And, as no individual or civic group can possibly keep up with all that meeting, scheming and cross-collegiality (the word “conspire” literally means breathing together), your ideas or mine are like so many pennies on the railroad track just before 60 or so of double-stacked flatcars of empty containers comes barreling through Oakland bound for the Port. So what to do?

A champion on Council is needed for Oakland’s transportation issues, someone who is willing to work with a new Committee of the Planning Commission dedicated to Land Use & Transportation – just like the Transportation & Land Use Planning Committee of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. Such a new Committee, working alongside the Zoning Update Committee, the Design Review Committee and the Special Projects Committee, will provide a new perspective for City Hall and its understanding of Oakland’s real place in the Bay Area.

Maybe then, High Speed Rail, Airport Connectors, Broadway Trollies, etc., can be discussed in terms of smart growth and Oakland’s real contribution to the rest of the greater Bay Area metropolitan region.

Thanks,

– S

This system is designed to cost more for the benefits of the politicians, their contractor friends, and their union supporters, and to the detriment of taxpayers. Period.

They need to make sure that if they build the monorail, that it goes directly to the terminal. The fair could be charged directly on your BART ticket as “Oakland Airport” destination. Also, any connector should be able to link up to HSR in case the boondoggle up the Peninsula falls out of favor.

And while on the subject, note that OAC monorail is utterly incompatible with any future HSR (not that we are ever going to see HSR in the East Bay…). The whole concept of seamless plane-train transfer is destroyed once you force passengers to buy a second ticket just to get from the plane to the train — and then drop them off way far away from where the HSR platforms would go.

That’s an interesting concept you’re proposing. You’re thinking out of the box and that’s what we need to solve the blight separation problem on Hegenberger.

As far as HSR, the Peninsula route is fatally flawed. There is no way that we can afford to spend NOT millions more, for under grounding, but, billions more. This will make the Big Dig in Boston look like pocket change. The Altamount Route is the logical and most cost-effective option by far. Bringing that train down the Livermore Valley, directly to the Bay Fair BART station where it would connect to the proposed BART extension to San Jose, (see, we Oaklanders think about San Jose even as they try to steal our train AND baseball team) and then bring it up to Jack London Square where SF riders can make the connection via Bart or Ferry. HSR will then continue on to Sacramento on upgraded Amtrak tracks. This would allow for an eventual connection to Portland and Seattle. The entire route would be above ground and cost a fraction of the current exorbitant amount just to put a feather in the cap of San Jose and San Francisco business and political interests.

There is no reason Pleasanton should have opposed the Altamount route. There is plenty of open spaces next to 580 in the Livermore Valley. We’re not talking about splitting cities in half like in the Peninsula. And Fremont, is probably in cahoots with San Jose.

Of the three transportation options for the Airport / Coliseum area, the monorail is obviously the least desirable from the POV of widespread accessibility and convenience. Its single stop at the Airport means that everyone will be schlepping their incunabula all over the place and driving the Homeland Security folks absolutely crazy until one of them goes postal (or maybe the new word is Kirkuk). Also, as the monorail will have only one stop twixt the Coliseum BART station and the Airport (a hard-won concession at that!), the benefits of pinballing that entire area as the Bay Area’s largest and most accessible business park will not be realized anytime soon.

If we had a matrix of cost to benefits, the sheer weight of the monorail would cause it to fall off the grid altogether – as perhaps is best evidenced by the fact that there absolutely is no matrix now nor ever will be if BART and/or the Port have anything to say about it. But let’s pretend there is one in our mind’s eye and take a peek at what remains: BRT and CyberTran. With CyberTran, you get maximum accessibility and quickest travel time, maybe even worth the price of the ticket (which should be free). With BRT, you’re basically getting a bus – a bus with better bells, shriller whistles and electronic doodads, but still a bus.

Busses have to stop at every stop along the way to ingest and disgorge passengers, and they take a long time to load, and they are real uncomfortable when you’ve got more than a briefcase to trundle around with. Plus they’ve got a driver who may or may not be in a good mood. And sometimes they run with only one passenger aboard, and other times they’re so crowded, you’ve got to stand or await the arrival of the next one.

Fully automated GRT systems have none of that and deserve at the very least to be put into the matrix so that everyone can see for themselves exactly what kind of service they’re getting for all the dough that’s about to be awarded to some contractor or other, as opposed to all the transportation justice and benefits that are supposed to be our due as citizens of Oakland and/or the greater Bay Area metropolitan region.

So the solution for the Airport Connector is a matrix that we can all weigh in on, yes? Or shall we continue to clash by night, and, in that mode, be kept from the real discussion – you know, the one about voting money towards something infinitely more organized – that is going on at the Board level right now while we still remain confounded by our own strife (and lack of clarity, charity and unity) and therefore mere background noise?

????

– S

[When the cities of Fremont and Pleasanton voted against HSR, who was doing the voting? The people of those towns or the politicians who were lobbied by MTC to vote staff's already-determined agenda? It smacks of the Mountain View POV where everyone voted for HSR and is now going beserk when it's suddenly a lot clearer what will happen to the cute little downtown when the elevated tracks split the town into. Undergrounding will only add a few million to the multibillion cost overrun, so who'll really care a decade from now?]

The cities of Fremont and the city of Pleasanton both opposed the Altamont route.

Increased blight, especially in that area, is a huge concern, as is separation. Local economic development must be addressed, as that part of Oakland is, frankly, a different city.

If this is done correctly, OAK could replace SFO as the airport of choice. As population grows and moves east, it make sense anyway.

Here is my outline of a plan for a BRT Road-Tram, which would solve most of the problems you’re talking about. I’ve based it on the best and most high-end options suggested throughout the course of this debate.

Road-Trams would operate in dedicated lanes for almost all of the route. The lanes would be maintained by BART at a high standard, and incorporate magnetic guidance for a smooth, train like ride. Multiple entry doors, low to the ground, would park next to a low platform, creating exactly the same feel as boarding a train.

Multiple intermediate stops would be put it, but there would be both local Road-Trams that stopped at every stop, and express Road-Trams that went direct to the airport. At peak air-travel times you’d have more express service than local.

In addition, local Road-Tram service would continue past the Coliseum BART station, all the way to the Eastmont mall.

All Road-Tram stops would have indoor, gated stations, with attendants and ticket machines. These features would address the blight and loitering issues commonly associated with buses.

The stations could all be built by separate contractors and architects to specifications created by a master planner. This would allow for division of labor: multiple local and minority owned businesses to participate in the project.

This solution addresses the blight and separation issue. It would spur local economic development. And it would be expandable to the proposed third terminal at Oakland Airport for a very small cost. It would also be an innovative, precedent setting initiative, a project for the 2010s. The monorail idea is more of an anachronism than an innovation.