Re: Road and Transit Projects, 1930s - 1970s

10/03/11 - posted by Paul Rosenberg

I participated in the 1974 BART Northwest San Francisco Rapid Transit Extension Study. The board of control selected Daniel-Mann-Johnson-Mendenhall consultants to do the study and propose recommendations. A first consideration was whether it was feasible to extend BART through to the outer Richmond. BART was rejected because it is inappropriate to use a high speed interurban transit system for local use. Despite what the map illustrated, BART stops are best located two or more miles apart. If, say, BART were to run underground under Geary [an overhead line would be unacceptable] there could be at most 4 or 5 stops. This would mean that surface local or limited stop service would continue. Further, the engineers suggested that BART in San Francisco would have to be shut down for a number of months while the connection would be constructed. So BART was not a factor in the study. The study considered five alternatives: do nothing except maintenance and operations [the null alternative], enhance current operations, two street car alternatives, and a subway. The subway was rejected because it would force a realignment that would provide feeder service throughout the Richmond and Western Addition replacing through service. This means that a rider at 40th and Fulton who wanted to go to City Hall would board the feeder to the tube, transfer to the tube, then catch another bus to City Hall. The simple 5 line connection would be gone. The negative impacts on the residents who would not live within four blocks of a station killed the subway. Ultimately, the board of control adopted the second alternative, i.e., improve service. This improvement came after the Wilbur Smith five year plan which began implementation in 1979 when the 38 line was run all the way out Geary without turning on 33rd to Balboa, 45th, and Cabrillo. The 31 line was extended from 33rd to the beach. The folks in outer Balboa were furious and this rerouting was a factor in the defeat of district 1 Supervisor Gordon Lau by Ed Lawson. After a while, the 38 line restored partial service along Geary to 33rd and then to Balboa and Cabrillo but just to Kaiser. Then it restored full service. This lasted until December, 2009, when 38 line service on Balboa and Cabrillo was defunded. But I digress.