Looking back, 2024 has been a year of significant change. The “face” of both BART and Caltrain transformed as BART fully retired its two-door legacy fleet, and Caltrain introduced electric trainsets while retiring its gallery cars. In Seattle, the Link system added a new line connecting Redmond and Bellevue and expanded northward from Northgate to Lynnwood, replacing many express buses serving Seattle from Snohomish County. In Los Angeles, Metro recently introduced new metro cars made by CRRC for the B and D lines, as the first phase of D line extensions further west is nearly complete. Many transit agencies saw improved ridership as more workers returned to the office, and more services were restored as additional transit workers were hired.
BART formally retired its legacy rail car in 2024, which served as BART’s icon for decades.
Next year, both Muni and BART will raise fares, and the tolls for Bay Area Toll Authority bridges will increase by $1. BART will begin installing the CBTC system, which will enhance capacity but requires service adjustments. As a result, Millbrae riders will need to transfer between trains at SFO in the evening. Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit will open Petaluma North Station soon after the new year and extend northward to Windsor sometime in 2025.
In Sacramento, the SmaRT Ride microtransit will be transformed into a different program with fewer vehicles, a reduced budget, and limited eligibility.
In Seattle, Link Line 2 is expected to connect South Bellevue to Seattle across Lake Washington once the I-90 track re-work, which delayed the project, is complete.
LA Metro is also expected to open the LAX Metro Center and the first phase of the D Line extension to Wilshire/La Cienega sometime next year. The D Line extension is significant due to the high bus ridership on Wilshire and the speed improvements a new subway line will bring.
However, 2025 is worrisome, given the increasingly chaotic political climate and the hostility towards transit among elected and unelected decision-makers. Bay Area transit agencies will also face a fiscal cliff as ridership remains slow to return and one-time pandemic-era grants run out. Over the last few decades, Bay Area transit have seen fiscal cliffs with economic recessions (drop in tax revenues, and falling ridership with higher unemployment), but no recession has such a deep and lasting impact on transit service as COVID. Development in autonomous vehicles, backed by wealthy Silicon Valley tech bros, could impact the public’s attitude towards transit. Even if the technology is perfected, these vehicles can’t assist senior and disabled riders and do little to address traffic congestion due to the inefficiency of single-occupancy vehicles.
Staff working on Link21, a project to build a second underground rail link between San Francisco and Oakland, recently recommended building a connection for standard gauge trains, rather than for broad gauge BART trains.
The staff’s primary rationale is that a standard gauge tunnel would better connect various regional, intercity, and future high-speed rail services in Northern California, as all except BART operate on standard gauge tracks. The standard gauge tunnel would accommodate multiple operators, similar to the rail infrastructures in New York and other northeastern cities, serving Amtrak and numerous regional rail agencies. In the urban core, current lines with less frequent intercity service could be enhanced by adding frequent metro service to Downtown San Francisco. Additionally, the standard gauge tunnel aligns better with the upcoming State Rail Plan, which calls for more high-capacity interregional passenger service.
Source: Link21
I believe the recommendation is sound. Considering the funding, planning, and construction difficulties in recent decades, I think it’s important for a rail vision like Link21 to break down into smaller components with independent utility to have the best chance of being implemented. For over four decades, transit activists on the San Francisco Peninsula have advocated for an electrified Caltrain serving downtown San Francisco. While the vision is yet to be fully realized, many components, such as electrification, are complete.
With the standard gauge concept, this project would extend Caltrain from the planned terminal at Salesforce Transit Center to the East Bay. Another project already covers the rail extension from the current 4th & King to Salesforce Transit Center, with much of the environmental planning work done. A completed station in downtown San Francisco would make the new transbay rail tunnel less costly and complicated. Trains from the East Bay could continue through San Francisco and down the Peninsula without additional lines.
With a broad gauge link, new subways and tunnels would be necessary in San Francisco. Although many people desire a subway down Geary Boulevard (as originally envisioned in the 1950s when the city removed the still productive B-Geary surface streetcars), that is a mega project on its own and unlikely to be built before or concurrently with the second crossing. I believe this is the biggest disadvantage with going broad gauge. With or without the Geary subway, there’s still the issue of a train storage or maintenance facility on the west side of the Bay. When BART originally opened in 1974 in San Francisco, it lacked a train storage or maintenance facility on the San Francisco Peninsula, which hampered service frequency and reliability.
In the East Bay, a key benefit of a broad gauge crossing is that existing BART branches have the capacity for increased service. However, simply adding more service to current stops does not expand the “transit-shed” in the East Bay and may actually increase parking and car traffic strain, which was already high pre-COVID, at those stops. In contrast, under the standard gauge scenario, additional tracks and possibly electrification would be necessary in the East Bay on existing standard gauge passenger lines. These parallel lines, such as the Coast Line planned under the South Bay Connect project, are located far enough from existing BART lines to provide a new “transit-shed” without adding pressure to existing BART stops.
Some argued that a broad gauge is better for the second crossing because it can support new urban metro (BART) lines in San Francisco and the East Bay. However, I believe a standard gauge crossing is equally suitable for supporting new metro lines. In an ideal scenario, with funding and strong political support, new subway lines down Geary in San Francisco or MacArthur in Oakland could be built with standard gauge and 25kV overhead electrification, using the second rail crossing. BART could even build and operate these lines, like it does with eBART. There are many examples of urban metro lines powered by 25kV overhead wires in Asia. Even in the United States, Denver RTD runs metro-style electrified classic FRA-compliant trains between the Denver Airport and downtown every 15 minutes.
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Thinking even long term, a standard gauge crossing and subway could facilitate a rail connection to the North Bay—something the original BART planners envisioned but never delivered. The North Bay has the standard gauge SMART serving as its rail backbone that could be extended to San Francisco.
For a modest initial project of just building a second link from Salesforce Transit Center to Oakland, a well-located station in Oakland can ensure success of the second tunnel by facilitating easy transfers between Caltrain and BART. There’s a concept of converting the I-980 freeway into a surface boulevard and using the underground space for a new rail station. Broad gauge BART would have new tunnels to serve this station, not only to connect with Caltrain but also to provide additional track capacity in Oakland for more service on the outer branches, though without crossing the Bay. The I-980 space can also provide storage for Caltrain in the East Bay. Additional track improvements needed to extend metro service further into the East Bay can be implemented separately.
Source: Connectoakland.org
While the concept of a standard gauge second crossing doesn’t address whether transit agencies should merge, it doesn’t rule it out. In many ways, a merger of BART and Caltrain could offer significant benefits, such as better service coordination, simpler fares, seamless transfers, and a unified regional identity.
Considering the upcoming political environment, the second rail crossing is still decades away. Even the project to extend Caltrain from 4th & King to Salesforce Transit Center is at risk. Proposing to build the tunnel with standard gauge should improve the project’s position with the state and future federal government. The California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA), a cabinet-level agency overseeing departments like the DMV, Caltrans, and the High-Speed Rail Authority, is already interested in taking a leadership role in this project due to its statewide significance. Although it seems like a long shot, by planning now, cities can coordinate land use and secure future right of ways by ensuring no major structures are built that would block the tunnel.
Ten years ago this month, BART opened the OAK Airport Connector to passenger service. This line remains one of the most unique in the BART system. Before then, BART operated only one type of trains: wide gauge rapid transit cars. Now, BART not only operates wide gauge trains and the OAK Connector but also runs standard gauge diesel trains (eBART) in eastern Contra Costa County.
This line’s unique features from the rest of BART system:
Cars are hauled by cables
Trains are completely automated
Stations have platform screen doors. Many want the same feature on the main BART system, as in most Asian metros, to prevent people from accidentally or intentionally falling onto the track.
Before the OAK Airport Connector, the AirBART bus offered frequent connections between the Coliseum Station and Oakland Airport. Despite the $3 fare, which for many years required riders to pay with a BART ticket, the bus route remained financially sustainable. To maintain that sustainability, BART now charges about $7 for the OAK Airport Connector, in addition to the fare to the Coliseum Station.
Oakland Airport Station currently ranks as the second least-used station in the BART system, with an weekday average of 639 exits in October 2024. The least-used station is Pittsburg Center. In contrast, the SFO station averaged over 4,000 exits on weekdays last month, showing a faster post-COVID ridership recovery than many other stations.
The travel time on BART from Downtown San Francisco to both SFO and OAK is about the same, at 34 minutes. The fare is only slightly more expensive to ride to OAK, and a transfer is required.
Airport traffic is likely the main reason for the low usage of the OAK Airport Connector compared to SFO. Historically, OAK carries only a fraction of the passenger traffic that SFO handles. The main tenant at OAK is Southwest Airlines, with Alaska and Delta as the only other major carriers, offering limited destinations. Other carriers at OAK are low-cost airlines like Spirit and Volaris. In contrast, SFO is a hub for United Airlines and hosts a variety of international carriers from four of the seven continents.
Recently, OAK has developed a negative reputation due to crimes against airport travelers along the Hegenberger corridor, where the OAK Airport Connector trains run overhead. This has led to the closure of businesses and hotels near the airport.
Since the 1990s, the Bay Area’s long-term strategy has been to position OAK as a relief airport due to SFO’s capacity limitations caused by its runway configuration and frequent fog. This led to the desire for rail service to both OAK and SFO. However, the plan didn’t unfold as expected because of competition, or more appropriately, sibling rivalry, between Oakland and San Francisco, as well as the impacts on the airline industry from 9/11 and, most recently, COVID.
