Bay Area Rapid Transit

BART (in full, San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District) is a rapid transit electric train service that serves parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, including the cities of San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley. It also serves San Francisco International Airport directly and Oakland International Airport with connecting bus service. The trains are computer-controlled and generally arrive on-time with regular punctuality. Drivers are present to make announcements and to operate the train in case of unforeseen difficulties. BART is pronounced as a single word, not as individual letters. In 2004 Bart was named the #1 Transit System in America by the American Public Transportation Association. It beat out such systems as New York City’s MTA the 2001 winner, and Denver’s Regional Transportation District, the 2003 winner.

History of BART

The BART system was first proposed in 1946 by Bay Area business leaders concerned with increased post-war migration and congestion in the region. An Army-Navy task force concluded that another trans-bay crossing would soon be needed to relieve congestion on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The idea of an underwater electric rail tube was deemed the best solution in conjunction with a multiple-county rapid transit rail system. Much of BART's current territory was earlier covered by the Key Rail System, a light rail network that had its origins in the 1900s and ran across the Bay Bridge when it first opened; but this system was removed in the 1950s due to pressure by the automotive industry and highway planners.

After years of review and planning, BART construction officially began on June 19, 1964. President Lyndon Johnson presided over the ground-breaking ceremonies at a 4.4 mile (7.1 km) test track between Concord and Walnut Creek in Contra Costa County.

Enormous construction tasks were at hand, including underground rail sections below downtown Oakland and Market Street in San Francisco, a 3.5 (5.6 km) mile tunnel through the Berkeley Hills, as well as the 3.6 mile (5.8 km) transbay tube itself, which was lowered to the bottom of the bay by a small armada of construction vessels. The tube, constructed in 57 sections, was completed in August 1969 at a cost of $180 million.

BART began regular passenger service on September 11, 1972. President Richard Nixon rode the system on September 27, 1972.

BART system details

As of August 2004, the BART system is comprised of 104 miles (167 km) of track and 43 stations. BART uses a 5 feet, 6 inch (1.676 m) rail gauge to provide greater stability and a smoother ride for its relatively lightweight aluminum and fiberglass cars. Trains achieve a maximum speed of 80 mph (129 km/h ), and provide an average of 33 mph (53 km/h ) between stations with 20 second stops.

Current train routes

BART Routes

Current routes as of July, 2004:

• Richmond-Daly City/SFO/Millbrae(During non-peak hours final stop is at Daly City.)
• Richmond-Fremont
• Dublin/Pleasanton-Daly City
• Fremont-Daly City
• Pittsburg/Bay Point-SFO/Millbrae

BART compared with other rail transit systems

Like many late 20th century transit systems, BART's primary goal was to connect outlying suburbs with job centers in Oakland and San Francisco by paralleling established commute routes on the region's freeway system. It was not intended to provide a dense level of service such as the New York or London metros. In San Francisco, underground and streetcar service by the San Francisco Muni provide this dense level of service. Suburban stations are mostly "park and rides" approximately 2 miles (3 km) apart with 10 to 20 minute service intervals. Urban stations are roughly a half-mile (800 m) apart and have 3 – 5 minute service intervals at peak times. As such, some sources consider BART to be more of a regional service. However, BART does possess all of the features of a true metro system (eg. electrified third rail propulsion with exclusive right-of-way, frequent headway service and pre-paid fare card access), thus other sources consider it more of a hybrid of these service types.

Current and future extension of the BART system

A $1.5 billion extension of BART southward beyond Colma was completed in June 2003. Ground was broken in November 1997, and the extension added four new stations in South San Francisco, San Bruno, Millbrae (with a connection to Caltrain), and San Francisco International Airport. The project encompasses 8.7 miles (14 km) of new rail track, of which 6.1 miles (9.8 km) is subway, 1.2 miles (1.9 km) is aerial, and 1.4 miles (2.2 km) is at-grade. [1] (http://www.bart.gov/news/features/news_8466.asp) [2] (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/04/18/MN89853.DTL)

An extension of BART southward past Fremont to the Warm Springs District in southern Fremont is in the planning stage by BART management. A further extension towards San Jose is also proposed by the transit district south of BART, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, but preliminary engineering remains to be completed and funding to be acquired.

SFBARTD is a special governmental district created by the State of California consisting of Alameda County, Contra Costa County, and San Francisco County. It is governed by an elected Board of Directors, and each of the nine directors represents a specific geographic district with the BART district. BART has its own police force.

In total, the SFBARTD encompasses the cities of Alameda, Alamo, Albany, Antioch, Bay Point, Bethel Island, Berkeley, Brentwood, Byron, Castro Valley, Clayton, Clyde, Concord, Crockett, Danville, Discovery Bay, Dublin, El Cerrito, El Sobrante, Emeryville, Fremont, Hayward, Hercules, Kensington, Knightsen, Lafayette, Livermore, Martinez, Moraga, Newark, Oakland, Oakley, Orinda, Pacheco, Piedmont, Pleasanton, Pinole, Pittsburg, Pleasant Hill, Port Costa, Rodeo, Richmond, San Francisco, San Leandro, San Lorenzo, San Pablo, San Ramon, Sunol, Union City and Walnut Creek. While the district includes all of these cities in its jurisdiction, the BART system only has stations in a few of these cities.

wBART

A corridor study of extending the service north from the the Richmond BART & Amtrak Station. Two clear options are:

1. Create a commuter rail service running from the BART terminus along the Amtrak right of way to Hercules and possibly Fairfield in Solano County, similar to the Caltrain or ACE train.
2. Extend BART to a North Richmond station near the Richmond Trainyard at 13th Street/Rumrill Avenue and Market Street, then tunnel under Rumrill to a San Pablo station adjacent to Contra Costa College and the International Marketplace (formerly El Portal) shopping center at San Pablo Avenue and Broadway, then continue to Interstate 80 until the Richmond Parkway to the proposed Hilltop station.

eBART

Similar to wBART, but for Bay Point to be extended to Brentwood. along highway 4. New stations would be Pittsburg (H4+Railroad Ave), Antioch (H4+Sommersville Road), Deer Valley (H4+Hillcrest Drive), Oakley (H4+Lone Tree Way) and Brentwood (H4+Chesnut or Brentwood Drives) Another option would be that of having a Caltrain-like service on the existing Union Pacific right-of-way from North Concord to Brentwood and posibly Discovery Bay, Tracy and Stockton.

tBART

The extention of BART west of Pleasanton station to Livermore and Tracy (I-580) and North to San Ramon, Dublin, Alamo to the Existing Walnut Creek (I-680)

sBART

Extending BART west of the Montgomery Street station in San Francisco under the congested Geary corridor to 9th Avenue in the Richmond District with stations at: Union Square, Leavenworth, VanNess, Fillmore (Western Addition), Divisadero, Masonic and 9th Avenue.

fBART

The extention of BART south of Fremont to Irvington and Warm Springs stations. And also the future extention to Milpitas, San José, and Santa Clara in the Silicon Valley/South Bay.

Infill stations

These are stations that are planned to be build on BART's existing right-of-way. These include 30th Street Mission in San Francisco between 24th Street Mission and Glen Park, Jack London Square in Oakland between West Oakland station and Downtown Oakland stations 12th Street and Lake Merritt, West Dublin/Pleasanton between Castro Valley and East Dublin/Pleasanton, and a Inter-Modal station between ACE and BART (e.g. Milbrae BART/Caltrain station) to be located between Union City and Fremont.

Connecting rail and bus transit services

BART has direct connections to two regional rail services; CalTrain (which provide service between San Francisco, San José, and Gilroy) at the Millbrae Station, and Amtrak's Capital Corridor trains (which runs from Sacramento to San José) at the Richmond Station.

A number of bus services connect to BART, which are managed by separate agencies, but which are integral to the successful functioning of the system. The main services include the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni), the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit (AC Transit), San Mateo County Transit District (SamTrans), Contra Costa County Transit Authority (County Connection), and the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District (Golden Gate Transit).

BART is "connected" to Oakland International Airport via AirBART shuttle buses which connect travellers to the Coliseum/Oakland Airport BART station.

Smaller services connect as well, including the Emery-go-round in Emeryville, California and WestCat in Northwestern Contra Costa County, WHEELS (Livermore, CA), Benecia Transit (Benecia, CA), Union City Transit (Union City, CA), VTA Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority. (Silicon Valley), and TriDelta Transit (Eastern Contra Costa County) The bus service connecting the University of California, Berkeley to the Berkeley BART station was once called Humphrey Go-Bart.

External links

• BART - Bay Area Rapid Transit District (http://www.bart.gov/)
• BART Chronology (1947-2001) (http://www.bart.gov/docs/about-hist-chron2001.pdf) - 338Kb PDF file

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