Of all places, why does San Francisco BART want to build a new line to Livermore? Not that Livermore is truly nowhere, but a line to Livermore would merely be an extension of one of the worst-performing parts of the BART system.
Opened in 1997, BART’s 13-mile branch to Dublin is probably the least-used branch of the BART system. In its first full year of operation, it added only 11,000 weekday riders to the system, which means it carries, on a per-mile basis, about a third as many riders as the rest of the system. Yet BART planners predict that extending this line another 10 to 13 miles to Livermore will add another 30,000 or more daily riders.
