BART Megalomania

BART, the rail transit agency that consumes at least a plurality, if not most, of San Francisco Bay Area transportation dollars, wants to build an expensive rail connection to the Oakland Airport. The existing BART line stops 3.2 miles from the airport and air travelers can take the AirBART bus for $3. But BART wants to spent more than $500 million — at least $160 million per mile — building a rail connection directly to the airport, and then charge $6 for the ride. This would not be a BART line but an airport-style people mover.

The line was originally supposed to cost just $130 million and have stops serving local neighborhoods. But the higher-cost line now being planned would have no stops between the BART station and the airport. The San Francisco Examiner describes the line as “megalomania for sexy (but almost useless) transit construction projects.”

Opponents favor a bus-rapid transit line instead, which would consist of dedicating lanes on existing roads to buses and running slightly fancier buses than currently operate. This is supposed to cost just $50 or $60 million.
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When bus-rapid transit proponents presented their ideas to BART (with the support of some BART board members), BART staff forwarded them to the consultants that hope to earn millions building the rail line asking them to “discredit” and “put holes” in the bus alternative.

The Antiplanner wonders what is wrong with the current bus, which takes just 5 minutes longer to get to the airport than either the rail connection or bus-rapid transit would take, but which costs far less and doesn’t take lanes away from existing traffic.

Curiously, supporters of the bus-rapid transit line include labor unions, Democrat groups, and other liberal groups that, in other cities, usually support rail transit. The problem is that rail transit in the Bay Area sucks money from every other form of transportation and at least some left-wing groups have figured out that tax revenues are not unlimited.