It has four lines that radiate outward from a short core line in Oakland to Richmond, Concord, Fremont, and San Francisco; a fifth one, the Dublin-Pleasanton one, was added to the Fremont Line in 1997. Opening on September 11, 1972, it was the first new urban-rail system in the United States in many years, and was intended to be a Great Leap Forward in technology, in which, however, it was less-than-successful for several years. Actually, only the part between Fremont and MacArthur station in Oakland opened that day; other parts were opened piece by piece, until the Transbay Tube opened in 1974. Even then, service was only on weekdays for some years afterwards.
Its track gauge, 5'6'' (1676 mm), departs from the standard of 4'8.5'' (1435 mm); this was so the trains would be more stable in high winds, such as those found at the Golden Gate Bridge. Its voltage, 1000 VDC, is greater than what is usual for urban-transit trains. It was intended to be totally automated, but the automation was very buggy in its early years, and at one point, the BART people were reduced to dispatching their trains by hand, as it were. That Great Leap Forward became a Great Leap Backward for awhile. However, the automation is now debugged, and the only involvement of their operators is to check that nobody is stuck in the doors before the trains depart.
BART has abundant connections to various local buses at all its stations, connections which are too abundant to be described here, but which are well-documented in BART's literature. In the late 1980's to the late 1990's, BART had been in the bus business also, running BART Express buses to various places where BART lines had not (yet) gone to, and to where existing bus service was inadequate in some way or other (not running 7 days a week, for example). These included buses from Hayward and BayFair to Dublin, Pleasanton, and Livermore, buses from Walnut Creek to Danville, San Ramon, and Dublin, buses from Concord to Martinez, Pittsburg, Antioch, and Brentwood, and buses from El Cerrito del Norte to Hercules, Pinole, and Rodeo. The buses from Hayward and BayFair were cancelled when the paralleling BART line opened, for rather obvious reasons, and the BART buses from Walnut Creek, Concord, and El Cerrito del Norte stations were replaced by various local buses in the late 1990's.
Here are all of the lines and their stations:
The downtown-Oakland core line has some interesting features: the south end of it has an underground wye while the north end does not have a wye at all; while the northern part has four tracks, the southern part has only three tracks -- two northbound (upper level) and one southbound (lower level), with one of the northbound ones reversing directions during the morning commute; and there are numerous crossovers at the northern part. The rest of the BART system is more ordinary double-track railroad with crossovers every few stations and sidings here and there; it is short on sidings because its designers had had the conceit that its trains would never break down, which they did a lot in BART's early years. Some places could have used an extra track or two, like between downtown Oakland and San Francisco; the extra track(s) could serve as express tracks.
Much of BART's trackage is either surface or elevated; the official BART term for its elevated trackways is "aerial structures", but I prefer a Northeastern term, "els". From this above-ground trackage, one can often get great views; here are my recommendations:
But one un-scenic, but critical, part of the system is the Transbay Tube, a tunnel between San Francisco and Oakland. Proposals to build a tunnel of this sort go back to the 1920's, but it was for BART that this tunnel was built, and it was built from cast-iron segments lowered into a trench dredged in the Bay and carefully aligned. This tunnel, like the rest of the BART system, survived the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 intact, while a segment of the Bay Bridge, which parallels the tunnel, fell down, and took a month to repair. BART and the ferries were the only SF-Oakland links in the time it took to repair the bridge, and BART ridership took a big jump.
BART has five yards:
The railcars are all electric-multiple-unit, as is standard with rapid transit, and they are all bare aluminum with a thin blue stripe on their sides. They also have big, tinted windows, carpeting, and fabric-covered, cushion seats. The original fleet of 440 cars was built in the early 1970's by Rohr Industries of Chula Vista, CA, near San Diego, and consisted of two types: 200(?) cab cars with sloping operator cabs on one end ("A"), with shape
|\ | \ |_/and 240(?) mid-train cars with no cabs ("B"). In the late 1980's, BART bought from Alsthom of France (of TGV fame) 150 flat-cab cars ("C"), which can easily be coupled to other cars at the cab end, unlike the sloping-cab cars. And in the mid-1990's, BART bought from Morrison-Knudsen 80 more flat-cab cars ("C2"); these cars have different interior styling (bluish instead of brownish colors) and some fold-up seats, so that when a wheelchair user is not using some seat area, someone who can walk can use the seat there. Here is a diagram of what the railcars look like from the outside:
In addition, BART has started on a program to rehabilitate its older cars; these will get a lot of rebuilding, and a lot of cabs will be removed (several previously-removed cabs have been seen at the Hayward Yard, for example).
There had once been an interesting bit of history at the downtown Hayward station. There had been an old, two-axle trolley car that had run on the onetime Oakland, San Leandro, and Hayward Electric Railway. The "had been" is because that there is now some sort of building in its place, which may or may not be housing that old railcar.
BART is now building several extensions. These are:
The Colma / SFO Extension. The Colma part of it opened in February 24(?), 1996, and the rest of it in June 22, 2003. To downtown San Bruno, its route is that of an old Southern Pacific branch line that was once the main line into SF, and whose rails had still been present south of Colma before BART construction started. An abutment for a now-gone RR bridge just south of the Colma station has now been taken over by BART.
However, the route beyond San Bruno to San Francisco International Airport (SFO) has been the subject of an enormous amount of controversy, with some CalTrain groupies suggesting that it not be built at all and CalTrain extended to Market Street instead. Even aside from that, there had been a large amount of controversy over whether to build either into the airport or to just next to the airport, and whether the line should extend beyond the airport.
However, late in 1996, the decision was finally made, and the chosen configuration was a surprise: a wye just west of the airport, with one leg of it going to San Bruno and northward, one leg going to Millbrae, and one leg going to the new international terminal which will close the circle of terminal buildings at SFO. The airport leg will be stub-end, but in the rest of the wye, it will be possible to go from any leg to any other leg with a minimum of conflicts between trains. However, even this choice has generated some controversy, because it has generated speculation that BART is using a foot-in-the-door strategy for further extension in the Peninsula.
Groundbreaking was late in 1997, but though there was relatively little construction at first, it speeded up later, going into high gear over 1999-2002. A site which had followed the construction progress is San Bruno BART (Belle Air Residents for Truth); it has some nice collections of pictures.
The Dublin/Pleasanton Extension. Its first two stations opened in May 10, 1997; but only the foundations have been built for a West D/P station, due to a lack of funding for its completion. But funding for that station was acquired in the mid-2000's with the help of a partnership with a nearby developer, and it is now being built. It should open in 2009. However, extension to Livermore has yet to be funded, and it is still under study.
The Pittsburg-Antioch Extension. The North Concord / Martinez station opened on December 16, 1995, the first new station in over 20 years. It is near Hwy. 4, in which the extension continues to the Pittsburg / BayPoint station on Bailey Road, which opened on December 7, 1996. If funding permits, this line will be extended eastward to downtown Pittsburg and Antioch.
Beyond those extensions, there are plans to go from Fremont to Milpitas and San Jose, to go northeastward from Richmond, and maybe even to go between D/P and Walnut Creek, southward from SFO, and northward from SF to Marin County.
In a rather serious departure from tradition, however, BART has recently come up with other extension plans, such as running CalTrain-like diesel-hauled commuter trains, or even diesel-multiple-unit trains, on existing rail lines. Thanx to a mid-1990's merger, all of these tracks are owned by the Union Pacific railroad, which has expressed some openness to commuter-rail service on its lines. The proposed routes in a late-1990's "FasTrak" scheme are:
However, the Altamont Commuter Express, also proposed at that time, is now running. And there are now proposals of diesel-multiple-unit instead of "proper" BART extensions to Livermore and Antioch. The one to Antioch appears to be going ahead, under the name eBart.
There is also the possibility of a shuttle train between Union City and San Jose, which is an abbreviated version of one of the FasTrak possibilities. It may use either the Milpitas Line, or the old Western Pacific line that passes to the south of downtown San Jose. However, that plan has currently been set aside in favor of BART to SJ.
Finally, BART is reportedly now involved in the management of the Amtrak Capitols, which run between San Jose and Sacramento.
A similar oddity is that the South Embarcadero line had been a shuttle line for awhile, which had not been originally planned. The reason it had not been planned that way has to do with the automatic train-control system it uses. The Market Street Tunnel had one, but it was inadequate for running a large number of trains in the tunnel. This has prompted Muni to install a new one, which it had already done in its Embarcadero-line extension, allowing the end of shuttle operation.
The Muni Metro has a yard at the Balboa Park station; it is to someday get a new yard near the current end of its Embarcadero line. Also, the 19th Ave. station near Stonestown Mall and San Francisco State University is intended as a turnback facility of sorts; the M's are to leave behind a car there and turn into J's, and the J's are to pick up a car there and turn into M's, but I do not know what has happened to that plan. There had originally been a plan for the line to go to Stonestown Mall itself, into its parking lot, but that aroused a lot of NIMBY protests.
The Muni Metro has been building some extensions.
Its first one is its South Embarcadero / Third Street line, which it has now completed. It was built in three stages:
The first stage was building a 3-track tunnel under the Embarcadero just south of where that street meets Market Street. This allowed trains to turn back in that tunnel, rather than from the Embarcadero station itself, simplifying operations a little bit.
The second stage was building from there to the downtown CalTrain station; it was completed in 1998. It was first run as a shuttle from the Embarcadero station, then run as an extension of the N-Judah line, and during peak times, the J-Church line. It is a halfway substitute for a Caltrain tunnel to Market Street, which has long been discussed but which has never gotten the necessary support or funding.
The third stage was building from there to the Bayshore CalTrain station; work started on it in late 2002, and it was completed in early 2007. This line turns south just before the CalTrain station, and it has an extra station south of the previously-built station there. Trains running the length of that line use the new station, while peak-time J-Church trains use the old station, turning back there.
Consistent with most other light-rail construction of the past few decades, this line's surface tracks are not mixed with street traffic, but instead reside in a reserved median. However, traffic does cross the tracks in the perpendicular direction. The reason is that street running makes a trolley/light-rail system vulnerable to traffic; this was one reason for the downfall of several old trolley systems.
Muni has additional extension plans.
It is going ahead with its Central Subway project, which should start construction in 2010 and open in 2016. The Central Subway is an extension of the T-Third line directly northward from the Caltrain station in 4th St., going underground a few blocks north of it and going underneath the Market Street BART/Muni-Metro tunnel. From there, it will go under Stockton St. northward, having a station in the Chinatown area at Washington St., and possibly an extension further north to North Beach.
In preparation for a possible extension down Geary St. and Geary Blvd, the Central Subway may have a wye just north of Market St., probably near Union Square. A Geary line will have to be in a tunnel east of Van Ness Ave., though it can be on the surface for much of Geary Blvd. to the west of Van Ness Ave. It is like to be very expensive, so Muni is currently planning "Bus Rapid Transit", in the form of exclusive median bus lanes, for Geary Blvd. and Van Ness Ave.
Its rolling stock is some rehabilitated 1930's-era PCC's from Philadelphia; the trolley cars have been painted in the colors of several old trolley systems, such as those of Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Kansas City, and Los Angeles.
This line now goes to Fisherman's Wharf on the north coast of the city, and the knotty question of how to get through the Justin Herman Plaza area has been resolved with the line going around that area, making three 90-degree turns instead of one.
About the Transbay Terminal, it was the SF terminus of several rail lines from the East Bay and beyond, including the East Bay's former light-rail system, the Key System. When the Key System was converted to buses in the 1950's, the tracks were removed and the lower deck of the Bay Bridge (where the tracks had been) was turned into more highway lanes. Though the Key System is now gone, BART is a partial, if sparse, replacement, and Oakland planners have discussed building new light-rail lines for the East Bay. It is now a major bus terminal, being a stop for SF Muni buses, Golden Gate buses to Marin and Sonoma Counties, SamTrans buses southward to the Peninsula, Greyhound intercity buses, and various tour buses. The Amtrak buses used to go there, but they were moved to the Ferry Building after a violent incident involving some of the bums who like to sleep there (the structure now closes at midnight to keep them out).
There are various plans discussed for it, like demolishing it and building a new bus mall at its site, and restoring rail service to it. The latter option includes such speculative possibilities as a CalTrain extension to it, new light-rail lines to the East Bay crossing the Bay Bridge ("BayLink" -- sort of like a revival of the Key System), and even the structure becoming the San Francisco terminus for high-speed trains from the Los Angeles area (one rail-advocacy group once published a magnificent picture of this structure with a TGV in it, courtesy of some creative image editing on a computer).
The Ferry Building has a tall clock tower visible down the length of Market St.; it is a few blocks from the Embarcadero BART/Muni-Metro station; and also the F-Market and the California St. Cable-Car lines. The Ferry Building is also home to Amtrak's San Francisco station, or more precisely a stop for Amtrak buses ("Ambuses") that cross the Bay to go to the Oakland and Emeryville Amtrak stations. Before the building of the Bay Bridge, the Ferry Building had been a major transit stop, since one had to take a ferry in order to cross the Bay. Both urban railroads like the Key System, and intercity railroads like the Southern Pacific, ran ferries across the Bay from various piers to there.
An interesting design twist in several of the Bay Area's newest ferries, like those in the SF - Vallejo run, is that they do not have the familiar single hull, but a double hull -- hulls that look like thick downward-pointing fins that go the length of the boat. This catamaran design lowers drag and increases stability significantly, enabling cruise speeds of over 30 mph (fast by boat standards). And indeed, the new Vallejo ferries go faster than 30 mph.
The trains use General Motors Electro-Motive Division F40 diesel locomotives and gallery double-decker passenger cars (the lower deck has an open roof, through which one can see the upper deck). They are run in push-pull mode with the locos pointing southward; going northward, the trains are run from a cab car at the other end from the loco. Though both features may seem odd, they are actually common practices among commuter RR's. Two levels increases the passenger capacity; some commuter-rail rolling stock even has full-scale upper decks. Push-pull saves the trouble of turning the train around at some loop or wye, while leaving the locomotive in place and not requiring a second one.
CalTrain also has the honor of being in continuous operation since the late 19th century, making it one of the oldest commuter trains in America. The San Francisco terminal is at the out-of-the-way location of 4th and Townsend Sts, while the San Jose station on Cahill St. is a Mission-style building that bears the name of its former owner and CalTrain's former operator, the Southern Pacific railroad. Its SF-SJ route, like CalTrain itself, is now owned by a consortium appointed by the three counties it runs through, though SP still owns the tracks to Gilroy.
Connections with other rail-transit systems have not been very good, though that is changing with recent construction. The Muni Metro connects at its SF terminus, and BART connects at Millbrae. In San Jose, however, Amtrak stops at Cahill St., and the CalTrains now run to Tamien, a stop about a mile southward, and shared with the Santa Clara County LRT. That system's Vasona extension will also stop at Cahill St.
Currently, Caltrain's tracks are being rebuilt, and a third track is being added along much of the line, in order to enable express service. However, this construction has involved shutting down the system for several months of weekends; currently, a bus substitutes, stopping at the SF terminus, Millbrae, Hillsdale, Palo Alto, and Cahill St.
There are speculative plans for moving CalTrain's SF terminus closer to the central business district, though such plans would require a lot of rather expensive construction, of the sort that BART had gone through in downtown SF to build its tunnel there, and financial support has been rather lacking. Interestingly, in the early 20th cy., the SP itself had planned to move the terminus closer to its then-headquarters at One Market Street, but it was unable to raise enough capital or twist enough local-politician arms to do it.
One pays fares on the honor system; one buys a ticket from one of the ticket machines or one gets a transfer on a bus, and every now and then a ticket inspector shows up to look at everybody's tickets. If you don't have a valid ticket, you get a fine of $100 or so. This system is used on several other light-rail systems, and it seems to be very reliable.
Several extensions have been in various stages of planning over the years, but extension plans had foundered over litigation over 1994's Measure A, a tax measure intended to fund them. In particular, this measure had been found illegitimate, becuase it received only a 60% vote, and the antitax Proposition 13 limits tax-increase votes to 2/3 majorities. However, in the 1996 election, an end run was made around the antitax measure: there were two measures on the ballot, one a measure advising that money be spent on certain projects, and one a measure authorizing a tax increase in general. Both measures passed, the advisory measure by a bigger margin than the tax measure, which barely passed. And even that measure has been on the business end of litigation.
Some of the routing looks rather pork-barrel, it must be said. The First St. line seemed rather porky to some when it first opened, since it did not go to very much, though since then, the northeast and northwest lines have made it more useful. And the Vasona Line also seemed rather porky, though using an existing railroad right-of-way made it rather cheap to build.
The locomotives are F40-ish diesel locomotives, and the passenger cars are lozenge-shaped multifloor cars made by Bombardier of Canada that are used in several other commuter-rail systems. The cars have a lower and upper floor in their middles and an intermediate floor at their ends; there is no "hole" in the upper floor as there is in the Caltrain cars. The trains are run in Caltrain-like push-pull mode with the locos usually pointing westward.
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