Comments on: BART Board mortgages system for East Oakland “Blingfrastructure”

By: dto510

dto510 — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:05:26 +0000

To be clear, BART is not proposing rail, but an overhead connector that will mostly likely run on rubber tires. Basically, a bus freeway. With a fare of $20, it won’t get much traffic off of Hegenberger, so would preclude a road diet. Also, it takes up a lot of space for all the pillars.

By: newoaktown

newoaktown — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:57:35 +0000

when i used to drive/be driven to OAK or even take the bus, it always irritated me to see a sea of matrix-sentinel-like brake lights.

i thought, damn, why isn’t there a train here to bart?

makes so much more sense. then they can slim down that hegenberger road and even develop the space into buildings or farms or something USEFUL

By: newoaktown

newoaktown — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:45:13 +0000

they’ve done it because every other airport in the world does it. (SFO, tokyo, shanghai, SEA-TAC, JFK) and in a way, it makes sense.

i know we are against their specific method of doing it…

By: Oakland Airport Connector now in the hands of the Port Commission « Living in the O

Fri, 29 May 2009 21:03:23 +0000

[...] wasteful overhead Oakland Airport Connector (OAC). As dto510 wrote, quoting Director Radulovich, they mortgaged the system for “blingfrastructure.” But the OAC is still not a done deal because several sources of funding need to fall into place for [...]

By: S Raney

S Raney — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:47:12 +0000

Personal Rapid Transit promises a superior solution to Automated People Mover for the Oakland Airport Connector, winning on cost, speed, service area, Oakland economic development, BART ridership, Airport improvement, long-term jobs, in-fill development, visual impact, risk, and AC Transit enhancement. A web page details the arguments: http://www.cities21.org/OAK_OAC.htm.

By: dto510

dto510 — Thu, 21 May 2009 22:26:32 +0000

Yeah, it is too soon to say that the flyover connector will definitely get built (the Port, the FTA, and the FAA each have the power to concel it). But the BART Board did not vote to further study the bus alternative (which is pretty well-defined to everyone but BART planners), so if the overhead connector isn’t built, the bus improvements won’t be ready to go.

By: Daily Rider

Daily Rider — Wed, 20 May 2009 04:47:32 +0000

I sent an email to BART Board member Bob Franklin about his vote in favor, and received an interesting response. As he described it, the airport connector is far from a done deal and his vote in favor of it on 5/14 was an attempt to keep all options open. He also suggested there would be time for the rapid bus option to become better defined, and return to the Board for consideration again. Based on his comments, at least, it may be too soon to count the bus alternative out.

By: BART Director James Fang again chooses bling over cheaper & more sensible technology « Living in the O

Tue, 19 May 2009 01:23:39 +0000

[...] by Becks So you might have thought that BART directors couldn’t shock me anymore. After approving the half billion airport connector blingfrastructure that robs funds from BART operations and capital projects, they couldn’t do anything worse, [...]

By: BART Director James Fang again chooses bling over tested technology « Living in the O

Tue, 19 May 2009 01:21:24 +0000

By: gem s

gem s — Sat, 16 May 2009 01:45:31 +0000

Oh, genius. If there’s one thing I hear East Oaklanders clamoring for year after year, it’s road capacity. Especially to the airport.