Very rarely am I opposed to a transit project, but I think the feds need to push back on it more (doesn't look like they are at the moment). They need to go back to the drawing board and just do cut and cover
Deep bore offends less property owners but is much more expensive versus cut-and-cover. Imagine the hundreds of lawsuits and extra years of delays if BART tried to tear up several miles of streets over several years with cut-and-cover.
@Urbanhandyman That's great if the difference in cost isn't prohibitive, but the current cost estimate is 12.2B. Even if there were lawsuits, if cut and cover were say 4B (i dont know the counterfactual cost) that's alot of remaining money that could fund other transit projects. Now whether that pushback could delay the project... unfortunately you're right.
What a great series you did. It's very thorough and I loved it. Growing up in Fremont in the 70s, I will always know BART by the old line names, such as the Fremont Line (what it used to be called). Even now, I inadvertently refer to it as the Fremont Line or to the trains as "get on a Fremont train (or Concord train) to blah blah station". I had always wondered what San Jose would be like today if they has been a part of the original BART buildout. San Jose was a lot different back then. My aunts and uncles lived in Sunnyvale and East San Jose was lowrider country. It was awesome. I don't know if there are anymore wide gauge BART lines to be built. It seems like e-BART is their only option cost-wise. Once e-BART got built, they're certainly not going to tear it up for wide gauge BART. They should electrify it though. Any extensions like a San Ramon Valley line to Martinez, or Hercules/Vallejo line would probably be standard gauge e-BART if built. I think the e-BART extensions should have ALOT of TOD development to help with the housing crisis, especially way out there where they could build a lot of it. Frankly, if e-BART is going to Discovery Bay (lots of room for dense housing and affordable housing out there), it may as well go into Stockton to serve that Stockton - Contra Costa County commute. As for the 2nd Transbay Tube, standard gauge would probably be the way to go. I used to think that both gauges should be accommodated but I think any BART relief services would probably be better supplied by a Caltrain extension into the East Bay. And we can forget about BART ever heading down Geary. In other words, I see BART as not expanding any farther after San Jose (on the Fremont line :)) is finished. San Joaquins and Capitol Corridor Amtrak lines as well as a potential HSR from Sacramento (long after we're all dead probably) into SF could also use that tunnel, although that rail corridor is way too slow. I use the San Joaquins to visit my Mom in beautiful and gorgeous urban haven Fresno on a nice 300 degree day (at least it's not Bakersfield as they like to say). Even the Dumbarton crossing will be standard gauge for Caltrain and ACE trains. However, the branch to Union City BART will finally provide a BART connection to Caltrain and ACE in the East Bay. The Caltrain extension to Salinas is also quite exciting. Finally, SMART trains in Marin County should cross the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge to connect with BART at Richmond or El Cerrito Del Norte. SMART can even extend north to Vallejo and from Vallejo north to Napa, Sonoma, and Fairfield. I think that should run in the I80 ROW in the East Bay to avoid the slow and meandering Amtrak ROW. And I also lived in LA for 15 years and you are totally right. LA rapid transit will NEVER equal the Bay Area's. Light rail? Please. On-street light rail? Come on. What a joke. Just for fun, I did do a San Jose rapid transit map which I'm quite proud of here: metrodreamin.com/view/blVDTnl4S3pTQ1g0Q3JCalAxTTM5TWs1VHAwM3w2MA%3D%3D and a San Jose regional map here: metrodreamin.com/view/blVDTnl4S3pTQ1g0Q3JCalAxTTM5TWs1VHAwM3w1OA%3D%3D
Grew up in the Cahill park development to the west of Diridon, very excited for the San Jose extension project! Also, that LA hate segment was hilarious ngl
Also I think you could maybe do a video about vaguer projects in the far off future? So like Valley Link corridor between Dublin/Pleasanton and Mountain House, SMART Novato to Suisun branch, a possible Geary subway, Hercules Amtrak/Ferry project. Edit: forgot about possible CalTrain extension to Monterey
Extend eBART all the way to Tracy. Can also have it run on or take over the ACE lines (same track width) with more frequent service. Then add a transfer station where ACE and BART intersect in Fremont.
i was thinking the same of the transfer station, but the fremont bart and amtrak station is already nearby, so unless they get rid of both of them, i dont see it
@@todgod Yeah, there's a lot more to that project than meets the eye! Did you see that ACE and the San Joaquins are "unifying fares and signage"? They're already sister agencies being run by the same authority/thing. The rest of the Bay often ignores that Tri-Valley/San Joaquins Valley area, but that is by far the fastest growing part of the Bay. Dublin went from a village to a mid-size-ish city in the last 20-30 years. A toooooon of people are moving and getting displaced there. That's likely where the next big Bay Area city will emerge from that mess of suburban sprawl.
I could be wrong, it happens from time to time, but I believe the second trans bay tube is slated to be standard gauge turning the station at salesForce transit center into a through station with tracks continuing over to the east bay. Well, that's the way I've heard it, which I think would be awesome, it would also allow California high-speed rail to instead of terminating in San Francisco, continuing up to Sacramento eventually. Sadly, I don't think any of that's gonna happen in my lifetime, but you never know. Great video.
I’m really surprised that Marin County turned down BART. A connection between SMART and BART would really be great, but knowing that they passed it up in the first place probably means that we won’t be getting one any time soon.
Marin Co didn't turn down BART. They wanted BART probably more than any other county in the Bay Area, but were forced out of the district due to San Mateo leaving the BART district. It's a long story, but everyone was afraid that the original BART ballot measure would not pass if Marin were included. So they were forced out by the politicians, and eventually BART themselves. But they were promised first dibs when BART started expanding again. (i.e. actually adding more counties to the BART district.)
I guess that if BART doesn't expand then it could potentially work to have SMART go under the golden gate bridge. at least something will happen (but BART would be better).
Great video! A couple of BART expansions I would love to see include extending the Orange Line from Richmond to Larkspur (and ideally San Rafael) to provide a connection to SMART, and extending the Red Line from Richmond to Vallejo and Fairfield.
Honestly I think it would be really stupid to make the second Transbay Tube broad gauge. It would be so much better for services like Capitol Corridor, San Joaquins, Caltrain, and of course CA HSR if it was a standard gauge track. Plus, BART would already have pretty good frequency across the bay once they get CBTC edit: autocorrect
Even with all those other services, BART would carry about 3x more people under the Bay if it had a second tube. BART is a heavily interlined system with a massive bottleneck under the Bay. You can't beat subway/metro level frequencies and capacity with commuter and intercity rail. If we want bang for our buck then BART is it. There are other reasons why maybe the new tube should be standard gauge, but capacity is not one of them.
@@todgod they need to immediately a) extend the Green Line north to serve the airport and intermediate neighborhoods, and b) make the downtown section and underground subway (similar to the Regional Connector in Los Angeles)
@@gevans446 IMO the R-Street viaduct should go out to West Sac, and the Blue Line could run through midtown, and both Gold and Blue become light metros that can get better grade separation later. At the same time, take the street running sections and turn it into a streetcar system to go with their Tower Bridge plans. That system could grow down the road and densify places like Land Park and midtown more. Also, how do we not have dedicated DMU services from Sac Valley to Davis, Woodland, Elk Grove, and Roseville-Lincoln? I think the airport line would be good, but there's so much improvement that I think SacRT should do first with the bones they have.
Honestly, instead of expanding out to Discovery Bay, build from Walnut Creek down to Livermore on 680 or something. But yeah. Connect those areas together as that is a HIGH traffic area
I think an LRT along the Iron Horse line would be more beneficial to the region and easier to get through all the NIMBY BS that you run into in places like Danville, Alamo, and San Ramon, especially if it didn't replace the MUP that's there now. But if it was BART, then my fantasy alignment would start in downtown Pleasanton and have an exchange at Dublin/Pleasanton. Then you could do Bishop Ranch Transit Center, Danville, Alamo, and then *actually* put a station in downtown Walnut Creek before connecting to the Yellow Line at Walnut Creek. And then, here's the kicker, you keep going! You have a stop at Six Flags/Buchanan Field, then another at the Martinez Amtrak station, then tunnel under the Carquinez Strait to put two more stations in Benicia and Vallejo. Having a rail connection to Vallejo would make such a huge difference to that city, it's not even funny.
It was so frustrating that San Mateo county opted out of bart. I lived in the sf sunset district and worked in San Mateo City for a decade and it was 2 hours each way on transit but if I'd worked in Millbrae it would have been 45 minutes. Ended up having to drive. Glad that commute is in my past
One big improvement would be redoing the Oakland wye. It is very slow and loud (even with the new fleet). A new tunnel with wide turns and a higher speed viaduct between west oakland could easily shave off several minutes.
Got a chance to explore the Bay Area this past week and really observe the system. The impression i came away with wad the BART doesn't need a full transbay tube expansion but rather improvements on either land base ends where the actual capcity bottlenecks are. A much smaller project to build a branch right before embarcadero station and terminating at the salesforce transit center would dramatically improve system resilience and provide a valuable direct connection to caltrain
Things I wish they would do: station at SJC, not "adjacent to" where you have to transfer to a people mover or something. It's been proven time and time again that direct airport connections are much much better. Also, plan for downtown VTA in a tunnel connected to the station. VTA is slow downtown and should eventually be put in a tunnel. Having it "roughed in" to the Bart station would be great. But....no vision, I guess.
@@lalakerspro under it. They’re building a tunnel anyway. Bart and Muni are in the same stations Bart and Caltrain in the same stations. What does fare have to do with anything?
@@passatboi i thought you were implying bart/vta use the same platform. Even then, bart tracks will travel perpendicular to VTA/caltrain due to where they come from. VTA tracks turn left to winchester, bart turns right toward santa clara
There is a much easier way to extend service to SJC. All we need is 900ft of light rail track from 1st and a single station in between the two terminals! But for some reason the city of San Jose instead opted for an idiotic PRT people mover monstrosity for 10x more money.
9:25 I thought one of the main bottlenecks in the BART system was the transbay tube. Two lines, one for BART and one for standard gauge, would be even better. ☁️😀☁️
Perhaps you covered this in another video: When will BART figure out a way to significantly increase the speed of their trains and I don't mean reduce delays? Is this even possible or will it take new tracks and cars? Also, how can BART significantly reduce the noise of their trains?
As far as I understand it, it's definitely possible for BART to go a lot faster. In fact before the Feds stepped in, BART trains would routinely accelerate to 100 mph in the Berkeley hills tunnels (going downhill). But the Feds stepped in and limited BART's speed to 80 mph for safety reasons. Theoretically, BART could push to review those limitations and find a few stretches where the trains could go faster than the current 80 mph speed limit. They would definitely need new trains and probably extensive trackside upgrades. But the main problem is that BART has very high stop density even for 80 mph, and there really aren't that many stretches where a higher speed is needed. There are the tunnels under the bay and under the Berkeley Hills. But everywhere else the long stretches are interrupted by stations. I'm guessing that this will have to wait until BART decides that it needs express tracks for express service. And likely after they install platform screen doors to safely run express trains through stations at speed. So not soon and it won't be cheap.
I def agree that the new transbay tube should be standard gauge Imagine in like 20 years if Caltrain were like a mainline rapid transit system like the Elizabeth line or Japanese commuter trains that connects sj sf and Oakland quickly and the Capitol Corridor could be like a reserved seat express for an extra charge basically Gosh one can dream lol
Actually, in terms of frequency Caltrain will already get most of the way there this fall. 15 minute frequencies, here we come! Effectively, Caltrain will behave like just another BART line after September. Exciting times!
@@todgod Pittsburgh is more of a near Great Lakes region. A true East Coast trip would be along much of New Jersey starting with SIR (Staten Island Railway), PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson), HnBLR (Hudson no Bergen Light Rail), NLR (Newark (pronounce Noork) Light Rail), RiverLine between Trenton & Camden & PATCO between Lindenwold & Philadelphia.
Wow, BART has grown from my childhood, when i was young, Concord to Daly city, was as far as you could go, I believe Richmond was the north terminus, an i forget how far it went south from Oakland, after the tunnel
Richmond is still the last stop north of Berkeley. It need to go to San Pablo, Hilltop (massive housing project has been mentioned but nothing official), Hercules, and eventually Vallejo.
@@Urbanhandyman Technically, the Capitol Corridor train is the unofficial BART extension north of Richmond. That's why BART took over operations of the Capitol Corridor. They want to eventually make it run at crazy high frequencies so that it's almost like an eBART extension to Sacramento and eventually Tahoe/Reno. Ironically, the Capitol Corridor, supposedly an intercity line, was the first transit operator in the Bay Area to implement open payment with just a credit card. You just tap your credit card and board!
BART Extension from Millbrae to Menlo Park and East Palo Alto via Hwy 101 and Another Branch To Palo Alto/Stanford University and Santa Clara via El Camino Real BART Extension for Red Line😊
The reason the San Mateo County section goes where it does is because that's where the existing rail RoW was. A lot of BART was built fairly cheaply with minimal land acquisition because it took over existing rail RoW. For example, basically the entire section from Fruitvale to Berryessa I believe. Also, eBART is good, actually. The reality is the density of the SFH sprawl past Concord station simply does not "deserve" full BART. If the municipalities were willing to upzone land around the stations a la Vancouver, sure. But none of them have given any indication they want to. I'll settle for every parcel within half a mile of the station for 8 stories by right and within a mile, 4 stories, since I personally find Vancouver a little bit ugly even if it's technically "optimal" lol. But the point stands that the densities of the far reaches of the yellow line (and the blue line, too) do not support big BART. Again, caveat if every station area was zoned to look like Vancouver or at a minimum, downtown Berkeley then sure.
One (completely unrealistic) thing I would love to see is express trains. Bart is such a long system that it takes forever to get from one end to the other. If you want to improve ridership, cutting down the amount of time it takes to get downtown or to the airports would improve things. But the cost of construction (and difficulty of getting additional rights of way) makes this an impossible pipe dream.
That would be great but would indeed be extremely expensive. Frankly, it would cost the same as just building new BART lines, which is a much better use of the money in terms of increasing ridership. But if they were to do it... They'd need to build outside tracks for the slower trains and keep the current tracks as the express tracks. Expensive, but definitely not impossible. In fact, maybe if they only do it in some key areas they could still implement some kind of minimalistic express service. But what I dream about is an extension in the 101 median from Millbrae all the way down to Diridon. There is a tooooooon of office and new housing development hugging the 101 all the way down to SJC. Almost all the major Bay Area tech companies are clustered around the 101 (Google, Cisco, Microsoft, Nvidia, etc.) It would suck for it to be in a highway median, but boy is that a lot of office development around that highway!
I think that this video is really great with how detailed it is about the various extensions, but I'm not entirely sure what the issue with going underground is. sure, it's more expensive, but it would require a lot of buildings to be torn down and in large cities like San Jose those buildings could be apartments or something else useful.
One (completely uninformed) guess is that those noise walls might bounce freeway noise back into the neighborhoods surrounding the freeway? Though that sounds like it is a technical problem that could be solved. More likely the issue is what it always is: money
I would prefer instead that they put up platform screen doors and have fully enclosed stations. This would reduce the noise to near zero and be a lot more comfortable for the passengers than just sound walls.
What is often not understood is that it is not legal under Bart’s own regulations for eastern contra costa to have conventional bart as the stations don’t meet the housing requirements or ridership projection standards. Also Ebart provides flexibility if wanted to use bnsf and up lines into the Central Valley.
I'd love to see a second Transbay Tube host a Caltrain service out to the delta via Richmond and Pinole, functioning as a sort of express-BART, and also boosting connectivity of the Capitol Corridor. The other obvious choice is Transbay Capitol Corridor, which would make trips to anywhere except North Bay a single-interchange trip from Sacramento.
The Capitol Corridor is supposed to link the two historic California Capitals, the current one (Sac) and the old one (SJ). So they'll need to create a new line. But the wBART service that they planned to be similar to eBART but on the Capitol Corridor alignment would be perfect for this!
100%. BART hogs up all the Bay Area transit dollars. The second transbay tunnel should be a caltrain project, from Transbay Terminal to East Bay. Another linkage should be built across Dumbarton to Fremont and Union City.
That E-BART shit in Pittsburg was a complete waste of taxpayer dollars! They should convert that to regular BART as soon as possible. And they could totally do that.
I understand the station in the freeway median hate however, I think it’s a necessary evil given how hard, expensive it is to acquire ROW for transit. E-BART is a perfect example. When planning for it started BART wanted to use an old barely used freight rail ROW that went through the center of Pittsburg and Antioch. The owners of the ROW Union Pacific had no interest in selling or even sharing that ROW so BART had to use Highway 4. I do think some sort of enclosure should l’ve been built around this highway median stations because it is horrible being on those platforms .
@@todgod yup. NIMBY’s too make it difficult. The Livermore BART saga is a recent example of that. In the mid-late 00’s when BART finally got around to planning a Livermore extension , the route they decided on would go east via the 580 median for a little bit but then leave 580 and go downtown Livermore. With stations downtown as well as Vasco rd. Because at that point BART leadership realized that “hey, freeway medians aren’t really the best spot for stations” and also a downtown Livermore station was the best location for potential TOD!! The Livermore City Council agreed and that route was approved. However, once various citizens of Livermore found out about the proposed route, they went nuts and insisted that BART to Livermore stay in the median of 580. The city council had no choice but to back peddle and now say they preferred a 580 alignment as well . After all the back and forth BART came up with 580 only alignment but of course at that point it was shorter than the route originally planned and more expensive. So the BART Board voted not to proceed and that’s we ended up with no BART to Livermore.
Honestly, as much as I loathe highway median stations, I don't think that transit in highway medians is avoidable in the American context. Yes, they suck, but in most cases that's the only remaining right of way. If we want to expand transit at least a big portion of it will have to be in highway medians. And it's not like those are completely unsalvageable stations! We can make them nice by giving them fully enclosed stations and platform screen doors. We can alter the zoning to hide the highway as much as possible with sound walls and tall dense development next to the station. There are ways to make those kinds of transit line suck a lot less and actually be quite good! We just haven't been trying, at all. Look at Rockridge as an example of a highway median station done well. It has dense development on all ides. There are tall redwood trees blocking some of the highway noise and particulate pollution. There's a ton of retail and cute cafes to visit. In my mind Rockridge isn't even a highway median station. I have to remind myself that it is one. Give Rockridge a fully enclosed station building and platform screen doors and you have yourself a perfectly good urban-feeling highway median station!
Out of curiosity, have you tallied up the total amount of housing currently proposed in BART station area plans throughout the system? I added up the Oakland ones and came up with about 45,000, but there's a lot more Bay Area and imma be real, I don't have the attention span for that 😅 I do love big numbers though 🤑
To understand eBART: the people out there pay sales and property taxes for the BART system and vote for the BART directors. For decades, they didn't get BART service. That's why they built it.
Also eBART was choosen because its a 10th the cost of BART and can be quickly expanded into less dense portions of the county serving more people. The argument isnt eBART vs BART its eBART vs the car. This is why BART down 680 to serve alamo, danville, and san ramon isnt a thing either. these towns arent dense enough to cover the costs of BART but a eBART like extention between walut creek and pleseanton stations is more cost effective.
Why not complete the loop of the bay with BART between Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, to free-up capacity on the Caltrain tracks for HSR and regional rail services?
Please, if and when a station comes to Alameda, DON'T have it right on Webster. That street has great character but no more capacity than a small town commercial street. Have it out NW where new developments are coming but there's no bridge to cross into Oakland!
I never understood how that saves any money. They had to build the stupid transfer station, plus two different types of rolling stock. Plus, I imagine diesel costs more than electricity these days. It certainly pollutes more. With the transfer station, it's slower and annoying to. Seems like worse service for more money.
BART going any further than on 580 is done. A new “EBART like “train system called Valley Link will be built to connect Dublin/ Pleasanton Station to Tracy.
They needed the line to be diesel so that it could continue over freight rail track all the way to Brentwood. The freight railroad shafted BART and blocked the expansion over their tracks at the last moment, so they had to keep the line in the highway median all the way to Antioch. But it was originally supposed to immediately leap out of the highway median after the transfer station and continue over freight track all the way to Brentwood. This plan is still on the table, so the fact that eBART is diesel will still come in handy for that expansion into freight territory.
Could you do a video on the initial connections between BART and California High Speed Rail at Merced? The plans I've seen include a combination of San Joaquins to Richmond, ACE to Union City and perhaps Tri-Rail. None of them seem particularly fast, consistent or attractive. The San Joaquins connection could be speeded up by connecting with BART at North Concord, because the BART route is faster and more direct than the San Joaquins route to Richmond. This would require upgrading some existing but unused connecting tracks.
is someone who grew up in Antioch, i get why they want to extend eBART to disco bay. When you look at traffix patterns Disco Bay residence commute towards The City rather than out towards the valley. eBART is just serving this demand the same way ACE services Tracy demand into the bay.
I was on the citizen's committee for the BART extension in San Mateo County back in the 1970s. The Bohannon Corporation, owners of the Hillsdale Shopping Center, convinced the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors to withdraw from the BART district without a vote of the people. This left Santa Clara County as an island and they had to withdraw as well. At that time it was estimated that we could have had an arial BART line all the way down to Palo Alto for 400 million dollars. I'll bet CalTrain has spent more than that on grade separations and electrification alone.
Don't tell me: the bohannon's argument against BART was the BART would allow the "undesirables"(dark) to be able to travel down from San Francisco right?
@@ArchsStanton there are legitimate engineering/economic problems with BART, compared to Caltrain. Caltrain uses off the shelf parts and tech, so anything BART does, Caltrain can do much cheaper. As a Bay Area native, I'm tired of BART hogging up all the money and political good-will. I'm a big advocate for Caltrain to go to the East Bay, through Dumbarton Bridge, but that project fell by the wayside once covid crisis happened.
I for one, prefer Link 21 to be BART, as SF’s Geary + 19th Ave study completely hinges on what technology Link 21 chooses, and it would make a lot more sense for BART to serve urban Geary and 19th Ave corridors rather than standard gauge regional rail, which is what would happen should that technology be chosen. Amtrak Long Distance trains will also never get into Salesforce in downtown San Francisco as diesel trains would not be allowed into the new tunnel, as well as the train box at Salesforce being extremely capacity constrained and won’t be able to turn LD trains.
Any rail system into Santa Cruz would be greatly appreciated! I hope they work on that corridor because that’d be awesome. Maybe a rail link between SC and Gilroy would be cool too 👀
@@todgod With Caltrain eventually supposed to expand to Pajaro/Watsonville (Monterey County Rail Extension) and the restart of the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line, also ending in Pajaro, we could potentially have this as soon as the 2030s, if we fight for it. Can't wait! I would love restored Hwy 17-corridor train service just as much too.
Caltrain is already expanding to Watsonville and Salinas. And Santa Cruz wants to build some type of light rail to that future station in Watsonville. This non-mountainous alignment will in fact be faster, especially after Caltrain upgrades to 110 mph with the new Stadler trains. So you will get your wish. Santa Cruz will be connected to the Bay Area with fast electric rail. But it will be a mix of Caltrain and Santa Cruz's own electric light rail. Given that Caltrain is basically becoming just another BART line with their electric trains and 15 minute frequencies, I hope that you support Caltrain's expansion and Santa Cruz's light rail!
@@TohaBgood2 just use the santa cruz railroad tracks that go right by the beach from watsonville junction. It would have to be rebuilt but the ROW is already there
Glory be the transit GAWDZ. Tax billionbabes and let's do it right. 70 billion for the region. Remember kids, it's not public transit if it's not fare-free ! :))))
If you have the time and are interested, I recommend making a video about the city of Antioch losing their Amtrak station!! I think more people need to hear about this!! I don't live in California, so I'm over here feeling like i can't help, but I'd honestly be so sad if this happened to my city.
I’ve read an article, it’s honestly really sad and I wish there was a compromise to keep both Antioch and the Brentwood stations but sadly I don’t think it’s gonna happen :(
Really enjoyable though crazy that it’s over a decade away. Question: When you talk about the new stations and development, you use an acronym? Is it POV or POD? And what does it stand for?
This is kind of off-topic… but as someone from LA that moved to the Bay Area. I’m so genuinely curious about why there’s so much animosity here towards Los Angeles. In general people in the greater LA area don’t have any negative feelings about the Bay Area. However, I have noticed that many people here tend to have a distaste for LA. I’m curious why that is and where it’s rooted from. The simple answer would be rivalry, but it seems to be one-sided. Is there something I’m totally oblivious to?
Joke answer: Beat LA. Serious answer: I personally have no animosity towards LA, just the city’s design and Hollywood. But I know that Hollywood is such a small part of that regions economy, so it’s irrelevant. That’s like hating the Bay Area for having tech bros. It’s a friendly rivalry, and I actually have had a bunch of fun in LA, as I have friends there. Some great walkable spots like Santa Ana and Santa Monica are pretty fun to be around, and I’d be lying if I said I was a blind hater of SoCal.
Nah. After San Jose/Santa Clara is complete, it really is time to modernize the core network of BART, in Oakland and SF. Suburbs get all the money and investment while us in the core are left with decrepit stations. Its our turn now.
I like BART too but want to take Le Metro and La REM of Montreal more. Both public transit systems are very cool but the TOD on Le REM needs improvement. I have taken Beijing Metro once TOD is good some of it extends 60 miles but for station outlook it's a hit or miss. Singapore MRT I have taken, state of the art and TOD friendly. Probably might kick BART to the curb. LA Metro took twice, it sucks. London overground and Tube, I can say it's TOD friendly because of convenience. I took it and liked how it was close to my hotel. Paris Metro and overground AKA RER is on my transit bucket list, can say is TOD friendly and has a cool operating model based on the city districts. Shanghai Metro I've seen but cannot say much on TOD compatibility. Berlin U-Bahn and S-Bahn is on my list too. For TOD I don't know much except the government is working hard to make it better. Some of the trains on the system last a long time. DRG Class ET 167 lasted from WW2 to 2003. Tokyo subway and overground is TOD friendly in terms of commercial space and operates some very cool patterns. It is known for it's precision. It is also on my transit bucket list. WMATA Metro is on my bucket list although I heard some of their stations need work. Chicago CTA almost feels like BART but a lot older. TOD is messy in some parts. To learn more about world subways you can look at one of my other favorite UA-camrs.
Ironically, BART historically has a higher on-time rating than the Tokyo Metro. It's a really cool system with a very interesting system of timed transfers. More than meets the eye!
I’d also like to see BART build a subway from Millbrae to San Jose in the future. Currently you have to take the commuter rail if your in that area and the commuter rail isn’t very frequent
@@lalakerspro most of the time it’s only once an hour, some hours it’s twice, but that’s not frequent. Frequent should be at least every 20 minutes. Millbrae to San Jose should be like the rest of the Bay Area and should have BART or at least run Caltrain more often
@@louisjohnson3755 once caltrain is electrified it will run more often. also, the once per hour is only on weekends, weekday frequency is pretty decent
@@louisjohnson3755 This will change this fall when Caltrain will start to run at 15 minute frequencies with their new electric trains! So Caltrain will actually be very much like just another BART line!
A long time ago there was a study that BART can be expanded to Sacramento but that plan was overtaken by Valley Link which I think is a pipe dream. I'd do anything to live on my own in San Joaquin Valley and work in the Bay Area, Valley Link would give me that opportunity given the low rent and house prices.
A lot of it is technically "deed-restricted affordable" based on income level. But with the crazy salaries we have in the Bay Area that often means income limits of $70-100k or more. And since we don't really allow much new housing construction, even at those prices/income limits it's extremely competitive to get into one of those units. We just need to open the floodgates and relax the zoning if we want cheap housing. But the NIMBYs will never just allow that. It will take state legislation to force more housing and lower rents in the Bay Area. The NIMBYs have a strong hold on local politics around here.
10:40 lol I read that whole PDF a few years ago. The "6" stations are probably not going to happen, lone tree and Balfour were the only really feasible ones and discovery bay people commute the other direction
California has a bad habit of making things more expensive than they ought to be. They have been talking about bringing Bart into Santa Clara County since the mid 90's. It was just as recent as the 2010's that extensions were made past the Fremont station. Given this trend, I don't see Bart going into Downtown San Jose for another twenty years. Additionally the ebart diesel units beyond the Pittsburg Baypoint station are a complete joke. They decided to go with these because it costed less than building a traditional fully electrified Bart line to Antioch. If I could have it my way, Caltrain would be completely replaced by Bart all the way down to Gilroy. Dublin/Pleasanton would be extended not only to Livermore but all the way to Tracy. Many people commute to the greater bay area from Tracy so that would make a lot of sense to me. It all may sound crazy, but it sure will never happen with way the State and local governments manage public works projects.
I really hope the little Portugal development actually goes beyond and builds taller buildings than downtown since they aren’t subject to height restrictions for airplanes. The area is industrial right now so shouldn’t be behest to nimbys SF made a mistake for mission bay and only zoned a industrial area for mid rises
Mission Bay isn't really "all midrises". Mission Rock is plenty tall with several highrises. The other developments going south will also get a few highrises each. They'll be like their own self-contained mini-cities each with a clearly defined "downtown" for taller buildings. But I agree that we need at least about 10x more highrises in the at whole area though!
To me as a european the distances between many of the stations is crazy long. Even commuter rail has a shorter stop spacing here (in developed areas) There could be many many more infill stations
@@nicolasblume1046 ive thought that too but in many spots, especially the lower east bay I don't think the ridership would justify it and instead just make trips take longer because of more stops
more infill stations means more time. Europe is far more densely populated, you dont want to add too many stations Europeans dont realize how big the US is, your commuter lines are probably a lot shorter than bart
@@lalakerspro the average trip time could also decrease, because many people would have a shorter distance to the next station. I guess you need some simulations to really know. About density: The Bay area has about the same density as many german suburbs, where we still have a shorter stop spacing, and no, our commuter lines are not shorter. You can compare these two examples: Bay area: Berryessa to Oakland Germany (Rhineland): Köln Stammheim (maps.app.goo.gl/Zcgm1cz8MNBCukLd7) to Düsseldorf Reisholz (maps.app.goo.gl/sAMLzuz2nyvwGJTE8)
BART is like an oversized S-bahn, but with much longer lines. It's more like an intercity rail network for a mid-sized European country than a metro system. To give you an idea of the distances involved, BART covers and area that's roughly half the size of Netherlands. It's a maaaaaaaaaassive system.
The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority will receive $5.1 billion in funding from the federal government for its South Bay BART extension project. Question: Where did the Federal Government get $5.1 billion dollars to fund this project. The Federal Government is broke. So - they borrowed the $5.1 billion dollars and added on to the National Debt - which has accumulated to $35 trillion dollars. Presently the National Debt is increasing at $1 trillion every 100 days. Congress ( really taxpayers) only pays the interest on the National Debt - they do not pay for the borrowed money. How can that work? Congress tells the Treasury Dept:, I am broke. Find me $5.1 billion dollars. The Treasury has an auction and does all the paperwork and lines up the lenders to provide them with $5.1 billion dollars. The Treasury will pay 5% annual interest on the $5.1 billion loan for 30 years and return the principal ($5.1 billion) on the last day. 30 years go by and it is the last day of the contract. Congress needs $5.1 billion to meet the final payment. Problem: Congress does not have $5.1 billion to pay the lenders. Congress does not have a “rainy day” fund to pay off borrowed money. So the Treasury conducts auction (number two) to raise $5.1 billion, but this time the lenders want 6% interest. Both lenders and the Treasury agree. Same rules as before except the interest rate is now 6% vice 5%. The Treasury receives the $5.1 billion and pays off $5.1 billion from the original loan. The Treasury will still need to pay $5.1 billion at the end of the next 30 year period. Congress only pays the yearly interest on the loan for 30 years without repaying the principal. Bottom line: Congress never pays off the original loan. Congress only pays the interest on the loan. Congress basically uses an “interest only” credit card every time they borrow money. The original $5.1 billion loan is never paid off and is just added to the National Debt, which grows larger every year. The only time the US was completely debt-free was in January 1835, during the presidency of Andrew Jackson. Because of all the loans not paid off, America has now accumulated a National Debt of $35 trillion dollars. It is now increasing at a rate of one trillion every 100 days. So what will the American taxpayers end up paying in the next 60 years for the South Bay BART extension project? Let’s figure it out. YEARS 1-30. $5.1 billion times 5% per year = $255 million dollars per year for interest payments $255 million times 30 years = $7.65 billion dollars for 30 years of interest 30 years later on the last day of the loan: taxpayers owe $5.1 billion dollars, to pay back the principal borrowed. Congress (means taxpayers) borrow another $5.1 billion to pay off the original loan. This time Congress ( means taxpayers) are charged 6% per year. YEARS 31-60. $5.1 billion times 6% per year = $306 million dollars per year for interest payments $306 million times 30 years = 9.18 billion dollars Total 60 year cost = $16.83 billion dollars plus the $5.1 billion loan due on the last day for the second loan. How do you think Congress will pay off the $5.1 billion due on the second loan?
Mmmm, my recollection is BART was blocked at the South Fremont / Milpitas area. Santa Clara County had voted an additional sales tax that was funding BART construction, just it didn't happen. You might notice too that they will avoid connecting to the San Jose Airport just as the did with Cal Train and the VTA light rail. You know that circular layout of San Francisco International was designed with the future direct connection with BART in mind. Bart was to run at the bottom level between the central parking area and the airport proper. With BART blocked, San Jose decided to redirect funds a bit. The city had voted themselves a Paris vacation and fell in love with the look of a downtown shopping area. The wanted that look, so they dug up downtown and ran a light rail north to south down the middle. They killed downtown shopping and most of the businesses were closed, but they had that open walkway and rail transit look, just nothing else for quite some time and no reason for people to go downtown to look into the empty storefronts. You could not park anywhere to ride it anyway. It's gotten better and they did connect to Cal Train and more of the city... eventually. Currently San Jose wants to make their city the endpoint for BART and block any further construction towards Santa Clara. We have systems of political levers more than providing the public with a working Bay Area transit system. In San Jose a few people who live in a few blocks between 12th and 15th street will decide what San Jose and basically what Santa Clara County will do. -- On a side note you might look at a German elevator company that's helping repurpose office towers. They have doors on two sides and are programed so that the street level can have two entrances and that determines what floors you can get off. This allows mixed use without adding new elevator shafts and losing the rentable floor space of additional lifts. An office building might have a few floors of hotel or residential and can repurpose floors over time and at need.
Forget about any expansion plans. Right now BART's main problem is keeping the lights on. Ridership is still down significantly (so things like the second trans bay tube that are designed add capacity are simply not even needed) and since BART has both high farebox recovery and high fares and depends on said fares to operate, they are in a huge fiscal mess. Supposedly they may have to make a 30% cut to their budget soon if additional funds aren't found, and, since most of BART's costs are fixed, that 30% cut will result in an 85% cut in service!!! Post pandemic, Los Angeles' funding pattern (low fares and a dedicated funding source of a portion of the sales tax) is working a lot better than BART's with the drop in ridership.
BART ridership is depressed due to work from home. If you look at the Clipper card user numbers, they're basically fully recovered from pre-pandemic and actually about to surpass pre-pandemic! So BART didn't lose its riders wholesale. It's just that those riders need to ride BART to work only 20-30% of the time now. So the number of rides when from 10-14 per week per rider to 2-6 per week per rider. This situation will not persist forever. BART ridership is gradually recovering as work from home gradually goes away. And we won't have a once-in-a-century pandemic every ten years. I don't think that you can extrapolate if BART's model is good or bad based on a literal cataclysmic event that distorted the whole world economy for a decade. BART's high farebox recovery allowed it to expand at insane speed over the years. There has never been more than a five year stretch when BART didn't add a major expansion! Good transit that people are willing to pay good money for is a good thing, not a bad thing! LA Metro is almost unrideable and only the people who have no other choice tend to use it. BART is a genuinely pleasant system to use because they are forced to compete for your dollar!
I really don't understand why they decided to duplicate Caltrain and build a station in Santa Clara instead of extending the BART line to the San Jose Airport after the Diridon station.
They needed a lot of room for a yard and there just happen to be a vacant UP yard there. It's not like land in Silicon Valley is cheap. There really wasn't any other choice. Plus they needed soma place where the tunnel boring machine could be inserted that could be co-located with a manufacturing facility for the tunnel sections. In other words, the Santa Clara stretch of track was pretty unavoidable. It was just lot cheaper this way. But since they have to build the track all the way there, might as well have a station too!
As a european it sounds insane to wait so long for a quite small expension (BART extension phase 2) In my city (500k people) we're building an entire new 27 miles subway line in just 6 years with a planned ridership of 200k people per day
That's extremely unusual for Europe. Cities below 1 million population almost never have subway systems there. At best they have a Stadtbahn, but most have only trams. Where do you live?
@@TohaBgood2 I mean the metro area of my city has about 1 million. I'm in France, Toulouse, soon to be 3rd largest french city, we already have a tram line and 2 subways
@@peyoprat Gotcha. BART isn't really a metro system. It's more of an RER/S-bahn type of system. Each BART station is about half a kilometer long with just the platform being over 300 meters long. In other words, BART is very large in terms of footprint. It's very expensive to build out. That's why the costs so much higher than a regular metro tunnel. It's very "monumental infrastructure". And of course, California wages are pretty crazy. The median salary is about $9k vs about $2.5 in France. So construction here will always be a lot more expensive than anywhere in Europe pretty much by definition.
I totally agree that eBART was one of the dumbest decisions ever made. ESPECIALLY if they plan to extend the Yellow Line, they need to just rip up that track and build out a bona fide BART line. But what I would really like to see is an extension of the Red Line, to Hercules and Rodeo and eventually across the strait to Vallejo.
BART expansion into Discovery Bay? Isn't that area full of rich folks who wouldn't be caught dead in a transit system? An extension that way doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. BART making the loop around the bay doesn't make sense either, since Caltrain already exists unless HSR is going to demolish most of Caltrain stations and have SJD and 4th & King only. If only our main stations were like the ones in Europe or Japan where they are giant malls too. I guess BART tried it with Powell Station, but local politics made it untenable.
Well... Not really. I wish them well, and I want to be able to ride transit when I'm there, but the Bay Area is at Europe/Asia level in terms of transit. Only NYC in the US is better than the Bay Area. LA will maybe slide into third after all the expansions, but the Bay Area is just too far ahead. Think of it this way, the Bay Area already has what is effectively a region-scale metro system (BART + Caltrain). It has local transit agencies that on their own rival all of LA Metro in size and they're all constantly expanding. BART has never spend more than a few years without expansion. Muni is expanding. VTA light rail is expanding. SMART appeared out of nowhere and is now expanding. The Bay Area transit scene is more fragmented, but the Bay as a whole is still adding more new transit than the LA area. And let's not forget that even after all the rapid expansion LA had over the last 30 years, the Bay Area still has higher transit ridership while being less than half the population. I'm not saying that LA shouldn't try to catch up, but it's very very very far behind the Bay.
What do you mean? BART was always a regional system. Oakland was the first city to get BART service before San Francisco. And the system is sill very Oakland-centric with all the lines converging there. But you can hardly call BART "Oakland's metro". In fact, BART isn't even a metro. It's regional rail - an S-bahn.
@@TohaBgood2 I mean that it's a fully grade separated short-stop-capable transit system that's coming in from outside the city, when what we have of our own is two or three half-assed tram lines. Yes, BART _could have been_ as much a San Jose thing as anything else, but everything is stupid and that's not actually what happened. As to Oakland, BART is the only metro Oakland has, and if you wanted to argue that it serves Oakland more than it does San Francisco I'd be force to concede that you could have a point. Within SF itself, BART seems very weird. As to whether BART is “really” an S-Bahn, that case seems to rely on there being only one transbay tube at the moment, giving it a single-tunnel topology in SF. Other than that, and the issue of gauge, it seems pretty reminiscent of, say, London's Piccadilly Line, which I've always thought of as a metro line. It's grade separated, doesn't follow mainline rail standards, runs on the surface from the principal airport, under the city centre and the river, and then back onto the surface out to distant suburbs, was a technical marvel long ago when it was new, and isn't quite fast enough. But, no, you're right, this wasn't intended as a coherent point about BART, more of an incoherent rant about San Jose.
@@stephenspackman5573 I don't think that one can reasonably question whether BART is an S-bahn. It's a system that covers an area half of a Netherlands with a branching tree of lines that spreads out to serve suburbs that are some 60 miles away from the core. That's definitely an S-bahn. And as far as those go, BART is still pretty far ahead of most other S-bahns. It's faster than most of them with its 80 mph (130 km/h) top speeds. It's fully automated while the German S-bahns are all manually operated. It has full grade separation and excellent cross-platform transfers. It has better frequencies than most S-bahns. etc. I guess I don't share the recently popularized doomer view of BART. BART was indeed a technical marvel when it was built, but it was so far ahead that it's still very modern and cutting edge in most ways. The world of transit just doesn't progress that fast. From BART being the first fully automated rapid rail system to it having ultralight trains that minimize the size of viaducts, most systems out there still can't match it. It's fine to think that the US can do good transit. BART is overall a pretty incredibly system by any standard.
@@TohaBgood2 If BART fits what the word S-Bahn means to you, that's fine by me. I'm just saying that if it's an S-Bahn *and not a metro* then it follows that London has an S-Bahn network and not much metro, because BART is, aside from not being standard gauge, a lot like most of the Underground. It also travels for hours through low density suburbs, as I know first hand because my family comes from Enfield, where the Underground finally ends. And I'm not hating on BART, just the short sighted decision making that kept it from being better. It *should* have been a complete ring early on, and by now it (or something integrated but more Paris-metro-like) should be providing subsurface meshes in all three big centers. The current situation is stupid and pointlessly inhumane.
@@stephenspackman5573 The London Underground does have some anomalous lines that are longer than perhaps necessary for a subway/metro system. But that's mostly just the legacy of a very very old urban rail system, the first in the world. Overall the network is very much metro-like even with the quirks of old age. BART is a lot more similar to the Overground and lines like the Elizabeth line. It's a typical regional suburban commuter train. It's too fast to be a metro. Its stop spacing is waaaay too wide. It narrows down to a single tunnel in the core and flares out in the deep suburbs into a bunch of spurs. That's just not how metros work. And what you suggest about urban metro systems taking over from BART in the dense cores is exactly what happened! SF built the Muni Metro literally at the same time as BART. In fact, BART built Muni's Market street tunnel from them four years in advance of Muni being able to take it over. VTA built the VTA Light Rail network in San Jose a few years later. Oakland was supposed to build their own light rail system too, but waited for long enough that it became too expensive and built some pointless BRT instead. But it does have a very dense network of busses. I don't really understand where people are getting that the Bay Area doesn't have good transit or that it's somehow deficient. If you look at the actual fundamentals the Bay has excellent transit that's more than on par with similar regions around the world and far ahead of anything in North America outside of NY City.
That's unfortunate. It's about 10x more expensive than just expanding the light rail from 1st st to the airport. It's like 900 ft of new track for somewhere between 5-10% of the cost of the crazy PRT system.
@@Cyrus992 What did you hear? Did you hear that the PRT will cost at least $500 million while the light rail airport extension would cost under $25 million?
Honestly, all this mass transit, and transit centers are killing the Bay Area. I live in the east bay, and I don't blame the people on the peninsula who don't want BART because of the noise. I am tired of hearing them. And I am also tired of the crime they bring with the thugs riding those trains because BART security is awful.
@@lalakerspro the primary reason BART has lost 60% of its ridership post COVID isn’t crime. It’s the fact that DT SF has the highest office vacancy rate in the country due to WFH being so prevalent. And what was BART’s bread and butter ridership wise? And basically what it was designed to do? Get people from suburbs to their jobs in DT SF and to lesser extent, DT Oakland. The demand isn’t there because of WFH. So that’s why I responded to the original poster. Saying “ crime is the main reason for poor patronage “ is wrong. Is crime or the perception of crime on the trains a factor in keeping people away? Absolutely. But again it’s not the main factor but people love to bring it up .
11:30 San Diego?? eBart expansions are getting out of hand :0
lol
I know 🤦🏻♂️, totally misspoke and meant to say San Mateo lmaoo
@@todgod You could have edited.
@@briansmith8967 okay
@@todgod But hey, if you're talking about San Diego, a series on the Trolley wouldn't hurt ;)
You forgot to mention how dumb San Jose is for going with deep bore construction instead of cut and cover
Oh yeah, it's very wack. That's a reason why it keeps getting pushed back further and further.
Using TBMs would be fine, but they put the tunnels way too deep
Very rarely am I opposed to a transit project, but I think the feds need to push back on it more (doesn't look like they are at the moment). They need to go back to the drawing board and just do cut and cover
Deep bore offends less property owners but is much more expensive versus cut-and-cover. Imagine the hundreds of lawsuits and extra years of delays if BART tried to tear up several miles of streets over several years with cut-and-cover.
@Urbanhandyman That's great if the difference in cost isn't prohibitive, but the current cost estimate is 12.2B. Even if there were lawsuits, if cut and cover were say 4B (i dont know the counterfactual cost) that's alot of remaining money that could fund other transit projects. Now whether that pushback could delay the project... unfortunately you're right.
What a great series you did. It's very thorough and I loved it.
Growing up in Fremont in the 70s, I will always know BART by the old line names, such as the Fremont Line (what it used to be called). Even now, I inadvertently refer to it as the Fremont Line or to the trains as "get on a Fremont train (or Concord train) to blah blah station". I had always wondered what San Jose would be like today if they has been a part of the original BART buildout. San Jose was a lot different back then. My aunts and uncles lived in Sunnyvale and East San Jose was lowrider country. It was awesome.
I don't know if there are anymore wide gauge BART lines to be built. It seems like e-BART is their only option cost-wise. Once e-BART got built, they're certainly not going to tear it up for wide gauge BART. They should electrify it though. Any extensions like a San Ramon Valley line to Martinez, or Hercules/Vallejo line would probably be standard gauge e-BART if built. I think the e-BART extensions should have ALOT of TOD development to help with the housing crisis, especially way out there where they could build a lot of it. Frankly, if e-BART is going to Discovery Bay (lots of room for dense housing and affordable housing out there), it may as well go into Stockton to serve that Stockton - Contra Costa County commute.
As for the 2nd Transbay Tube, standard gauge would probably be the way to go. I used to think that both gauges should be accommodated but I think any BART relief services would probably be better supplied by a Caltrain extension into the East Bay. And we can forget about BART ever heading down Geary. In other words, I see BART as not expanding any farther after San Jose (on the Fremont line :)) is finished. San Joaquins and Capitol Corridor Amtrak lines as well as a potential HSR from Sacramento (long after we're all dead probably) into SF could also use that tunnel, although that rail corridor is way too slow. I use the San Joaquins to visit my Mom in beautiful and gorgeous urban haven Fresno on a nice 300 degree day (at least it's not Bakersfield as they like to say).
Even the Dumbarton crossing will be standard gauge for Caltrain and ACE trains. However, the branch to Union City BART will finally provide a BART connection to Caltrain and ACE in the East Bay. The Caltrain extension to Salinas is also quite exciting.
Finally, SMART trains in Marin County should cross the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge to connect with BART at Richmond or El Cerrito Del Norte. SMART can even extend north to Vallejo and from Vallejo north to Napa, Sonoma, and Fairfield. I think that should run in the I80 ROW in the East Bay to avoid the slow and meandering Amtrak ROW.
And I also lived in LA for 15 years and you are totally right. LA rapid transit will NEVER equal the Bay Area's. Light rail? Please. On-street light rail? Come on. What a joke.
Just for fun, I did do a San Jose rapid transit map which I'm quite proud of here: metrodreamin.com/view/blVDTnl4S3pTQ1g0Q3JCalAxTTM5TWs1VHAwM3w2MA%3D%3D
and a San Jose regional map here: metrodreamin.com/view/blVDTnl4S3pTQ1g0Q3JCalAxTTM5TWs1VHAwM3w1OA%3D%3D
The stations in the highway medians could be made less uncomfortable with platform screen doors and with heating and air conditioning.
Grew up in the Cahill park development to the west of Diridon, very excited for the San Jose extension project! Also, that LA hate segment was hilarious ngl
Also I think you could maybe do a video about vaguer projects in the far off future? So like Valley Link corridor between Dublin/Pleasanton and Mountain House, SMART Novato to Suisun branch, a possible Geary subway, Hercules Amtrak/Ferry project.
Edit: forgot about possible CalTrain extension to Monterey
Extend eBART all the way to Tracy. Can also have it run on or take over the ACE lines (same track width) with more frequent service. Then add a transfer station where ACE and BART intersect in Fremont.
i was thinking the same of the transfer station, but the fremont bart and amtrak station is already nearby, so unless they get rid of both of them, i dont see it
We kinda might get that with valley rail, a whole new project requiring its own video!
@@todgod Yeah, there's a lot more to that project than meets the eye! Did you see that ACE and the San Joaquins are "unifying fares and signage"? They're already sister agencies being run by the same authority/thing.
The rest of the Bay often ignores that Tri-Valley/San Joaquins Valley area, but that is by far the fastest growing part of the Bay. Dublin went from a village to a mid-size-ish city in the last 20-30 years. A toooooon of people are moving and getting displaced there. That's likely where the next big Bay Area city will emerge from that mess of suburban sprawl.
@@todgod this valley rail project is gonna be very intriguing in traditionally conservative areas. TOD save agriculture!!
We love BART coming into SJ! I'm a bit biased, but a video on the currently under construction Eastridge VTA to Bart extension would be awesome.
No way the official Eastridge UA-cam account commented! What’s up??
@@todgod this is uncanny
@@todgod
What's wrong with you? 😁
PIN THE COMMENT!
I could be wrong, it happens from time to time, but I believe the second trans bay tube is slated to be standard gauge turning the station at salesForce transit center into a through station with tracks continuing over to the east bay. Well, that's the way I've heard it, which I think would be awesome, it would also allow California high-speed rail to instead of terminating in San Francisco, continuing up to Sacramento eventually. Sadly, I don't think any of that's gonna happen in my lifetime, but you never know. Great video.
I’m really surprised that Marin County turned down BART. A connection between SMART and BART would really be great, but knowing that they passed it up in the first place probably means that we won’t be getting one any time soon.
Marin’s nimbys will only allow minor changes to their precious county and that includes blocking bart access
Marin Co didn't turn down BART. They wanted BART probably more than any other county in the Bay Area, but were forced out of the district due to San Mateo leaving the BART district. It's a long story, but everyone was afraid that the original BART ballot measure would not pass if Marin were included. So they were forced out by the politicians, and eventually BART themselves. But they were promised first dibs when BART started expanding again. (i.e. actually adding more counties to the BART district.)
Santa clara county could of been done with this 30 or so years ago but they voted no.
I guess that if BART doesn't expand then it could potentially work to have SMART go under the golden gate bridge. at least something will happen (but BART would be better).
Great video! A couple of BART expansions I would love to see include extending the Orange Line from Richmond to Larkspur (and ideally San Rafael) to provide a connection to SMART, and extending the Red Line from Richmond to Vallejo and Fairfield.
Honestly I think it would be really stupid to make the second Transbay Tube broad gauge. It would be so much better for services like Capitol Corridor, San Joaquins, Caltrain, and of course CA HSR if it was a standard gauge track. Plus, BART would already have pretty good frequency across the bay once they get CBTC
edit: autocorrect
Exactly. One tube can be for BART, the other for other commuter and intercity rail services.
Why can't dual guage be used?
I read one issue is the weight difference between BART and regional trains. That would make collisions between the two extremely dangerous.
Even with all those other services, BART would carry about 3x more people under the Bay if it had a second tube. BART is a heavily interlined system with a massive bottleneck under the Bay. You can't beat subway/metro level frequencies and capacity with commuter and intercity rail. If we want bang for our buck then BART is it.
There are other reasons why maybe the new tube should be standard gauge, but capacity is not one of them.
@@eskfin3915 FRA regulations. You could have dual gauge, but the train frequency would be capped considerably as a result
Please cover the Sacramento LRT next, or perhaps CA High Speed Rail!
🤫🤫
@@todgod they need to immediately a) extend the Green Line north to serve the airport and intermediate neighborhoods, and b) make the downtown section and underground subway (similar to the Regional Connector in Los Angeles)
@@gevans446 I'll be sure to include this :)
@@gevans446 IMO the R-Street viaduct should go out to West Sac, and the Blue Line could run through midtown, and both Gold and Blue become light metros that can get better grade separation later. At the same time, take the street running sections and turn it into a streetcar system to go with their Tower Bridge plans. That system could grow down the road and densify places like Land Park and midtown more. Also, how do we not have dedicated DMU services from Sac Valley to Davis, Woodland, Elk Grove, and Roseville-Lincoln? I think the airport line would be good, but there's so much improvement that I think SacRT should do first with the bones they have.
@@gevans446just going to mention this... but why not extend the orange line instead? the green line does not run after 9pm
There desperately needs to be a second transbay tube. Hopeful the Alameda situation works out. It's a huge pain in the but getting there on ACTransit
Honestly, instead of expanding out to Discovery Bay, build from Walnut Creek down to Livermore on 680 or something. But yeah. Connect those areas together as that is a HIGH traffic area
I agree. That would be a super cool BART line
I think an LRT along the Iron Horse line would be more beneficial to the region and easier to get through all the NIMBY BS that you run into in places like Danville, Alamo, and San Ramon, especially if it didn't replace the MUP that's there now.
But if it was BART, then my fantasy alignment would start in downtown Pleasanton and have an exchange at Dublin/Pleasanton. Then you could do Bishop Ranch Transit Center, Danville, Alamo, and then *actually* put a station in downtown Walnut Creek before connecting to the Yellow Line at Walnut Creek. And then, here's the kicker, you keep going! You have a stop at Six Flags/Buchanan Field, then another at the Martinez Amtrak station, then tunnel under the Carquinez Strait to put two more stations in Benicia and Vallejo. Having a rail connection to Vallejo would make such a huge difference to that city, it's not even funny.
Its a cool idea.
@@teuast agree on vallejo in particular
Rahhhh time to talk about another trains system. Great series! Makes me nostalgic and optimistic for the bay area
The Bay Area has built a ton of awesome new transit in recent years!
The extension to SJ Diridon is overdue and will be awesome when done. Will definitely increase ridership.
Most definitely! Can’t wait
technically Daly City has TOD, there is that cinema and office buildings across the street. It's just not housing.
It was so frustrating that San Mateo county opted out of bart. I lived in the sf sunset district and worked in San Mateo City for a decade and it was 2 hours each way on transit but if I'd worked in Millbrae it would have been 45 minutes. Ended up having to drive. Glad that commute is in my past
One big improvement would be redoing the Oakland wye. It is very slow and loud (even with the new fleet). A new tunnel with wide turns and a higher speed viaduct between west oakland could easily shave off several minutes.
Yeah, too squeaky for my ears to handle
Got a chance to explore the Bay Area this past week and really observe the system. The impression i came away with wad the BART doesn't need a full transbay tube expansion but rather improvements on either land base ends where the actual capcity bottlenecks are. A much smaller project to build a branch right before embarcadero station and terminating at the salesforce transit center would dramatically improve system resilience and provide a valuable direct connection to caltrain
Things I wish they would do: station at SJC, not "adjacent to" where you have to transfer to a people mover or something. It's been proven time and time again that direct airport connections are much much better. Also, plan for downtown VTA in a tunnel connected to the station. VTA is slow downtown and should eventually be put in a tunnel. Having it "roughed in" to the Bart station would be great. But....no vision, I guess.
where would you put the station at SJC? Also you cannot have vta and bart in the same station cause they use 2 different types of fare
@@lalakerspro under it. They’re building a tunnel anyway. Bart and Muni are in the same stations Bart and Caltrain in the same stations. What does fare have to do with anything?
@@passatboi i thought you were implying bart/vta use the same platform. Even then, bart tracks will travel perpendicular to VTA/caltrain due to where they come from. VTA tracks turn left to winchester, bart turns right toward santa clara
Yeah that light rail needs to be below grade. I’d love a Pittsburgh type of system with a light rail subway !
There is a much easier way to extend service to SJC. All we need is 900ft of light rail track from 1st and a single station in between the two terminals!
But for some reason the city of San Jose instead opted for an idiotic PRT people mover monstrosity for 10x more money.
9:25 I thought one of the main bottlenecks in the BART system was the transbay tube. Two lines, one for BART and one for standard gauge, would be even better. ☁️😀☁️
Perhaps you covered this in another video: When will BART figure out a way to significantly increase the speed of their trains and I don't mean reduce delays? Is this even possible or will it take new tracks and cars? Also, how can BART significantly reduce the noise of their trains?
As far as I understand it, it's definitely possible for BART to go a lot faster. In fact before the Feds stepped in, BART trains would routinely accelerate to 100 mph in the Berkeley hills tunnels (going downhill). But the Feds stepped in and limited BART's speed to 80 mph for safety reasons. Theoretically, BART could push to review those limitations and find a few stretches where the trains could go faster than the current 80 mph speed limit. They would definitely need new trains and probably extensive trackside upgrades.
But the main problem is that BART has very high stop density even for 80 mph, and there really aren't that many stretches where a higher speed is needed. There are the tunnels under the bay and under the Berkeley Hills. But everywhere else the long stretches are interrupted by stations. I'm guessing that this will have to wait until BART decides that it needs express tracks for express service. And likely after they install platform screen doors to safely run express trains through stations at speed. So not soon and it won't be cheap.
I def agree that the new transbay tube should be standard gauge
Imagine in like 20 years if Caltrain were like a mainline rapid transit system like the Elizabeth line or Japanese commuter trains that connects sj sf and Oakland quickly and the Capitol Corridor could be like a reserved seat express for an extra charge basically
Gosh one can dream lol
Actually, in terms of frequency Caltrain will already get most of the way there this fall. 15 minute frequencies, here we come! Effectively, Caltrain will behave like just another BART line after September. Exciting times!
Can't wait for the SacRT and soon all of the unique metro systems in New Jersey between NYC and Philadelphia.
Yeah SacRT is definitely up next. I still need to actually travel to the East Coast first! (Does Pittsburgh count?)
@@todgod Pittsburgh is more of a near Great Lakes region. A true East Coast trip would be along much of New Jersey starting with SIR (Staten Island Railway), PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson), HnBLR (Hudson no Bergen Light Rail), NLR (Newark (pronounce Noork) Light Rail), RiverLine between Trenton & Camden & PATCO between Lindenwold & Philadelphia.
Wow, BART has grown from my childhood, when i was young, Concord to Daly city, was as far as you could go, I believe Richmond was the north terminus, an i forget how far it went south from Oakland, after the tunnel
Richmond is still the last stop north of Berkeley. It need to go to San Pablo, Hilltop (massive housing project has been mentioned but nothing official), Hercules, and eventually Vallejo.
@@Urbanhandyman Technically, the Capitol Corridor train is the unofficial BART extension north of Richmond. That's why BART took over operations of the Capitol Corridor. They want to eventually make it run at crazy high frequencies so that it's almost like an eBART extension to Sacramento and eventually Tahoe/Reno.
Ironically, the Capitol Corridor, supposedly an intercity line, was the first transit operator in the Bay Area to implement open payment with just a credit card. You just tap your credit card and board!
BART Extension from Millbrae to Menlo Park and East Palo Alto via Hwy 101 and Another Branch To Palo Alto/Stanford University and Santa Clara via El Camino Real BART Extension for Red Line😊
If that happened wouldn’t that make Caltrain useless?
The reason the San Mateo County section goes where it does is because that's where the existing rail RoW was. A lot of BART was built fairly cheaply with minimal land acquisition because it took over existing rail RoW. For example, basically the entire section from Fruitvale to Berryessa I believe.
Also, eBART is good, actually. The reality is the density of the SFH sprawl past Concord station simply does not "deserve" full BART. If the municipalities were willing to upzone land around the stations a la Vancouver, sure. But none of them have given any indication they want to. I'll settle for every parcel within half a mile of the station for 8 stories by right and within a mile, 4 stories, since I personally find Vancouver a little bit ugly even if it's technically "optimal" lol. But the point stands that the densities of the far reaches of the yellow line (and the blue line, too) do not support big BART. Again, caveat if every station area was zoned to look like Vancouver or at a minimum, downtown Berkeley then sure.
The traffic system should be inspired be soel fast trains
One (completely unrealistic) thing I would love to see is express trains. Bart is such a long system that it takes forever to get from one end to the other. If you want to improve ridership, cutting down the amount of time it takes to get downtown or to the airports would improve things.
But the cost of construction (and difficulty of getting additional rights of way) makes this an impossible pipe dream.
That would be great but would indeed be extremely expensive. Frankly, it would cost the same as just building new BART lines, which is a much better use of the money in terms of increasing ridership.
But if they were to do it... They'd need to build outside tracks for the slower trains and keep the current tracks as the express tracks. Expensive, but definitely not impossible. In fact, maybe if they only do it in some key areas they could still implement some kind of minimalistic express service.
But what I dream about is an extension in the 101 median from Millbrae all the way down to Diridon. There is a tooooooon of office and new housing development hugging the 101 all the way down to SJC. Almost all the major Bay Area tech companies are clustered around the 101 (Google, Cisco, Microsoft, Nvidia, etc.) It would suck for it to be in a highway median, but boy is that a lot of office development around that highway!
I think that this video is really great with how detailed it is about the various extensions, but I'm not entirely sure what the issue with going underground is. sure, it's more expensive, but it would require a lot of buildings to be torn down and in large cities like San Jose those buildings could be apartments or something else useful.
Always wondered why bart doesnt put noise walls on the highway median stations
Would make the passenger experience way more comfortable!
One (completely uninformed) guess is that those noise walls might bounce freeway noise back into the neighborhoods surrounding the freeway? Though that sounds like it is a technical problem that could be solved.
More likely the issue is what it always is: money
I would prefer instead that they put up platform screen doors and have fully enclosed stations. This would reduce the noise to near zero and be a lot more comfortable for the passengers than just sound walls.
@@TohaBgood2 That makes a lot of sense, and it would offer all of the other benefits of platform doors to boot!
What is often not understood is that it is not legal under Bart’s own regulations for eastern contra costa to have conventional bart as the stations don’t meet the housing requirements or ridership projection standards. Also Ebart provides flexibility if wanted to use bnsf and up lines into the Central Valley.
I'd love to see a second Transbay Tube host a Caltrain service out to the delta via Richmond and Pinole, functioning as a sort of express-BART, and also boosting connectivity of the Capitol Corridor. The other obvious choice is Transbay Capitol Corridor, which would make trips to anywhere except North Bay a single-interchange trip from Sacramento.
Get MTC on the phone!!!
The Capitol Corridor is supposed to link the two historic California Capitals, the current one (Sac) and the old one (SJ). So they'll need to create a new line.
But the wBART service that they planned to be similar to eBART but on the Capitol Corridor alignment would be perfect for this!
100%. BART hogs up all the Bay Area transit dollars. The second transbay tunnel should be a caltrain project, from Transbay Terminal to East Bay. Another linkage should be built across Dumbarton to Fremont and Union City.
That E-BART shit in Pittsburg was a complete waste of taxpayer dollars! They should convert that to regular BART as soon as possible. And they could totally do that.
Yayyy new video!!!!
WOOO!!
I understand the station in the freeway median hate however, I think it’s a necessary evil given how hard, expensive it is to acquire ROW for transit.
E-BART is a perfect example. When planning for it started BART wanted to use an old barely used freight rail ROW that went through the center of Pittsburg and Antioch. The owners of the ROW Union Pacific had no interest in selling or even sharing that ROW so BART had to use Highway 4.
I do think some sort of enclosure should l’ve been built around this highway median stations because it is horrible being on those platforms .
Yeah. A lot of it has to do with purchasing ROWs. These private rail agencies can really be sticklers. It’s irritating
@@todgod yup. NIMBY’s too make it difficult. The Livermore BART saga is a recent example of that. In the mid-late 00’s when BART finally got around to planning a Livermore extension , the route they decided on would go east via the 580 median for a little bit but then leave 580 and go downtown Livermore. With stations downtown as well as Vasco rd. Because at that point BART leadership realized that “hey, freeway medians aren’t really the best spot for stations” and also a downtown Livermore station was the best location for potential TOD!! The Livermore City Council agreed and that route was approved.
However, once various citizens of Livermore found out about the proposed route, they went nuts and insisted that BART to Livermore stay in the median of 580. The city council had no choice but to back peddle and now say they preferred a 580 alignment as well .
After all the back and forth BART came up with 580 only alignment but of course at that point it was shorter than the route originally planned and more expensive. So the BART Board voted not to proceed and that’s we ended up with no BART to Livermore.
Honestly, as much as I loathe highway median stations, I don't think that transit in highway medians is avoidable in the American context. Yes, they suck, but in most cases that's the only remaining right of way. If we want to expand transit at least a big portion of it will have to be in highway medians.
And it's not like those are completely unsalvageable stations! We can make them nice by giving them fully enclosed stations and platform screen doors. We can alter the zoning to hide the highway as much as possible with sound walls and tall dense development next to the station. There are ways to make those kinds of transit line suck a lot less and actually be quite good! We just haven't been trying, at all.
Look at Rockridge as an example of a highway median station done well. It has dense development on all ides. There are tall redwood trees blocking some of the highway noise and particulate pollution. There's a ton of retail and cute cafes to visit. In my mind Rockridge isn't even a highway median station. I have to remind myself that it is one. Give Rockridge a fully enclosed station building and platform screen doors and you have yourself a perfectly good urban-feeling highway median station!
Out of curiosity, have you tallied up the total amount of housing currently proposed in BART station area plans throughout the system? I added up the Oakland ones and came up with about 45,000, but there's a lot more Bay Area and imma be real, I don't have the attention span for that 😅 I do love big numbers though 🤑
No but that would be sick!! I do have all the documentation so it’s certainly possible 👀👀
To understand eBART: the people out there pay sales and property taxes for the BART system and vote for the BART directors. For decades, they didn't get BART service. That's why they built it.
I agree that there needs to be transit in that area. I just wish it was a direct BART service that didn’t require a transfer
Can you please make a video on the TOD opportunities at the coliseum Bart station
Yeah! Check out Part 2 of this series :)
Thank you
You’re most certainly welcome!!
Also eBART was choosen because its a 10th the cost of BART and can be quickly expanded into less dense portions of the county serving more people. The argument isnt eBART vs BART its eBART vs the car.
This is why BART down 680 to serve alamo, danville, and san ramon isnt a thing either. these towns arent dense enough to cover the costs of BART but a eBART like extention between walut creek and pleseanton stations is more cost effective.
Why not complete the loop of the bay with BART between Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, to free-up capacity on the Caltrain tracks for HSR and regional rail services?
Not really sure Little Portugal would be a transfer station to downtown considering 22/23/522 already go downtown.
Fair enough, but BART will be way faster than either of those bus lines
Please, if and when a station comes to Alameda, DON'T have it right on Webster. That street has great character but no more capacity than a small town commercial street. Have it out NW where new developments are coming but there's no bridge to cross into Oakland!
100% agree on the insanity of eBart. Whyyyy? Was it THAT much less than just extending Bart?? Hope they don't do that down the 580....
I never understood how that saves any money. They had to build the stupid transfer station, plus two different types of rolling stock. Plus, I imagine diesel costs more than electricity these days. It certainly pollutes more. With the transfer station, it's slower and annoying to. Seems like worse service for more money.
@@Geotpfit was supposedly 500 million less to build EBART as opposed to regular BART so that was all they cared about at the time.
BART going any further than on 580 is done. A new “EBART like “train system called Valley Link will be built to connect Dublin/ Pleasanton Station to Tracy.
They needed the line to be diesel so that it could continue over freight rail track all the way to Brentwood. The freight railroad shafted BART and blocked the expansion over their tracks at the last moment, so they had to keep the line in the highway median all the way to Antioch. But it was originally supposed to immediately leap out of the highway median after the transfer station and continue over freight track all the way to Brentwood.
This plan is still on the table, so the fact that eBART is diesel will still come in handy for that expansion into freight territory.
Could you do a video on the initial connections between BART and California High Speed Rail at Merced? The plans I've seen include a combination of San Joaquins to Richmond, ACE to Union City and perhaps Tri-Rail. None of them seem particularly fast, consistent or attractive. The San Joaquins connection could be speeded up by connecting with BART at North Concord, because the BART route is faster and more direct than the San Joaquins route to Richmond. This would require upgrading some existing but unused connecting tracks.
is someone who grew up in Antioch, i get why they want to extend eBART to disco bay. When you look at traffix patterns Disco Bay residence commute towards The City rather than out towards the valley. eBART is just serving this demand the same way ACE services Tracy demand into the bay.
I was on the citizen's committee for the BART extension in San Mateo County back in the 1970s. The Bohannon Corporation, owners of the Hillsdale Shopping Center, convinced the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors to withdraw from the BART district without a vote of the people. This left Santa Clara County as an island and they had to withdraw as well. At that time it was estimated that we could have had an arial BART line all the way down to Palo Alto for 400 million dollars. I'll bet CalTrain has spent more than that on grade separations and electrification alone.
Don't tell me: the bohannon's argument against BART was the BART would allow the "undesirables"(dark) to be able to travel down from San Francisco right?
Woah! Thank you for this context. A damn shame we couldn’t get BART down to Palo Alto
@@ArchsStanton Yep. You got it--and the East Bay.
@@ArchsStanton there are legitimate engineering/economic problems with BART, compared to Caltrain. Caltrain uses off the shelf parts and tech, so anything BART does, Caltrain can do much cheaper. As a Bay Area native, I'm tired of BART hogging up all the money and political good-will. I'm a big advocate for Caltrain to go to the East Bay, through Dumbarton Bridge, but that project fell by the wayside once covid crisis happened.
Maybe cause Concord isn’t done yet but maybe you gotta check out what they’ve done on their TOD project
Check out Part 5!
someday their should be a second bart transbay line between the airports.
I for one, prefer Link 21 to be BART, as SF’s Geary + 19th Ave study completely hinges on what technology Link 21 chooses, and it would make a lot more sense for BART to serve urban Geary and 19th Ave corridors rather than standard gauge regional rail, which is what would happen should that technology be chosen. Amtrak Long Distance trains will also never get into Salesforce in downtown San Francisco as diesel trains would not be allowed into the new tunnel, as well as the train box at Salesforce being extremely capacity constrained and won’t be able to turn LD trains.
Very great point. I didn’t consider the station box not being able to handle diesel trains, especially those from Amtrak
They easily could. Penn Station has 3rd rail power on their diesel locomotives while underground
A BART extension into Santa Cruz under the mountains would definitely be very well used and great at relieving highway 17.
Any rail system into Santa Cruz would be greatly appreciated! I hope they work on that corridor because that’d be awesome. Maybe a rail link between SC and Gilroy would be cool too 👀
@@todgod With Caltrain eventually supposed to expand to Pajaro/Watsonville (Monterey County Rail Extension) and the restart of the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line, also ending in Pajaro, we could potentially have this as soon as the 2030s, if we fight for it. Can't wait! I would love restored Hwy 17-corridor train service just as much too.
@@undertheovertones This!
Caltrain is already expanding to Watsonville and Salinas. And Santa Cruz wants to build some type of light rail to that future station in Watsonville. This non-mountainous alignment will in fact be faster, especially after Caltrain upgrades to 110 mph with the new Stadler trains.
So you will get your wish. Santa Cruz will be connected to the Bay Area with fast electric rail. But it will be a mix of Caltrain and Santa Cruz's own electric light rail. Given that Caltrain is basically becoming just another BART line with their electric trains and 15 minute frequencies, I hope that you support Caltrain's expansion and Santa Cruz's light rail!
@@TohaBgood2 just use the santa cruz railroad tracks that go right by the beach from watsonville junction. It would have to be rebuilt but the ROW is already there
Glory be the transit GAWDZ. Tax billionbabes and let's do it right. 70 billion for the region. Remember kids, it's not public transit if it's not fare-free ! :))))
Early Gang‼️🤩
Yoooo!!! Appreciate it Banks! Looking forward to your uploads too my friend ! 👀👀
Do you think BART would ever go past Richmond towards HERCULES or Vallejo
If you have the time and are interested, I recommend making a video about the city of Antioch losing their Amtrak station!! I think more people need to hear about this!! I don't live in California, so I'm over here feeling like i can't help, but I'd honestly be so sad if this happened to my city.
I’ve read an article, it’s honestly really sad and I wish there was a compromise to keep both Antioch and the Brentwood stations but sadly I don’t think it’s gonna happen :(
@@todgod If I recall right, the Antioch station is in a bum spot to begin with.
Really enjoyable though crazy that it’s over a decade away. Question: When you talk about the new stations and development, you use an acronym? Is it POV or POD? And what does it stand for?
The acronym you’re referring to is TOD: transit oriented development :)
This is kind of off-topic… but as someone from LA that moved to the Bay Area. I’m so genuinely curious about why there’s so much animosity here towards Los Angeles. In general people in the greater LA area don’t have any negative feelings about the Bay Area. However, I have noticed that many people here tend to have a distaste for LA. I’m curious why that is and where it’s rooted from. The simple answer would be rivalry, but it seems to be one-sided. Is there something I’m totally oblivious to?
Joke answer: Beat LA.
Serious answer: I personally have no animosity towards LA, just the city’s design and Hollywood. But I know that Hollywood is such a small part of that regions economy, so it’s irrelevant. That’s like hating the Bay Area for having tech bros. It’s a friendly rivalry, and I actually have had a bunch of fun in LA, as I have friends there. Some great walkable spots like Santa Ana and Santa Monica are pretty fun to be around, and I’d be lying if I said I was a blind hater of SoCal.
do you film your footage with a samsung phone?
Nope! Just my trusty iPhone 13!
would love to see BART extend farther north like up to Vallejo in the future
FYI, the Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge (SB I-80) was built to allow for a light rail line to cross the bridge deck.
Nah. After San Jose/Santa Clara is complete, it really is time to modernize the core network of BART, in Oakland and SF. Suburbs get all the money and investment while us in the core are left with decrepit stations. Its our turn now.
Why not dual guage in the 2nd Transbay Tube. At least build the rube in such a way that it would be feasible.
bart cannot share tracks with caltrain due to weight, its better just to keep bart seperate
Too expensive to build both, either one gauge or the other
I like BART too but want to take Le Metro and La REM of Montreal more. Both public transit systems are very cool but the TOD on Le REM needs improvement. I have taken Beijing Metro once TOD is good some of it extends 60 miles but for station outlook it's a hit or miss. Singapore MRT I have taken, state of the art and TOD friendly. Probably might kick BART to the curb. LA Metro took twice, it sucks. London overground and Tube, I can say it's TOD friendly because of convenience. I took it and liked how it was close to my hotel. Paris Metro and overground AKA RER is on my transit bucket list, can say is TOD friendly and has a cool operating model based on the city districts. Shanghai Metro I've seen but cannot say much on TOD compatibility. Berlin U-Bahn and S-Bahn is on my list too. For TOD I don't know much except the government is working hard to make it better. Some of the trains on the system last a long time. DRG Class ET 167 lasted from WW2 to 2003. Tokyo subway and overground is TOD friendly in terms of commercial space and operates some very cool patterns. It is known for it's precision. It is also on my transit bucket list. WMATA Metro is on my bucket list although I heard some of their stations need work. Chicago CTA almost feels like BART but a lot older. TOD is messy in some parts. To learn more about world subways you can look at one of my other favorite UA-camrs.
Ironically, BART historically has a higher on-time rating than the Tokyo Metro. It's a really cool system with a very interesting system of timed transfers. More than meets the eye!
@@TohaBgood2 I know it’s insane
11:31 - I think you meant to say "San Mateo" not "San Diego"! [ETA: I see this has already been commented]
Yeah 😭😭
I’d also like to see BART build a subway from Millbrae to San Jose in the future. Currently you have to take the commuter rail if your in that area and the commuter rail isn’t very frequent
It would not be financially viable having two rails overlap.
its pretty frequent. its a complete waste to have 2 systems run parrellel
@@lalakerspro most of the time it’s only once an hour, some hours it’s twice, but that’s not frequent. Frequent should be at least every 20 minutes. Millbrae to San Jose should be like the rest of the Bay Area and should have BART or at least run Caltrain more often
@@louisjohnson3755 once caltrain is electrified it will run more often. also, the once per hour is only on weekends, weekday frequency is pretty decent
@@louisjohnson3755 This will change this fall when Caltrain will start to run at 15 minute frequencies with their new electric trains! So Caltrain will actually be very much like just another BART line!
Need to connect SJC and SFO
caltrain already does. also, why would you commute from one airport to the other
A long time ago there was a study that BART can be expanded to Sacramento but that plan was overtaken by Valley Link which I think is a pipe dream. I'd do anything to live on my own in San Joaquin Valley and work in the Bay Area, Valley Link would give me that opportunity given the low rent and house prices.
I really want to do a future video on Valley Link when construction starts! It’s an interesting rail project that I’ve never seen anything like
Thats the homeless encampment at the old lumber yard.
It would be nice if some of this transit oriented development were affordable....
the word "affordable" is incredibly malleable
A lot of it is technically "deed-restricted affordable" based on income level. But with the crazy salaries we have in the Bay Area that often means income limits of $70-100k or more. And since we don't really allow much new housing construction, even at those prices/income limits it's extremely competitive to get into one of those units.
We just need to open the floodgates and relax the zoning if we want cheap housing. But the NIMBYs will never just allow that. It will take state legislation to force more housing and lower rents in the Bay Area. The NIMBYs have a strong hold on local politics around here.
10:40 lol I read that whole PDF a few years ago. The "6" stations are probably not going to happen, lone tree and Balfour were the only really feasible ones and discovery bay people commute the other direction
That’s good news then
California has a bad habit of making things more expensive than they ought to be. They have been talking about bringing Bart into Santa Clara County since the mid 90's. It was just as recent as the 2010's that extensions were made past the Fremont station. Given this trend, I don't see Bart going into Downtown San Jose for another twenty years. Additionally the ebart diesel units beyond the Pittsburg Baypoint station are a complete joke. They decided to go with these because it costed less than building a traditional fully electrified Bart line to Antioch. If I could have it my way, Caltrain would be completely replaced by Bart all the way down to Gilroy. Dublin/Pleasanton would be extended not only to Livermore but all the way to Tracy. Many people commute to the greater bay area from Tracy so that would make a lot of sense to me. It all may sound crazy, but it sure will never happen with way the State and local governments manage public works projects.
You grew up on the East Side of San Jose? I’m a James Lick HS alum…where’d you go to school?
San Jose isn’t coming back until the clubs open back up. Another example of a waste of immense potential.
I really hope the little Portugal development actually goes beyond and builds taller buildings than downtown since they aren’t subject to height restrictions for airplanes. The area is industrial right now so shouldn’t be behest to nimbys
SF made a mistake for mission bay and only zoned a industrial area for mid rises
SJ could get its own Mission Bay. So cool
Mission Bay isn't really "all midrises". Mission Rock is plenty tall with several highrises. The other developments going south will also get a few highrises each. They'll be like their own self-contained mini-cities each with a clearly defined "downtown" for taller buildings.
But I agree that we need at least about 10x more highrises in the at whole area though!
14:45 👍
To me as a european the distances between many of the stations is crazy long.
Even commuter rail has a shorter stop spacing here (in developed areas)
There could be many many more infill stations
@@nicolasblume1046 ive thought that too but in many spots, especially the lower east bay I don't think the ridership would justify it and instead just make trips take longer because of more stops
But like in SF and Oakland I would generally agree with you
more infill stations means more time. Europe is far more densely populated, you dont want to add too many stations
Europeans dont realize how big the US is, your commuter lines are probably a lot shorter than bart
@@lalakerspro the average trip time could also decrease, because many people would have a shorter distance to the next station.
I guess you need some simulations to really know.
About density: The Bay area has about the same density as many german suburbs, where we still have a shorter stop spacing, and no, our commuter lines are not shorter.
You can compare these two examples:
Bay area: Berryessa to Oakland
Germany (Rhineland): Köln Stammheim (maps.app.goo.gl/Zcgm1cz8MNBCukLd7) to Düsseldorf Reisholz (maps.app.goo.gl/sAMLzuz2nyvwGJTE8)
BART is like an oversized S-bahn, but with much longer lines. It's more like an intercity rail network for a mid-sized European country than a metro system.
To give you an idea of the distances involved, BART covers and area that's roughly half the size of Netherlands. It's a maaaaaaaaaassive system.
The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority will receive $5.1 billion in funding from the federal government for its South Bay BART extension project.
Question: Where did the Federal Government get $5.1 billion dollars to fund this project. The Federal Government is broke. So - they borrowed the $5.1 billion dollars and added on to the National Debt - which has accumulated to $35 trillion dollars. Presently the National Debt is increasing at $1 trillion every 100 days.
Congress ( really taxpayers) only pays the interest on the National Debt - they do not pay for the borrowed money. How can that work?
Congress tells the Treasury Dept:, I am broke. Find me $5.1 billion dollars. The Treasury has an auction and does all the paperwork and lines up the lenders to provide them with $5.1 billion dollars. The Treasury will pay 5% annual interest on the $5.1 billion loan for 30 years and return the principal ($5.1 billion) on the last day.
30 years go by and it is the last day of the contract. Congress needs $5.1 billion to meet the final payment. Problem: Congress does not have $5.1 billion to pay the lenders. Congress does not have a “rainy day” fund to pay off borrowed money. So the Treasury conducts auction (number two) to raise $5.1 billion, but this time the lenders want 6% interest. Both lenders and the Treasury agree.
Same rules as before except the interest rate is now 6% vice 5%. The Treasury receives the $5.1 billion and pays off $5.1 billion from the original loan. The Treasury will still need to pay $5.1 billion at the end of the next 30 year period. Congress only pays the yearly interest on the loan for 30 years without repaying the principal.
Bottom line: Congress never pays off the original loan. Congress only pays the interest on the loan. Congress basically uses an “interest only” credit card every time they borrow money. The original $5.1 billion loan is never paid off and is just added to the National Debt, which grows larger every year. The only time the US was completely debt-free was in January 1835, during the presidency of Andrew Jackson. Because of all the loans not paid off, America has now accumulated a National Debt of $35 trillion dollars. It is now increasing at a rate of one trillion every 100 days.
So what will the American taxpayers end up paying in the next 60 years for the South Bay BART extension project? Let’s figure it out.
YEARS 1-30.
$5.1 billion times 5% per year = $255 million dollars per year for interest payments
$255 million times 30 years = $7.65 billion dollars for 30 years of interest
30 years later on the last day of the loan: taxpayers owe $5.1 billion dollars, to pay back the principal borrowed. Congress (means taxpayers) borrow another $5.1 billion to pay off the original loan. This time Congress ( means taxpayers) are charged 6% per year.
YEARS 31-60.
$5.1 billion times 6% per year = $306 million dollars per year for interest payments
$306 million times 30 years = 9.18 billion dollars
Total 60 year cost = $16.83 billion dollars plus the $5.1 billion loan due on the last day for the second loan. How do you think Congress will pay off the $5.1 billion due on the second loan?
"cost effective" and "bart" don't really go together.
Mmmm, my recollection is BART was blocked at the South Fremont / Milpitas area. Santa Clara County had voted an additional sales tax that was funding BART construction, just it didn't happen. You might notice too that they will avoid connecting to the San Jose Airport just as the did with Cal Train and the VTA light rail. You know that circular layout of San Francisco International was designed with the future direct connection with BART in mind. Bart was to run at the bottom level between the central parking area and the airport proper.
With BART blocked, San Jose decided to redirect funds a bit. The city had voted themselves a Paris vacation and fell in love with the look of a downtown shopping area. The wanted that look, so they dug up downtown and ran a light rail north to south down the middle. They killed downtown shopping and most of the businesses were closed, but they had that open walkway and rail transit look, just nothing else for quite some time and no reason for people to go downtown to look into the empty storefronts. You could not park anywhere to ride it anyway. It's gotten better and they did connect to Cal Train and more of the city... eventually.
Currently San Jose wants to make their city the endpoint for BART and block any further construction towards Santa Clara. We have systems of political levers more than providing the public with a working Bay Area transit system. In San Jose a few people who live in a few blocks between 12th and 15th street will decide what San Jose and basically what Santa Clara County will do.
--
On a side note you might look at a German elevator company that's helping repurpose office towers. They have doors on two sides and are programed so that the street level can have two entrances and that determines what floors you can get off. This allows mixed use without adding new elevator shafts and losing the rentable floor space of additional lifts. An office building might have a few floors of hotel or residential and can repurpose floors over time and at need.
Forget about any expansion plans. Right now BART's main problem is keeping the lights on. Ridership is still down significantly (so things like the second trans bay tube that are designed add capacity are simply not even needed) and since BART has both high farebox recovery and high fares and depends on said fares to operate, they are in a huge fiscal mess.
Supposedly they may have to make a 30% cut to their budget soon if additional funds aren't found, and, since most of BART's costs are fixed, that 30% cut will result in an 85% cut in service!!!
Post pandemic, Los Angeles' funding pattern (low fares and a dedicated funding source of a portion of the sales tax) is working a lot better than BART's with the drop in ridership.
BART ridership is depressed due to work from home. If you look at the Clipper card user numbers, they're basically fully recovered from pre-pandemic and actually about to surpass pre-pandemic! So BART didn't lose its riders wholesale. It's just that those riders need to ride BART to work only 20-30% of the time now. So the number of rides when from 10-14 per week per rider to 2-6 per week per rider.
This situation will not persist forever. BART ridership is gradually recovering as work from home gradually goes away. And we won't have a once-in-a-century pandemic every ten years. I don't think that you can extrapolate if BART's model is good or bad based on a literal cataclysmic event that distorted the whole world economy for a decade. BART's high farebox recovery allowed it to expand at insane speed over the years. There has never been more than a five year stretch when BART didn't add a major expansion!
Good transit that people are willing to pay good money for is a good thing, not a bad thing! LA Metro is almost unrideable and only the people who have no other choice tend to use it. BART is a genuinely pleasant system to use because they are forced to compete for your dollar!
I really don't understand why they decided to duplicate Caltrain and build a station in Santa Clara instead of extending the BART line to the San Jose Airport after the Diridon station.
They needed a lot of room for a yard and there just happen to be a vacant UP yard there. It's not like land in Silicon Valley is cheap. There really wasn't any other choice.
Plus they needed soma place where the tunnel boring machine could be inserted that could be co-located with a manufacturing facility for the tunnel sections.
In other words, the Santa Clara stretch of track was pretty unavoidable. It was just lot cheaper this way. But since they have to build the track all the way there, might as well have a station too!
They should have built the BART line 30 years ago, but instead we have to wait another 30 years.
I know :/, but better late than never I always say!
As a european it sounds insane to wait so long for a quite small expension (BART extension phase 2)
In my city (500k people) we're building an entire new 27 miles subway line in just 6 years with a planned ridership of 200k people per day
That's extremely unusual for Europe. Cities below 1 million population almost never have subway systems there. At best they have a Stadtbahn, but most have only trams.
Where do you live?
@@TohaBgood2 I mean the metro area of my city has about 1 million. I'm in France, Toulouse, soon to be 3rd largest french city, we already have a tram line and 2 subways
@@peyoprat Gotcha. BART isn't really a metro system. It's more of an RER/S-bahn type of system. Each BART station is about half a kilometer long with just the platform being over 300 meters long.
In other words, BART is very large in terms of footprint. It's very expensive to build out. That's why the costs so much higher than a regular metro tunnel. It's very "monumental infrastructure".
And of course, California wages are pretty crazy. The median salary is about $9k vs about $2.5 in France. So construction here will always be a lot more expensive than anywhere in Europe pretty much by definition.
I totally agree that eBART was one of the dumbest decisions ever made. ESPECIALLY if they plan to extend the Yellow Line, they need to just rip up that track and build out a bona fide BART line. But what I would really like to see is an extension of the Red Line, to Hercules and Rodeo and eventually across the strait to Vallejo.
Its not dumb. Most people who say that cant see that ebart being standard guage means easy expansion to other cities that already have track built
A Red line extension into Vallejo would be so cool!
Bart, Lisa and Maggie... ...will they ever grow up?
Don’t think so
BART expansion into Discovery Bay? Isn't that area full of rich folks who wouldn't be caught dead in a transit system? An extension that way doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
BART making the loop around the bay doesn't make sense either, since Caltrain already exists unless HSR is going to demolish most of Caltrain stations and have SJD and 4th & King only.
If only our main stations were like the ones in Europe or Japan where they are giant malls too. I guess BART tried it with Powell Station, but local politics made it untenable.
Yeah I’d much rather focus on station improvements than an extension all the way into DB. A Brentwood stop would work though
I puke at the diesel "e"-BART *hit too!
Yup!!
East Sider's Lives Matter!
You know it!!!
I think once the D Line extension, Sepulveda Line, and Metrolink SCORE improvements get built, LA heavy rail will be on par with Bay Area heavy rail
Yeah but they have to do ALL of that, so as of now we still own LA ;)
@@todgod true that lol
Well... Not really. I wish them well, and I want to be able to ride transit when I'm there, but the Bay Area is at Europe/Asia level in terms of transit. Only NYC in the US is better than the Bay Area. LA will maybe slide into third after all the expansions, but the Bay Area is just too far ahead.
Think of it this way, the Bay Area already has what is effectively a region-scale metro system (BART + Caltrain). It has local transit agencies that on their own rival all of LA Metro in size and they're all constantly expanding. BART has never spend more than a few years without expansion. Muni is expanding. VTA light rail is expanding. SMART appeared out of nowhere and is now expanding. The Bay Area transit scene is more fragmented, but the Bay as a whole is still adding more new transit than the LA area.
And let's not forget that even after all the rapid expansion LA had over the last 30 years, the Bay Area still has higher transit ridership while being less than half the population. I'm not saying that LA shouldn't try to catch up, but it's very very very far behind the Bay.
sorry but its gonna be a long time before LA catches up. Bay Area > LA in almost everything, especially baseball
LA Metro did it better.
Ironic that San Jose's first metro station will be for another city's metro. Still….
What do you mean? BART was always a regional system. Oakland was the first city to get BART service before San Francisco. And the system is sill very Oakland-centric with all the lines converging there. But you can hardly call BART "Oakland's metro".
In fact, BART isn't even a metro. It's regional rail - an S-bahn.
@@TohaBgood2 I mean that it's a fully grade separated short-stop-capable transit system that's coming in from outside the city, when what we have of our own is two or three half-assed tram lines. Yes, BART _could have been_ as much a San Jose thing as anything else, but everything is stupid and that's not actually what happened.
As to Oakland, BART is the only metro Oakland has, and if you wanted to argue that it serves Oakland more than it does San Francisco I'd be force to concede that you could have a point. Within SF itself, BART seems very weird.
As to whether BART is “really” an S-Bahn, that case seems to rely on there being only one transbay tube at the moment, giving it a single-tunnel topology in SF. Other than that, and the issue of gauge, it seems pretty reminiscent of, say, London's Piccadilly Line, which I've always thought of as a metro line. It's grade separated, doesn't follow mainline rail standards, runs on the surface from the principal airport, under the city centre and the river, and then back onto the surface out to distant suburbs, was a technical marvel long ago when it was new, and isn't quite fast enough.
But, no, you're right, this wasn't intended as a coherent point about BART, more of an incoherent rant about San Jose.
@@stephenspackman5573 I don't think that one can reasonably question whether BART is an S-bahn. It's a system that covers an area half of a Netherlands with a branching tree of lines that spreads out to serve suburbs that are some 60 miles away from the core. That's definitely an S-bahn.
And as far as those go, BART is still pretty far ahead of most other S-bahns. It's faster than most of them with its 80 mph (130 km/h) top speeds. It's fully automated while the German S-bahns are all manually operated. It has full grade separation and excellent cross-platform transfers. It has better frequencies than most S-bahns. etc.
I guess I don't share the recently popularized doomer view of BART. BART was indeed a technical marvel when it was built, but it was so far ahead that it's still very modern and cutting edge in most ways. The world of transit just doesn't progress that fast. From BART being the first fully automated rapid rail system to it having ultralight trains that minimize the size of viaducts, most systems out there still can't match it. It's fine to think that the US can do good transit. BART is overall a pretty incredibly system by any standard.
@@TohaBgood2 If BART fits what the word S-Bahn means to you, that's fine by me. I'm just saying that if it's an S-Bahn *and not a metro* then it follows that London has an S-Bahn network and not much metro, because BART is, aside from not being standard gauge, a lot like most of the Underground. It also travels for hours through low density suburbs, as I know first hand because my family comes from Enfield, where the Underground finally ends.
And I'm not hating on BART, just the short sighted decision making that kept it from being better. It *should* have been a complete ring early on, and by now it (or something integrated but more Paris-metro-like) should be providing subsurface meshes in all three big centers. The current situation is stupid and pointlessly inhumane.
@@stephenspackman5573 The London Underground does have some anomalous lines that are longer than perhaps necessary for a subway/metro system. But that's mostly just the legacy of a very very old urban rail system, the first in the world. Overall the network is very much metro-like even with the quirks of old age.
BART is a lot more similar to the Overground and lines like the Elizabeth line. It's a typical regional suburban commuter train. It's too fast to be a metro. Its stop spacing is waaaay too wide. It narrows down to a single tunnel in the core and flares out in the deep suburbs into a bunch of spurs. That's just not how metros work.
And what you suggest about urban metro systems taking over from BART in the dense cores is exactly what happened! SF built the Muni Metro literally at the same time as BART. In fact, BART built Muni's Market street tunnel from them four years in advance of Muni being able to take it over. VTA built the VTA Light Rail network in San Jose a few years later. Oakland was supposed to build their own light rail system too, but waited for long enough that it became too expensive and built some pointless BRT instead. But it does have a very dense network of busses.
I don't really understand where people are getting that the Bay Area doesn't have good transit or that it's somehow deficient. If you look at the actual fundamentals the Bay has excellent transit that's more than on par with similar regions around the world and far ahead of anything in North America outside of NY City.
I will support PRT in San Jose
That's unfortunate. It's about 10x more expensive than just expanding the light rail from 1st st to the airport. It's like 900 ft of new track for somewhere between 5-10% of the cost of the crazy PRT system.
@@TohaBgood2 I heard otherwise
@@Cyrus992 What did you hear? Did you hear that the PRT will cost at least $500 million while the light rail airport extension would cost under $25 million?
No connection to SJC?
Honestly, all this mass transit, and transit centers are killing the Bay Area. I live in the east bay, and I don't blame the people on the peninsula who don't want BART because of the noise. I am tired of hearing them. And I am also tired of the crime they bring with the thugs riding those trains because BART security is awful.
What about crime? Isn't it the main reason of very poor patronage for BART whereas the service is quite good and extensive?
Crime is Main reason of very poor patronage where? What stations are you referring to?
@@curtisalvin west oakland, fruitvale. need more examples?
@@lalakerspro huh? So you picked the stations in rough neighborhoods to use as examples of ridership being lower because of crime? Ohhh k
@@curtisalvin any bart trip to SF will use one of those 2 stations, so yea
@@lalakerspro the primary reason BART has lost 60% of its ridership post COVID isn’t crime. It’s the fact that DT SF has the highest office vacancy rate in the country due to WFH being so prevalent. And what was BART’s bread and butter ridership wise? And basically what it was designed to do? Get people from suburbs to their jobs in DT SF and to lesser extent, DT Oakland. The demand isn’t there because of WFH.
So that’s why I responded to the original poster. Saying “ crime is the main reason for poor patronage “ is wrong. Is crime or the perception of crime on the trains a factor in keeping people away? Absolutely. But again it’s not the main factor but people love to bring it up .
Bart is expensive toilet for the cultural enrichment movement.
L comment