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How BART on the Golden Gate Bridge died: A new history

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Re: How BART on the Golden Gate Bridge died: A new history

#41

Post by yodon »

This reads like a highly fanciful interpretation of a hard set of large scale planning decisions that needed to be made, trying to frame it as some kind of "Machiavellian" conspiracy.

Light rail in the US in the past 50 years has objectively been an over priced under utilized boondoggle. It's entirely believable buses may well have been the far better option for crossing the golden gate, even if a guy who works for the light rail system today doesn't think so.

Having ridden both BART and the AC transit bus system across the bay from SF to the East Bay countless times, I'll take the bus over BART every time. The bus system is better, cheaper, cleaner, safer feeling, and faster.

Bus systems are cheaper and more flexible in the face of population density changes and land use changes than light rail. You don't need a conspiracy to have concluded bus systems are a better transit solution than light rail. Rational economic analysis can get you to buses just as easily (though you do have to fight off the lobbying campaigns by the large construction firms that want to tap the insane stream of public funds available when building a light rail system).

Re: How BART on the Golden Gate Bridge died: A new history

#42

Post by ZanyProgrammer »

yodon wrote: post #41

This reads like a highly fanciful interpretation of a hard set of large scale planning decisions that needed to be made, trying to frame it as some kind of "Machiavellian" conspiracy. Light rail in the US in the past 50 years has objectively been an over priced under utilized boondoggle. It's entirely believable buses may well have been the far better option for crossing the golden gate, even if a guy who works for t…

Having ridden VTA busses, VTA light rail, Caltrain and BART for years, I’ll always take railed transit over busses any day. Like it’s not a close contest.

Re: How BART on the Golden Gate Bridge died: A new history

#43

Post by thethethethe »

yodon wrote: post #41

This reads like a highly fanciful interpretation of a hard set of large scale planning decisions that needed to be made, trying to frame it as some kind of "Machiavellian" conspiracy. Light rail in the US in the past 50 years has objectively been an over priced under utilized boondoggle. It's entirely believable buses may well have been the far better option for crossing the golden gate, even if a guy who works for t…

> Light rail in the US in the past 50 years has objectively been an over priced under utilized boondoggle. It's entirely believable buses may well have been the far better option for crossing the golden gate, even if a guy who works for the light rail system today doesn't think so.

BART is not light rail, it is a fully grade separated heavy rail rapid transit system. Muni operates San Francisco's light rail network

Re: How BART on the Golden Gate Bridge died: A new history

#44

Post by russellbeattie »

I wonder if this decision contributed to San Francisco's population declining year after year from 1950 until 1980, before growing again. SF's population today is only about 12% larger than it was in 1950. Basically, SF has looked the same from a traffic standpoint for the past 70+ years, which is pretty astounding.

Reading the article, it mentions that "traffic control" for buses was one of the reasons pushed for why a subway wasn't needed. Interesting! As someone who lived and worked and rode the bus in SF for a total of six years, I'd just like to know what happened to that plan?? Buses should never have to stop for traffic, in my opinion.

Re: How BART on the Golden Gate Bridge died: A new history

#45

Post by [deleted] »

yodon wrote: post #41

This reads like a highly fanciful interpretation of a hard set of large scale planning decisions that needed to be made, trying to frame it as some kind of "Machiavellian" conspiracy. Light rail in the US in the past 50 years has objectively been an over priced under utilized boondoggle. It's entirely believable buses may well have been the far better option for crossing the golden gate, even if a guy who works for t…

[deleted]

Re: How BART on the Golden Gate Bridge died: A new history

#46

Post by space_fountain »

yodon wrote: post #41

This reads like a highly fanciful interpretation of a hard set of large scale planning decisions that needed to be made, trying to frame it as some kind of "Machiavellian" conspiracy. Light rail in the US in the past 50 years has objectively been an over priced under utilized boondoggle. It's entirely believable buses may well have been the far better option for crossing the golden gate, even if a guy who works for t…

Regardless of the pros and cons of rail vs buses, isn’t it machiavelllian to sabotage a project because you personally don’t like it? It would have been one thing if he’d lobbied against rail, the claim is he pushed for a false claim that the Golden Gate Bridge couldn’t support it. That’s different

Re: How BART on the Golden Gate Bridge died: A new history

#47

Post by gumby »

yzmtf2008 wrote: post #35
jacobolus wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> car > rail. Which was true and progressive, for a period! Say, 1950 to 1970? What does “true and progressive” mean? The freeway expansions of the mid 20th century cutting through city centers were disastrous all over the USA, right from the start. Horrible for urban society, economy, equity, ... Thankfully San Francisco was never turned into https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~2... Great for…

> Thankfully San Francisco was never turned into https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~2... I'm definately not one for more highways, but this map doesn't look _that_ different from SF today?

Do you remember the elevated freeway above what is now Hayes Valley, or the huge elevated freeway that blocked the view of the bay and made the embarcadero dark and grungy? And they wanted to build more.

Re: How BART on the Golden Gate Bridge died: A new history

#49

Post by bryananderson »

teakettle42 wrote: post #40
pvg wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're conflating several different strands of this story - the idea that San Mateo withdrew from BART in part for NYMBY-ish and exclusionary reasons is fairly well supported.

It’s fascinating how quickly “NIMBY” has become a very generic and rather vicious moral pejorative applied to anyone that does not support development. It previously described people who did not support development in their neighborhood, but would support it elsewhere. Now it just means “anyone opposed to any development I deem a moral/ethical/equity imperative”. I remember when pro-development sentiment was recogniz…

We are not talking about the same type of development today as in the midcentury decades. In those days, “redevelopment” was a euphemism for the wholesale destruction of entire neighborhoods by use of eminent domain, whether the residents liked it or not. Promises to maybe someday build replacement housing which the old residents could afford were never kept. The “redevelopment” process also had a funny way of only happening to minority neighborhoods. This was indeed gentrifying wealth extraction, and racist to boot.

The housing developments which get fought over in SF today are not demolishing tenants’ existing homes—indeed SF has laws preventing demolition of housing which has been tenant-occupied at any time in the last several years. These developments would only add new supply to the market. Turning a Nordstrom valet parking lot into new housing (24% of which is below market rate) is not the same thing as wiping out thousands of exiting homes to build pricier ones.

Anti-development sentiment is very understandably fed by the memory of the vast harms of the “redevelopment” years. But we have to recognize the difference.

Re: How BART on the Golden Gate Bridge died: A new history

#50

Post by narrator »

rsync wrote: post #8

"The story goes: Marin County, worried about cost of the extension and engineering concerns of running BART on the Golden Gate Bridge, ultimately backed out of the BART District. Fin." I want to push back on this slightly ... The received wisdom - repeated ad infinitum - among bay area progressives is that Marin County rejected BART based on racist, exclusionary, NIMBY concerns. That is how "the story goes" in these…

Below is a video of a Marin County Supervisor reading a letter sent in by a prominent local doctor regarding the SMART train project. It's this kind of thing that IMHO, is at least part of the reason why there will never be BART to Marin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfO8CCMmHjA

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