Your Commute

All the Fastraks in the world can't save you now, as Caltrans proudly announces that it expects weekend Bay Bridge traffic to be backed up for the next year. What? Why? How? Well, in September, they're moving everyone driving in from Oakland onto a new skyway on the SF side, and then they're closing off the SF Harrison Street offramp for the next three years. After that, over 2006, they'll be tearing down half of the upper deck closest to the bridge on the SF side, and therefore closing off most of the eastbound onramps. Caltrans will be paying for additional BART service on the affected weekends.

.....but a fat lot of good all that BART service is going to do for you if you need to get to the South Bay! SamTrans is now refusing to pay for extra service down the Millbrae-SFO BART spur, so BART has been forced to cut back on rush-hour service to the airport and Caltrain. (Bummer, especially since they just recalibrated the Caltrain schedule to match up with BART.) You'll be getting less frequent BART service and shorter trains -- so it'll be time to cuddle up with all those other people trying to lug four suitcases apiece to SFO. Boo Samtrans. Why don't they just make everyone trying to get to the South Bay take one of those Wild West pump car trains or something too?