Oakland City Council leans against BART airport line - BART plans to proceed against public opposition
Oakland leaders are poised to reject BART's proposal to build a 3.2-mile elevated train to the city's airport - a $522 million project that supporters say will create thousands of jobs but one that critics call a financial boondoggle.
The City Council will vote tonight on whether to endorse the project, which would bring riders from the Coliseum/Oakland Airport Station for $6 each way starting around 2013.
"We think the project itself will be a failure," said Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan. "It will be slower and too costly to ride, and we could end up with a project that loses money year after year."
Plans to connect BART with the airport have been in the works for at least 20 years. This summer, BART obtained the final piece of funding, $70 million in federal stimulus money.
BART estimates the project will create up to 3,000 jobs, 25 percent of which will be reserved for Oakland residents.
"This is a legacy project for BART and for Oakland. It's much bigger than today - it's for tomorrow," said BART Director Carole Ward Allen, whose district includes the airport and Coliseum Station. BART believes the extension can be built without the city's blessing. Oakland cannot withhold permits and is not funding the project, so BART can proceed regardless of the council's action, BART spokesman Jim Allison said.
Kaplan disagreed. The Port of Oakland, which runs the airport and is part of city government, is chipping in $44 million, which can be withdrawn, she said. Other agencies, such as the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, might also back away from the project if the city is not on board.
Currently, riders can take the Air BART shuttle between the Coliseum Station and the airport. Air BART costs $3 each way, half of what the new connector would cost, and runs every 20 minutes. In 2008, just under 1 million riders took Air BART, down 25 percent from 2007.
BART wants to replace the shuttle with a train because the shuttle is subject to traffic conditions and can be inefficient, Allison said.
"This could help attract more businesses to Oakland," said Scott Peterson, spokesman for the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. "It will bring jobs, it's already funded. There's no reason not to build it."
The council's Public Works Committee rejected the plan, concluding that it is too expensive, the number of jobs created is exaggerated and the ridership estimates are not high enough, Kaplan said. BART should spend the money on creating a dedicated bus lane for Air BART and use the remainder of the funding to lower fares or invest in other Oakland projects, such as a transit-friendly development at the Coliseum BART Station, she said.
City officials are also not happy with the location of the tracks, which would run along the recently landscaped median on Hegenberger Road. The city spent millions beautifying the median in 2007-08, planting palm trees, installing historic street lights and hanging banners, hoping to create a welcoming gateway to the East Bay for airport travelers.
Ward Allen said she's disappointed that the City Council is leaning toward opposing the project.
"At this point, for them, it's a symbolic gesture," she said. "But it would be better if we had them on board."
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/06/BAEF1A1833.DTL#ixzz0TAwGst8p
"This could help attract more
"This could help attract more businesses to Oakland," said Scott Peterson, spokesman for the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. "It will bring jobs, it's already funded. There's no reason not to build it."
Does he think this thing will cause businesses to spring up at the BART station or the airport parking lot? Surely there is an Oakland transit project in need of funding that could provide jobs, attract real businesses, and not make the transit situation measureably worse for those who have to use it.
"In 2008, just under 1
"In 2008, just under 1 million riders took Air BART, down 25 percent from 2007."
I think the number of people using BART to OAK would increase significantly if they put in a rail line. I fly out of OAK whenever I can, but I've never used AirBART. Have to have exact change or an exact BART ticket. Have to leave the station and wait outside for the bus. May be significantly delayed in traffic. Does the bus go directly to OAK? If not, then there's the added hassle of all the stops in between.
I'd love to pay 12 bucks total to get there instead of the 15 bucks a day I pay at the Park N Fly. I say use the money while you've got it!
Have you looked at the rail
Have you looked at the rail plans? The $500 million light rail boondoggle doesn't go to the airport. It stops, I believe, in the parking lot.
Keep in mind you could build an infill BART station at 30th & Mission in San Francisco, a project that the neighborhood WANTS, and would increase overall system reliability, and create jobs, etc for $500 mil.
http://www.noevalleyvoice.com/2002/May/bart.html
Or how about a 98th Ave (Oakland) station instead?
"The OAC is so expensive that it would be $25-$50 million cheaper to build a 98th Ave alignment with a brand new Bart station than it would be to build the current Hegenberger alignment!"
http://21stcenturyurbansolutions.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/how-bart-could-have-saved-the-oakland-airport-connector/
Or how about this: under ideal conditions the OAC would be twice as slow as AirBART. AirBART could be made more reliable with proper transit-only lanes and signal priority at a fraction of the cost.
http://transbayblog.com/2009/07/21/disconnect-the-connector/
The OAC is a HUGE waste of money that could be better spent elsewhere within the BART system. Even if you limit yourself to capital improvements...
Wow, you are really lazy. How
Wow, you are really lazy.
How hard is it to count your quarters before you leave the house, step 6 feet outside the BART station, and wait 10 minutes?
The Oakland connector will be even LESS convenient, but you prefer that instead? o_O
lol, totally. how hard is it
lol, totally. how hard is it to buy an exact fare ticket +$3 for airbart?
this is a total waste of money. as little as I think of most bart workers, I think even less of the management.
Not to mention that there are
Not to mention that there are change machines in the BART station, so even if you only have $20s it takes all of ten seconds to get exact change for AirBART.
Yeah, I'm that lazy. In
Yeah, I'm that lazy. In reality it wouldn't make a bit of difference to me. I am not interested in taking the airbart bus, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. BART also doesn't seem to run to the airport when I need it. I generally end up flying at like 7am on a Sunday.
So, wait. You'd rather that
So, wait. You'd rather that $500 million tax dollars get spent so that you can walk a longer distance and take a slower, more expensive trip? And this is all worth it because you have a hard on for rail? lol.
Sign me up for what you're smoking. That's a righteous sense of self-entitlement with other people's money no less.
I'd rather have that money
I'd rather have that money spent on any kind of rail than the useless pork bullshit most of it gets spent on. I don't think BART should build more SF stations. BART is not a subway. It's a commuter regional rail system, and they already cover the major job centers in SF.
I'll probably never use the OAK extension, so it's really not about me. I was just stating reasons I don't use AirBART. I guarantee there are plenty of people that don't want to leave a downtown Oakland BART station to catch a bus, but would walk across the airport parking lot.
I don't think you have any concept of how grant money works.
IIRC AirBART bus picks up at
IIRC AirBART bus picks up at the curb in front of the exit of the BART station. I suppose you are technically setting foot in Oakland as you cross the sidewalk but there probably isn't time for any muggers or thugs or scary monsters to get you in that short distance.
The OAC isn't funded entirely
The OAC isn't funded entirely through grants. Specifically BART is trying to take out a LOAN to cover the exorbitant cost, as well as begging for money from the Port of Oakland. Sadly, you don't have any clue do you?
Of course if you look at some of the funding (grants OR loans) the OAC, you'd notice that none of them are big pots of money designed for pork. Instead they're under the guise of "greenhouse gas reduction" or "economic recovery" or the like. Some are simply targeted at the Bay Area. These things are pretty broad, and eschewing the OAK Connector would simply mean another Bay Area project could/would find funds.
http://transbayblog.com/2009/08/13/is-the-oakland-airport-connector-a-good-tiger-tifia-project-part-1/
Of course, even though BART is willing to go $100 million in debt just for the OAC, you as a rider shouldn't have to pay an expensive fare, right? That cost should be shouldered by folks who travel purely within San Francisco so that you can prove it's a commuter rail system, right?
Sigh.
You can call BART commuter rail all you want, but that doesn't make it so. It does attempt to function as both urban and commuter rail... but *most* BART riders use it within San Francisco. Take a look at the ridership stats on the BART website for July - Sep 2009. BART lists average daily exits during the week:
Embarcadero - 34,867
Montgomery - 31,829
Powell - 25,484
Civic Center - 18,679
These stations aren't downtown:
16th St - 10,761
24th St - 11,707
Glen Park - 7,037
Balboa Park - 12,957
Note that the only other stations in the BART system with an average daily exit count of above 10,000 are Berkeley and 12th St. North Concord saw less than 2,000 exits a day. Why should the minority strangle the rest of the system here?
A 30th St station would fill in a > 2 mile gap in the BART system, and would provide extra tracks which could be used to store or bypass disabled trains. Can you do that with the OAK Connector? Bypassing disabled trains, as you might be able to imagine, would improve system reliability.
Oh, and as to your idea that plenty of people would take the OAK Connector, show me some data. BART's data indicates that the rail boondoggle would take about twice as long as AirBART does in a best case scenario, and still not drop you off at the door. Even BART's official ridership projections are pretty low. I'd love to see how many people you can find that would be willing to pay that much, wait that long, and still have to trek across the parking lot.
'Course you know, they could simply improve the traffic signals, maybe make a bus only lane, build an enclosure at the station for AirBART passengers, and clean up the signage... and still have a pot money left over to do something more useful (or maybe just do all of the above so BART wouldn't have to raise its fares and take out a loan to cover the project).
Edit: Or for less money than the proposed OAK Connector, they could build a 98th Ave station, utilize the AirBART buses, not do any alteration (such as removal of greenery), come out $50 million ahead... and still provide a faster, more reliable connection to the airport.
Any way you slice it the OAC is a turd. About the only people who would use it are those who are terminally afraid of buses. And if that's you, what are you doing on an airplane? lol.
People are mostly afraid of
People are mostly afraid of buses because they might run into poor people there, where "poor people" are defined as "anyone poorer than me".