements as part of a complex

alternative to the defeated bond issue.

In November, a Federal grant for $88

million was received for development

and purchase of rolling stock (first 250

cars). Grants totaling another $77

million for an additional 200 cars were

later approved in 1972-73. Eventually all

UMTA grants totaled $304 million, 19

percent of BARTD’s total system cost.

1969 The legislature restructured the Golden

Gate Bridge and Highway District into a

Golden Gate Highway and Transportation District with responsibilit y for

developing a transit system to serve the

corridor.

On March 28, after 3 years of legislative

fighting to solve the financing crisis, the

State legislature approved a one-halfcent sales tax to provide the $150 million

required to complete the BART system.

In May, the Bay Area Transportation

Study Commission (BATSC) submitted

its final report to the legislature,

recommending extensive long-term

additions to the Bay Area’s freeway

system and to BART at a cost of $11 to

$12 billion. A permanent regional structure with much stronger powers was

recommended.

ABAG and the State Business and

Transportation Agency signed an agreement creating the Regional Transportation Planning Committee (RTPC), the

temporary successor to BATSC, which

was disbanded in accordance with the

legislation establishing it in 1963.

In June, San Mateo County’s transit

district went out of business as a result

of the defeat of its plan by voters.

On July 3, BARTD awarded a transit

vehicle contract to Rohr Corporation of

Chula Vista, Calif.

1970 Muni announced plans to use German

articulated streetcars for the MuniMetro subway system. Muni late r

switched to Boeing Vertol equipment,

joining with Boston’s MBTA in ordering

a light-rail vehicle of commo n

specifications and higher performance

characteristics.

In February, BARTD joined with the city

of Oakland and Alameda County to

study the feasibility of linking the

Coliseum station to the Oakland Airport.

In April, BARTD joined San Francisco

and San Mateo counties in conducting a

study of a possible BART extension

from Daly City to the San Francisco

International Airport.

On July 30, Regional Plan 1970-90, the Bay

Area’s first comprehensive regional plan,

was approved by ABAG’s General

Assembly. The plan stressed the “citycenter concept” and drew on the BATS

1969 Plan as a short-range starting

point.

On September 14, the legislature established the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) to replace the

Regional Transportation Planning Commission as the regional transportation

planning agency for the nine-county

area. MTC was given responsibility for

approval or disapproval of all major

regional projects and grant applications

and for preparation and maintenance of

a regional transportation plan by June

30, 1973,

In November, Proposition 18 failed

statewide, although it received a majority in the Bay Area. The measure would

have made a portion of highway “user

revenues available for air pollution

control and rapid transit on a local option

basis.

32
1971 The Transportation Development Act

(TDA) passed, making .25 percent

county sales taxes available for local

transit use; the tax was extended to

include previously exempt gasoline

sales. MTC was given power to allocate

Bay Area TDA funds among operations

and projects to achieve regional coordination objectives.

1972 Studies of possible BART extensions to

Livermore-Pleasanton, PittsburgAntioch, and the San Francisco International Airport were begun.

Muni/BART and AC/BART coordination studies also were begun.

On September 11, BART opened 28

miles between Fremont and MacArthur

stations for revenue service.

On October 2, component failure caused

a two-car BART train to run off the

tracks at Fremont Station; slight injuries

to five passengers resulted. This event

triggered Senate hearings later in the

year.

1973 On June 30, MTC adopted a regional

transportation plan after an extensive

regional participation program. The plan

emphasized short- to medium-range

programs, the need to meet operating

costs, financing options, and means to

better manage and coordinate regional

transportation programs.

On July 2, a BART employee strike

stopped service until August 6 and

resulted in a major wage increase.

On August 10, the first train traveled

through the trans-Bay tube to

Montgomery Street Station (San Francisco).

On November 5, service was begun

between Montgomery Street Station in

San Francisco and Daly City Station,

bringing into operation to date 63.5

miles of the 71-mile system, all of the

system except the trans-Bay tube.

1974 A bill was defeated that would have

consolidated all existing regional agencies in a general purpose, limited

regional government (AB2040).

On June 4, Proposition 5 passed with

60.3 percent of the statewide vote,

amending the State constitution to

permit use of up to 25 percent of a

county’s highway fund allocation for

construction and maintenance of exclusive fixed-guideways for transit

vehicles, subject to local referendum.

In October, BARTD filed a combined

$237.8 million suit against PB-T-B for

management failures, and three major

suppliers—Westinghouse Electric,

Rohr, and Bulova Watch—for breach of

contract and warranty failures.

In October, BART service was begun

through the trans-Bay tube after finally

receiving the Public Utilities Commission’s permission in August. Five

years behind the 1962 schedule all of the

system was in operation (except the

Embarcadero Station, which was an

addition to the original plan).

In November, new BARTD board

members were elected by voters of each

of the nine districts in the three-county

area. A June referendum provided for

this election to replace the old 12-

member board, which had been appointed by mayors and county supervisors.

33
The preceding section has provided an assessment of rail rapid transit planning in the San

Francisco Bay Area in rather broad and comprehensive terms with an emphasis on the context that

shaped major decisions. By contrast this section will

be more like a completed questionnaire.

To provide for commonality among case studies

and ease in cross-referencing, key aspects of the

planning and decisionmaking process are described

here under categories corresponding to the

guidelines for assessment. Many of these topics are

discussed in greater depth in the critical history.

INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT

By contrast with other metropolitan areas the

San Francisco Bay Area can be said to have a greater

need for regional institutions. Its political

geography is more fragmented perhaps than any

other excepting New York: nine counties, about a

hundred cities, and several special districts. 27 By

tradition, primarily because of California’s large

number of urban areas, the State generally stays

out of regional affairs, thus leaving a vacuum of

leadership.

The interdependency of the various parts of the

region reinforce the need for regional institutions.

The high degree of economic specialization in the

various subareas have increased the Bay Area’s

dependence on both the passenger and goods

movement transport links between communities.

Different parts of the region specialize in

agriculture, manufacturing, and shipping, while

the City of San Francisco increasingly specializes in

finance, government, and business administration.

Yet until the modern era there were few good

regional transportation facilities. One reason was

Assessment of the Planning and

Decisionmaking Process

~- According to the %n Fr~rlilwlt Cl~ronlclt’(April 26,1968, p. 40),

the nine-county region had at that time 91 cities, Ii’ regional

agencies, I ~~ school districts and 555 special districts—a total of

866 units of government, all with the power to tax.

the difficulty of meeting the enormous cost of

penetrating the formidable mountain and water

barriers separating many parts of the region.

Despite the need for strong regional institutions,

the jurisdictional fragmentation of the Bay Area is a

major obstacle to their formation. The principal

city, San Francisco, may be dominant in cultural,

financial and many other affairs of the region, but it

comprises a smaller percentage of the metropolitan

area population—about 15 percent—than any

other major metropolitan area central city. San

Francisco County (identical with the city) is not

even the biggest county but ranks third in

population among the nine, Oakland has always

competed with San Francisco, making regional

cooperation difficult. More recently San Jose has

grown to surpass Oakland in size, and despite its

close economic and social interrelationships with

the rest of the Bay Area, San Jose and Santa Clara

County increasingly have tended to seek their

independence. Since San Jose is recognized as a

separate SMSA, it often has sought to keep Bay

Area regional agencies from interfering in affairs it

regards as its own.

Forum for Decisionmaking

Efforts by business leaders and regionally

oriented political leaders to create strong regional

organizations in the Bay Area repeatedly failed

because of opposition from local home rule

protectors and many non-San Francisco business

and political leaders who feared domination by San

Francisco interests. Efforts were made to create

various types of organizations ranging from

general purpose regional government to transportation authorities with multipurpose transportation responsibilities. Instead of strong forums,

however, weak agencies resulted that are viewed

by regionalists as interim study groups created to

satisfy minimal planning requirements.

The only significant regional institutions prior to

the BART planning era were created for specific

major projects such as the Golden Gate Bridge, the

San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, and several

35
—

other public works projects. Even the BART

planning effort was essentially a project planning

effort, despite the comprehensiveness of the

regional land development study and other aspects

of the 1954-56 work.

During the BART planning period BART was

generally perceived as the regional transit planning

forum because of the lack of other forums. This

was somewhat of a misconception, since highway

planning went on as before in the (then) State

Department of Public Works; local short-haul

transit needs went largely ignored in the BART

planning effort, and other transportation needs

(railroads, ferries, ports, airports, etc.) continued to

be handled on an ad hoc basis. Between 1956 and

1962 even the regional scope of the BART project

planning effort was being lost as the number of

counties involved shrank from nine to three.

In reality because of the limited scope of the

BART project as it moved forward to implementation, there was no clear forum for regional transit

issues other than the BART project until about

1973 when the Metropolitan Transportation

Commission began to prepare its transportation

plan and to assume its other responsibilities.

Efforts of the officially recognized regional planning agencies to provide this forum prior to the

MTC period were generally unsuccessful. Such

agencies as the Association of Bay Area

Governments, (1960 to present) the Bay Area

Transportation Study Commission (1963-69) and

the Regional Transportation Planning Committee

(1969-70) were all the result of compromises that

satisfied Federal requirements without creating

any real forum because of their lack of power. They

had no taxing power, no control over the allocation

of funds, no veto power over regional projects and

their plans were not binding on any units of

government that have the real transportation

powers.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission,

created in 1970, however, does have significant

powers, on paper at least (see page 7), and has

become a serious forum on at least a few issues. If

one counts the pressure the commission brings to

get officials to reach agreement before it must act

on plans, programs, or the allocation of operating

funds, MTC has become one of the more effective

regional transportation forums in the country.

There is a strong political momentum to create a

new, more powerful regional planning agency in

the Bay Area which will assume the powers of

MTC, ABAG, and several other regional agencies.

In 1974 a bill narrowly failed in the legislature after

a compromise agreement had been reached by most

interested groups. It would, in effect, have created a

limited regional government. Many observers

believe this effort will be successful in the near

future and will result in a regional planning body

that will have substantial powers, including powers

to make the significant regional transportation

decisions.

Accountability of Decisionmakers

The BART board, like most transit planning

agency boards, was composed of officials appointed

by elected officials of the local jurisdiction until

1974, when direct election of the board was

instituted. The new board members each represent

districts of roughly equal population in the threecounty area. The drive to achieve direct election

reflected a desire to achieve greater accountability

of the board to the public.

The Bay Area is in the forefront of this

movement within the regional planning field

nationally. The AC Transit Board has been directly

elected since its creation in the late 1950’s.

(However, the fact that AC Transit is well

respected nationally as a successful transit operator

probably reflects the quality of management and its

direct access to property taxes more than the fruits

of direct election per se.)

BARTD’s board has been perceived by many

critics as being unresponsive to communities

during the implementation process. There is

enough evidence of BARTD’s insensitivity to

community concerns to conclude that this drive for

direct election was well motivated, although it may

have been belated because it did not go into effect

until the construction period was over, Direct

election of a regional body is probably more logical

when the regional agency is involved in a wide

range of issues of general public concern and the

expenditure of large amounts of money is occurring, not when a major project is completed and

an agency’s responsibilities diminish to relatively

routine operating matters.

One of the problems with direct election of a

board of this type is that it will tend to build a

political constituency around narrowly defined

agency functions and special interests, A second

potential problem is that the added permanency it

will tend to create for the existing agency structure

will hamper the evolution of a broader regional

36
planning framework or more general purpose

regional government. Third, there is the danger

that once construction period is over and public

interest in the affairs of a transit agency

diminishes, the elected board will cease to be

accountable to the public because of the lack of open

competition for office and the lack of media

coverage.

For all these reasons it makes sense to consider

direct election of a transit agency board as a

temporary governmental mechanism that would be

replaced after the construction period by a permanent operating agency structure under control of a

regional general purpose government or a board

representing local general purpose governments.

MTC’s Commissioners are appointed as were the

members of BARTD’s board before the direct

election legislation. The difference in accountability to the public is not so much a reflection of

differences in institutional structure in the sense of

who is represented by whom as it is a reflection of

the type of decisions which the legislature has given

to the organization. MTC is required to make

decisions that inherently force the organization to

make choices among competing interests of the

various local governments and State agencies.

The board of the new regional planning organization proposed for the Bay Area would be

composed half of directly elected representatives

and half of representatives of local elected officials,

according to the 1974 bill. In this way it potentially

would be accountable to the public as a whole as

well as to established local governments.

One of the more important lessons of the San

Francisco experience is the danger of delegating too

much power to consultants, and particularly to

consultants with a rather narrow technical

engineering focus as distinct from a broad multidisciplinary approach. Some of BARTD’s difficulties in carrying out a sound planning process

have been attributed to the close personal

relationships between the board members and PBT-B before the consultants were hired and the lack

of oversight of the consultant’s work that resulted.

Consultants are unlikely to place top priority in

conserving public funds unless appropriate contract incentives are created. They are more likely to

seek to continue work in their field of specialization, and this self-interest may provide incentives

to bias the results of planning studies in the

direction of projects which will utilize their expertise.

Public Involvement

The approach to the public during the BART

system planning process was seen almost entirely

as “educational” from the early efforts to get the

planning underway with the first BART Commission until the 1962 bond issue.

The selling program was a relatively low-key

effort for the first several years, involving use of

the media and major political and business

leadership. B. R. Stokes, a journalist supporter of

BART with the Oakland Tribune, was hired as

BARTD’s first employee to manage the public

information program. The fall 1962 bond issue

drive involved an intensive, well-financed campaign organized by Henry Alexander, a local public

relations consultant. Flyers were mailed out to

every voter. A speaker’s bureau staffed with

BARTD commissioners, staff, and community

leaders made presentations before various public

groups. Newspapers were actively utilized

throughout the campaign building up to election

eve. Alexander saw to it that the bond issue became

Proposition “A” on the ballot for maximum voter

identify. Almost all big political names lined up as

BART supporters including both Richard Nixon

and Edmund G. Brown, who were running for

Governor.

The only general opportunity for involvement of

the public in BART planning was the public hearing

requirement in the legislation that could be invoked

by any city through which BART passed during the

time that BARTD was seeking agreements with

each city subsequent to the bond issue. On several

occasions this mechanism did provide opportunities

to air differences and to bring public pressure to

bear on BARTD. However, most cities did not take

advantage of the hearing mechanism, and for the

most part it was employed only when controversy

had already arisen.

By contrast the BARTD extension studies that

have been conducted since 1972 in several corridors

generally have made well-organized and well-run

citizen involvement efforts. The dramatic change

in the approach to dealing with the public is due to

several factors:

• General changes in public attitudes and

demands as part of a nationwide trend (in

which the Bay Area has been a leader);

● BARTD’s increasing staff competence and

the experience it gained during implementation of the basic system;

37
—

. Demands of local governments to open up

the process, partly in response to bad

experience in the past and lack of trust in

BARTD;

● UMTA’s decision to channel all planning

grants through MTC, an organization

whose staff was strongly committed to an

open public participatory process as part of

its effort to build itself as a regional forum;

and

● A basic change in the role of BARTD,

Previously its primary mission had been

well defined—public involvement was a

source of potential delay in getting a fixed

construction program completed within

the framework of a fixed budget. Now

BARTD needed to build popular support if

any of the extensions were to be built; costs

and time deadlines involved in studies were

no longer serious problems.

Some of the BART extension studies provide

good examples of citizen involvement in such study

phases as formulation of work program; definition

of goals, objectives, and evaluation criteria; definition of alternatives to be studied; and the process of

selecting preferred alternatives. Some significant

differences have arisen between the results of the

citizen involvement and the recommendations of

the “boards of control” which govern the studies on

behalf of BARTD, MTC, and the local

governments. It is likely, however, that the citizen

involvement efforts ultimately will have a major

influence on the final decisions in at least some of

the corridors.

MTC’s planning process has been one of the

more intensive efforts in the country in involving

the public in the preparation of a regional transportation plan. The staff regards its legislative

mandate as reorienting Bay Area transportation

programs toward a “transit first” policy. It has tried

to use the citizen involvement process as a means

toward that end. As a result MTC has put a very

large portion of its effort into “town meetings”

throughout the region. MTC frequently interacts

with public interest and citizen groups and has

produced and widely distributed some of the most

readable and candid documents in this field.

TECHNICAL PLANNING PROCESS

Because BART’s planning process was the first of

the modern regional transit system planning

efforts, there is less value in treating the technical

aspects of this assessment in the same detail as

other aspects, or in the same detail as is being done

for more current planning efforts in other cities

such as Denver. It is almost meaningless to

rigorously apply current technical standards to a

20-year-old study because the field has evolved so

rapidly, It would not be fair, nor would much be

learned from it that could aid others today.

Reference will be made, however, to aspects of the

planning for BART extensions that carry lessons

for other metropolitan areas.

Goals and Objectives

As discussed at length in the first section of the

BART history, there evolved during the 1945-62

period a high degree of consensus among a wide

variety of interests that BART was the regional

transportation goal. The underlying motivations of

the various interested groups, however, varied.

The business elite wanted to develop a regional

economic headquarters and to integrate the labor

markets and productive centers of the Bay Area.

Most elected officials and much of the public were

concerned about congestion and the negative

impacts of freeways. Most urban planners coupled

these concerns with a strong vision of the role of

transit as a catalyst in the city renewal process.

In the style of the times, no formal goal-setting

process occurred, nor do the technical reports deal

with goals and objectives in the manner that since

has become accepted planning practice. One might

speculate that had such a process been seriously

undertaken, the recognition of divergent objectives

might have occurred much earlier than it in fact did

and even might have endangered the BART

project.

Much of the recent literature that is highly

critical of the dominant role of the business elite

fails to recognize the wide degree of comparability

that existed during the 1950’s between the goals of

the prime movers and those of many other

interested groups. To a large extent the criticism of

the role of business leaders during that period

reflects the tremendous change in public values

that has occurred over the last 20 years.

The urban planning team associated with PBHM

worked closely with local planners throughout the

38
Bay Area in developing a regional land development

plan that formed a primary basis for the BART

system plan. This process went a long way toward

ensuring that the transit plan reflected community

goals and objectives of that time. In fact it was an

exemplary effort—even by contemporary planning

standards—in terms of the manner in which the

transit plan was shaped by community land use

planning objectives that had been defined as part of

a regional transit planning process. BART planning

was far ahead of its time in the integration of

regional land development planning and transit

planning, at least during the system planning

process.

During the construction period, however, community land development objectives were given

less and less attention as delays and inflation began

to endanger the financial program. Midway

through the implmentation period this situation

deteriorated to frequent outright conflict between

community land development objectives and

BARTD, as has been discussed in detail in the

history section.

As discussed in the public involvement section,

the treatment of goals and objectives was exemplary in some of the recent BART extension

studies, particularly the Geary Street study in San

Francisco. By this time lessons learned during

initial system planning and the more recent

construction period led the planners to go into far

greater depth in defining objectives and criteria and

applying them in the evaluation process than

ordinarily has occurred in transit planning.

Development and Evaluation of Alternatives

Basically BART system planning did not involve

the development and evaluation of alternatives.

However, it is not appropriate to be critical of

BARTD and its promoters for failing to study

alternatives, as many current writers have been.

They were not violating planning standards

accepted at the time.

In the 1950’s regional planning usually was

conceived of as a process of designing a desired

solution. It was not until the early 1960’s that

several major regional planning programs began to

consider land use and transportation alternatives in

their work programs (for example, the Penn Jersey

Transportation Study, the Southeastern Wisconsin

Regional Planning Program, and the Puget Sound

Regional Transportation Study).

Nor is it likely that the outcome of the planning

process would have been very different had there

been a systematic, thorough investigation of

alternatives. As discussed in detail in the history

section, a widespread consensus on BART

developed among all interests who were involved;

the actual system that evolved was almost a direct

result of the regional land use plan that was

developed in close cooperation with local planning

staffs by the urban planners who were part of the

PBHM team.

One basic alternative that obviously was

available was the use of the Bay Bridge (which still

had tracks at the time) instead of the subaqueous

tube. The 1956 PBHM report did devote some

attention to this but in a biased manner. The

recommended plan was termed the “optimal”

alternative throughout the document. Great

weight was given to the several minutes of travel

time savings that it would provide and the fact that

the tube could readily be linked to a Market Street

subway. However, despite the great additional cost

of the “optimal” plan, no economic evaluation was

reported to justify the added investment.

Although the legislature had asked the BART

Commission to examine the economic justification

for a rapid transit system, no such evaluation

apparently was performed during the master

planning period. The only comment on economic

justification in the 1956 PBHM report is the

statement that it is doubtful the Bay Area could

afford not to build the proposed rapid transit

system,

However, following the master planning period

and prior to the bond issue an assessment of the

benefits of the proposed system was conducted by

Ebasco Services. 28 The evaluation would be inadequate by current standards. Benefits are not related

to costs at all despite the availability of cost

estimates at the time. Perhaps this is because the

system could not have been justified by the benefit

values estimated if such a benefit-cost analysis had

been conducted.

The total projected annual benefits were $42

million. This level of benefit would justify an

investment of only about half of BART’s cost, based

on the cost estimates available at that time and an

28 Rapid Transit System Economic Review, Including a

Technical Supplement for San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit

District, Ebasco Services, Inc., June 1961.

39
—.— —

interest rate of about 8 percent. The acceptable rate

of return that would have been required to justify

BART at its (then) estimated cost would have been

about 4 percent. This is a value that was frequently

used at that time in public works economic

analyses, but nevertheless it was too low a rate to

accept, even at that time. Expected returns on

relevant types of investment in the private sector,

which are the basic guide for benefit-cost studies,

would have required the use of an interest rate on

the order of 8 percent in 1961.

The estimates of time savings in the Ebasco study

account for about three-fourths of the total

estimated BART system benefits. These benefits

probably were grossly overestimated in that time

savings of 15 minutes were used for all movements

through selected major gateways during the rush

hours; these included not only all transit trips but

also all automobile and truck trips.

These criticisms, however, ignore the fact that

BART actually was justified to a large extent by

land development objectives, which were not

evaluated in the 1961 Ebasco study.

From the earliest period of BART planning, rail

rapid transit technology had been assumed to be

the only available, satisfactory technology. The

1947 Army-Navy Report made this assumption

without recognizing the need to study alternatives.

The 1951 legislation creating the BART Commission, however, was less clear. A “rapid transit plan”

was to be developed; this term was defined to

include “transportation of passengers by means of

rail, monorail, or by similar means. ”

In spite of this implication that alternative

technologies should be investigated, relatively little

evaluation effort was devoted to the task. However, this criticism must be seen in the light of the

lack of many of the newer systems that have since

become available. The advantages of buses

operating on grade-separated rights-of-way was

not generally recognized at that time, although of

course the technology was well known. The

various types of automated guideway systems had

not been developed. Nor had a design for a modern

light rail system been developed, although such an

option would have required far less research and

development than did the actual BART technology

that evolved subsequent to the basic system

decision in 1956. A high-quality regional light rail

system with extensive local coverage could have

been a highly feasible and attractive option because

of the existence of rights-of-way and tracks on

40

several lines in San Francisco, across the Bay

Bridge, and in some locations in the East Bay.

Several of the available vehicle and guideway

concepts were subjected to a rather nontechnical

review, but the 1956 PBHM report gave most

attention to a comparison of suspended versus

supported train technologies. Basically the selection of a “conventional” duo-rail system was based

on the highly definitive standards that were

established for speed, capacity, headways, and

other features. No known analysis was conducted

of the tradeoffs that were possible between these

standards and system costs.

Several alternative route alinements were

evaluated in some of the corridors. During the

system planning process, however, little of this

work was published and most of it can be traced

only through personal recollections and general

descriptions of the factors that were considered.

As noted previously, the regional development

scheme was the basic criterion. It dictated the need

for direct high-speed service with few stops linking

all of the cores of the older cities. This concept left

relatively little room for alternative basic configurations. The nine-county master plan linked all

important cities on as direct a route as possible.

The primary evaluation then focused on the

definition of the first phase system that could be

implemented within the existing constraint of

financial feasibility, which had been fairly well

defined by the legislature in 1953 when it placed a

limit on bonding for BART of 15 percent of

assessed value of the District. These constraints

defined the terms of the basic evaluation that was

conducted—a trade-off analysis between system

extensiveness and costs within an approximately

fixed total cost, depending on the number of

counties included in the first phase. The more

extensive the system, the more cities could be

served initially and the greater the potential

ridership, revenue, and public and political support

BART could expect. Cost considerations, of course,

dictated avoidance of subsurface routing insofar as

possible, use of existing rail or projected freeway

rights-of-way wherever feasible, and reduction in

numbers of stations at less important subcenters.

(The last criterion worked in favor of higher speed

capability, which was a dominant consideration in

attracting the auto user.)

After the master plan was adopted in 1957 and

the BART District created, the engineering design
of the system in the 1959-62 period involved the

further evaluation of alternative routes within a

relatively fixed master plan. At this time there was

some give and take between BARTD and individual

cities in order to gain their support. During this

process local land use considerations were introduced in several instances to modify alinements

or change elevated routing to subway (part of the

Berkeley subway agreement occurred then). The

extent of this was limited, however, in part because

of BARTD’s cost limitation concerns and in part

because BART’s potential impacts were n ot

perceived as real yet by local elected leaders.

Financing and Implementation

The experience in the San Francisco area

regarding financing and implementation problems

has perhaps had more influence on this study’s

findings in this subject area than any of the other

case assessments. This is true primarily because it is

the only one of the nine metropolitan areas which

has been through the planning and construction

period for an entire regional rapid transit system

during the modern period covered by this assessment. In addition, the BART system represents an

extreme example (along with the Washington, D.C.

area) of a long-term commitment to a master plan

for a major new regional rail rapid transit system.

As an extreme example it is the source of several

lessons for other areas regarding the problems that

can come with such a commitment.

In stressing the problems that have arisen from

the BART approach to implementation, one has the

danger of losing sight of the positive aspects. The

building of BART was an incredible achievement

that will be matched by few other metropolitan

areas, if any. Without any promise of Federal or

State aid, the metropolitan area recognized that it

had to make a firm and major long-term commitment if it was to achieve the objective of knitting

together the several separated parts of the Bay

Area with a new rapid transit system, given the

high costs involved in overcoming the major

natural barriers and achieving sufficient speed and

other standards of quality for BART to substitute

for highways as the backbone of the regional

transportation system. The years of financial

difficulty, disruption, and conflict exacerbated by

the implementation approach chosen were justified

in the eyes of many BART supporters. Many of the

most knowledgeable local critics of BARTD’s

organization, management, and technical competence acknowledge that the basic system planning and implementation decisions were wise in the

context of the times.

The following discussion of BART financing is

organized around subcategories that correspond to

this study’s guidelines for assessing transit financing: (1) achievement of national, regional and local

goals; (2) stability and predictability of funding; (3)

balance between long-range, regional, singletechnology planning and short-term responsiveness to local needs; and (4) avoidance of

unnecessary delays due to program administration

at higher levels:

Financing and Implementation: Achievement of

National, Regional, and Local Goals.—Several

aspects of BART’s history are peculiar with respect

to national goals and hence of no great relevance

for other areas. National defense considerations

played a major role in defining the original need for

a regional transit system, in outlining some of its

physical configuration, and in stimulating serious

planning efforts within the region. However,

national goals had no influence after that during

the system planning process because this planning

took place before the beginnings of the Federal

transit program in 1961.

On the other hand, Federal and State transportation policy had a major effect in stimulating BART

in a negative sense: the insensitive approach to

freeway planning and design in San Francisco in the

early- and mid-1950’s gave rise to vehement

opposition to the program, which came to be

nationally known as the “freeway revolt” and

culminated in the withdrawal of half a dozen

freeways from the city’s master plan and the

sacrifice of tens of millions of dollars of State and

Federal money in the late 1950’s. This was a major

factor not only in generating public support for

BART but also in shaping the objectives used in the

BART planning process—i.e., the emphasis on

providing a high-speed, long-distance alternative to

freeways and bridges.

The San Francisco area took on a major responsibility which should have been a national objective;

research and development of new technology.

Most of the financial burden and all of the

management burden for this fell on BARTD. Only

a relatively small percentage of the cost of this was

borne by the Federal research and development

program. It is universally agreed that it was a

41
Public opposition to new urban highways bolstered support for BART. The

halt to construction of San Francisco’s Embarcadero Freeway in the 1960’s

led the city’s—and the nation’s—’’freeway revolt.”

mistake in retrospect to have relied so extensively

on technological development within the

framework of a specific transit development project.

Regional goals dominated over national, State

and local goals in the BART implementation

program to a greater degree than maybe permitted

elsewhere in the foreseeable future. A regional

organization with a clear mandate to build a

regional system was provided in 1962 with

guaranteed financing of a billion dollars. No

mechanism for State oversight of the program was

established, despite the fact that BART had been

created and financed entirely through State

legislative initiative. No legislative review of the

program took place for about 4 years, until after it

was in serious financial trouble.

Local goals played a significant, if secondary, role

in system planning; however, in the implementation program the opportunity for local goals to

influence BART was minimized by the nature of

the implementation program—not perhaps intentionally, but effectively. The public was not granted

the right to public hearings; they could be achieved

only by special request of local governments. No

funds or provisions were provided in the program

42

for planning, design, or construction of local

community facilities that inevitably were going to

be required or desired in conjunction with the

planning, design, and construction of BART.

There seems to have been no recognition of the

opportunities BART would provide for coordinated

development of station areas during system

construction and the time test would be required to

take advantage of the opportunities.

The most negative aspect of the financing

program from the standpoint of local goals was its

inflexibility. This inflexibility almost inevitably led

to conflict as a system of fixed dimensions was

constructed over a serveral-year period of changing

community values. This propensity for conflict was

compounded by some of the optimistic assumptions

built into the financing program: for example, the

use of a 3 percent per annum inflation estimate and

a 10 percent contingency cushion (a particularly

low value in a project involving substantial

technological development and the need for

agreements with so many local governments).

Construction was programed to take about half the

dozen years that it eventually took to complete the

system. At that, there is evidence that the program

was forced to completion more than it would have
been—decisions were made to proceed with various

construction and operation activities before they

should have because of time pressures.

Financing and Implementation: Stability and

Predictability of Funding.—Stable, predictable

funding is one of the most fundamental requirements for sound planning. The BART financing program did appear to provide stability at the

outset and therefore was able to give BARTD the

momentum it needed.

However, financing stability was undermined by

the absence of a mechanism for revising the

financing plan to take account of changing circumstances. The BART plan contained no provision for staging construction to allow putting the

most important parts of the system into operation

ahead of lower priority portions in case rising costs

made it impossible to complete the entire system on

schedule. No source of additional or continuing

revenue was identified to complete the system as

defined or to cover costs of additions or changes.

Partly as a consequence of these failings, BARTD

took over 3 years and wasted much effort to

provide the additional financing necessary to cover

a projected $150 million cost overrun that came to

light in 1965.

Federal funds ultimately made up about half of

the total cost overrun of BART. It appears that

UMTA did attempt to provide some promise of

multiyear financing within the limitations of the

Federal program. However, the lack of certainty

regarding the amount and timing of these funds did

not help. The California Legislature did not want to

commit itself to the provision of additional regional

taxes to cover any costs that might potentially come

from UMTA. By not committing funds itself it was

placing maximum pressure on UMTA to bail out

BARTD. Such gamesmanship over financing can be

costly and can be avoided only through the

provision of more predictable funding at both the

State and Federal levels.

Financing and Implementation: Long-Range,

Regional, Single Technology Planning Versus

Short-Term Responsiveness to Local Needs.—

BART demonstrates that desirable financing

arrangements should provide balance between

local and regional transit needs and should avoid

commitment to a single-technology regional

system when different technologies may be more

appropriate in different corridors.

BARTD was formed as a separate organization to

take on responsibility for the new regional system.

It was given no responsibilities for existing local

transit services nor for the provision of new local

short-haul transit services where such services

were needed. This limitation inevitably set up a

conflict between the two types of needs that have

been more sharply drawn in the San Francisco area

than elsewhere. The conflict was heightened

because of the high level of tax commitment that

had already been made to the Muni and AC Transit

systems and the fact that all of the BART system

financing obligation was assumed at the start by

metropolitan area residents. San Francisco

residents are subsidizing all forms of transit at the

rate of well over $100 per capita per year, the

highest in the country.

The BART master planning for the original ninecounty area is one of the most prominent examples

of overemphasis on a single-technology system

throughout a region. The master plan called for

extension of these costly rail rapid transit lines,

basically designed for high-capacity, high-density

urban corridors, many miles beyond the boundaries

of existing urban development to small centers

such as Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Vallejo, and Napa. At

no time during the system planning process did

planning appear to give serious consideration to

using different modes within different corridors or

to finding ways in which some of the existing

transportation facilities in particular corridors

could be upgraded, extended, or otherwise improved to form a better-integrated system.

In retrospect the need for such analysis is obvious

because of the existence of the Southern Pacific

commuter rail operation, the very successful

Golden Gate express bus system, the popular and

successful rebirth of the Marin County commuter

ferry operation, and the existence of the streetcar

tracks, tunnels and separate rights-of-way in San

Francisco.

Financing and Implementation: Avoidance of

Delays Due to Program Administration at Higher

Levels.—The BART planning process never encountered serious delays such as have been alleged

in other metropolitan areas due to indecision or

policy redirection by UMTA. However, BART

officials do complain about significant delays that

have been unnecessarily caused by UMTA in some

of the extension studies. The basic problem seems

to be that the present UMTA financing mechanism

requires all contract matters, including even minor

43
contract amendments, to be approved in

Washington, BART has felt it necessary to absorb

the loss of significant Federal funds rather than

wait several months for such approvals.

At the State level BART has felt some frustration

in dealing with the Legislative Analyst’s Office

while it performed reviews of BARTD’s management. However, these reviews appear to have been

warranted to provide the basis for consideration of

new legislation to solve BARTD’s financing

problems. The delays potentially could have been

avoided if there had been a continuing regular

legislative review of the BARTD program, rather

than an involvement only at the time of crisis. A

well-managed legislative review might well have

been able to have anticipated some of the management and financing problems before they became

crises.
Summary Case Assessment

The purpose of this final section is to summarize

the assessment of the transit planning and

decisionmaking process in the San Francisco Bay

Area in terms of the guidelines for evaluation. This

material is divided into three parts: (1) Institutional

Context, (2) Technical Planning, and (3) the

Financing and Implementation Program.

1. ASSESSMENT OF THE

INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT

The San Francisco Bay Area has had an exceptionally fragmented political and institutional

structure. Many obstacles have impeded regional

cooperation despite the need for a regional strategy

created by a highly interdependent regional

economy and the great difficulty and cost of

providing regional transportation facilities.

● Forum for Decisionmaking.—Until the

recent creation of the Metropolitan

Transportation Commission (MTC) there

has generally not been an effective forum

for regional transit planning and decisionmaking, except during the period from

1954 to 1956 when the basic BART master

plan was being formulated. The creation of

MTC follows an interim period when

typically weak planning agencies were

established to satisfy minimum Federal

requirements.

. Accountability and Authority of

Decisionmakers.—Serious community

relations and technical problems in implementing BART were caused, at least in

part, by the lack of control the BARTD

board exercised over the consultant team.

To a large extent business interests

prevailed over public interests at both

board and staff levels. Perhaps belatedly,

concern over BARTD’s responsiveness led

to instituting direct election of the board in

November 1974. MTC, although its formal

structure is similar to BARTD’s original

structure, has become one of the more

effective and accountable regional forums

in the country, primarily because its

responsibilities force it to make choices

among competing interests.

● Public Involvement.— During the BART

system planning process, public participation was seen almost entirely as an

“educational” effort aimed at winning the

bond election. During the implementation

of the basic system, the lack of effective

participatory mechanisms was partially

responsible for increasing the level of

confrontation between communities and

BARTD. In contrast, the recent BART

extension studies have sought public

participation in an open planning process

reflecting lessons learned as well as

BARTD’s need to regain popular support if

any of the extensions are to be built.

MTC has made an intensive effort to

involve the public in preparing a regional

transportation plan through town

meetings, frequent interaction with community groups, and good communications

efforts.

2. ASSESSMENT OF TH E

PLANNING PROCESS

BART’s technical planning process cannot be

fairly judged by standards that have evolved rapidly

over the last 20 years,

● Goals and Objectives.—Although the

underlying motivations of various interests varied widely, a high degree of

consensus developed during the 1945 to

1962 period that BART was the regional

transportation goal. In the style of the

times, no formal goal-setting process was

engaged in nor do the reports deal with

goals and objectives in the manner that has

since become accepted planning practice.

However, the transit planning team worked closely with local planners throughout

the Bay Area in developing a regional land

development plan that formed a primary

45
basis for the BART system plan, thus

helping to assure that the transit plan

reflected contemporary goals and objectives. Community goals and objectives

played an increasingly less significant role

during the financial squeeze of the mid1960’s but became major factors again

during the recent extension studies.

● Development and Evaluation of

Alternatives.— BART system planning did

not evaluate alternative land development

configurations for the Bay Area—this

approach to regional planning did not

become accepted practice until several

years later in the 1960’s. Likewise relatively little evaluation was made of alternative

system configurations or technologies.

Despite a requirement in the original

legislation, no economic justification of the

BART system was provided during the

master planning process in 1954-56. The

first analysis of benefits appeared in a 1961

report, but no benefit-cost assessment was

performed, perhaps because it would not

have resulted in an economic justification

of the project. Alternative route alinement

studies were performed in some corridors,

but this work was limited.

3. ASSESSMENT OF THE

FINANCING AND

IMPLEMENTATION PROGRAM

Lessons learned from BART have heavily

influenced this study’s overall conclusions regarding problems in financing and implementing rapid

transit systems. BART is the only new transit

system that has been completed and opened to

service in recent decades. It, along with the

Washington Metro system, illustrates well the

dangers of a long-term commitment to an inflexible

master plan.

. Achievement of National, Regional, and

Local Goals.—Regional goals dominated

over national, and local goals in the BART

program— probably more so than will be

permitted anywhere in the foreseeable

future. A regional organization with a clear

mandate to build a regional system was

provided with guaranteed financing of a

billion dollars. (The figure would be double

that in today’s terms). The tight construction schedule and budget combined with

the inflexibility of the financial program

and master plan to force an almost

inevitable growing conflict with community land use objectives and changing values.

. Stability and Predictability of Funding.—

The financing program did appear to

provide this important requirement at the

outset and therefore was able to give

BARTD the momentum it desired. However, no mechanism was built into the

program to provide for revisions to the

financing plan to accommodate the almost

inevitable design changes, delays, and cost

escalation. For this reason, resolving the

refinancing problems consumed over 3

years of time and much wasted effort and

resources.

● Long Range, Regional, Single-Technology

Planning Versus Short-Term Responsiveness to Local Needs.—BART

demonstrates that financing arrangements

should provide balance between local and

regional transit needs and should avoid

commitment to a single-technology

regional system when different

technologies may be more appropriate in

different corridors. The conflict between

regional and local needs was more sharply

drawn in the San Francisco area because

BARTD was formed as a separate organization to assume only regional transit

responsibilities and was given a large share

of the area’s potential tax base.

. Avoidance of Delays Due to Program

Administration at Higher Levels.—Since

Federal involvement in BART’s implementation was comparatively moderate and

came late in the program, it was never a

serious factor in causing delays, such as has

been alleged in other metropolitan areas.

At the’ State level BARTD reported experiencing considerable frustration in

dealing with the Legislative Analyst’s

office while it performed reviews of

BARTD. However, these reviews were a

necessary and productive part of the

legislative process; the delays that resulted

could have been avoided and the BARTD

program management probably substantially improved if there had been a well

managed, continuing legislative review

process from the beginning.

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U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1976 0-68-642