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Tiger Woods In "Serious" Condition After Car Crash
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Photos from Black Friday
Builder of Oakland's Fox Theater Once Imprisoned For 'White Slavery'
So, this is sort of a math problem: Take a $130 million project; sit it on it and discuss for many years; watch costs rise to about $500 million; receive a $70 million chunk in transportation funds from the federal government; apply for $150 million more in federal transportation loans; figure that you can charge riders $12 round trip on top of their BART fare; decide that in a flagging economy it is better to go into deeper debt and add 13,000 jobs; wait five more years, give or take -- and what do you get? An AirTrain-like solution connecting the Coliseum BART station with Oakland Airport.
Ridership to the Oakland airport is down (possibly because that AirBART bus thing is such a pain in the ass), but BART directors and advocates think the airport is going to continue to grow, which is probably a safe bet. Opponents to this latest decision to move forward with the project say that improved bus service would be cheaper and would allow BART to spend the money improving what they've already built. We're still stuck on the $12 part.
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That pricing is ridiculous. For the cost of, say, a round trip from Concord/Walnut Creek for a weekend away, it would be cheaper to drive and use one of the 3rd-party long-term parking lots and get a free shuttle ride straight to the terminals. And at least the one I normally use provides complimentary coffee and pastries while you wait for the shuttle to depart. Suck it, AirBART.
Yeesh.
Honestly, now that SFO is on BART, SFO and OAK are essentially the same distance away, give or take. I got to JFK early last week and asked if they had anything earlier to SFO or OAK, because really, it's the same shit. But that will no longer be true if it's another $12 to get home from Oakland.
Yeah, that $12 is definitely a dealbreaker (...ladies). What is it now, like $2 from the Colesium stop? I don't even see how dragging my bags from BART to this connector train would be any less a pain than dragging them down to AirBART now.
But ultimately, yeah, living in SF, if I can take SFO and it's not much more, I will for convenience sake.
Nice 30 Rock reference. Incidentally, if you want to get a TV show made and guarantee yourself a life unlimited wealth and fame you should call your show 300 Rock. Why? First there was 3rd Rock and now 30 Rock. 300 Rock is next. But what would it be about? And the spin-off, Rock 3000?
Hmm, I read that article elsewhere and never saw this $12 figure. I wonder if the rider is calculating ( $3 (sf to coliseum) + $3 (coliseum to OAK) ) X 2 (round trip) ?
I wonder where the writer got the figure? A spokesman? A preliminary report? Recorded discussion from the meeting?
'rider' > meant 'writer' in second sentence
Damn, it is $12.
It's a big shiny thing that politicians can show off to people who never take public transportation to the airport, and who will thing that this is such a great thing they have dumped onto the peasants, so they will donate more to the uber green politician.
Meanwhile, the peasants who actually use transportation are just saying "save a few hundred million, don't build this thing, reconfigure the lanes of traffic to give AirBART priority lanes and signalling and be done with it".
The major complaint of AirBART is that it gets stuck in traffic and you miss your plane, so it becomes inconvenient. That problem can be solved without building this expensive boondoggle. Then in a perfect world the money saved could be spent on AC Transit, MUNI, Caltrain, BART, etc.. operations to keep fares lower and service high.
But "it doesn't work that way" of course.
Thank god. Maybe I'll fly out of Oakland when this gets built.
A direct train to OAK would be nice as it would eliminate one of my reasons for trying not to fly in or out of it, but between the construction costs and the fare to/from the station it's just not worth it. I'd rather see the $ spent on a right-of-way for the AirBART, or some sort of connection elsewhere on the system.
One of the area's many owners of shuttle buses/vans will surely step up and offer a reasonably-priced BART->OAK alternative.
Bus/Van for Bargains?
$522 MILLION for this thing? They should just hire whoever built the Las Vegas Monorail. No WAY did that cost as much.
When I think Las Vegas Monorail I imagine something so crooked and poorly built that even Lyle Lanley wouldn't dare be associated with it.
The direct BART connection in/out of SFO is the reason I always fly out of there and never OAK. AirBART is just too much of a pain in the ass and it always makes me carsick.
The people mover would be better, but the ideal solution would be to just extend BART straight into the airport like at SFO. From what I understand, it wouldn't cost that much more than the people mover and would be far, far more useful.
When I take BART to SFO I never use the people mover there. I just walk to whatever terminal I need -- it's faster. I wish they'd put in moving walkways to get everywhere (in fact the BART station should've just been in the middle of all the terminals with short moving walkways to each of them -- and they could've put the rental car center at Millbrae and never had to build the people mover at all).
My favorite part of traveling is when I have to contend with the bottom feeders staking out the Coliseum BART station looking for an easy mark. Nothing screams 'hey! steal my shit' like being laden down with two suitcases and a laptop bag, standing on a curb in Oakland at 9pm waiting for a bus to show up.
Thanks, but I'll stick to the directness and relative safety of SFO.
They need to extend that SFO people mover to the long-term parking garage. And, while they're at it, maybe use the unused BART track so that there's a direct SFO-Millbrae connection.