Quote:
Originally Posted by Qubert
/\ Makes sense. I still don't know why BART wants to reach San Jose via Fremont versus Millbrae, thus hitting Redwood City, San Mateo, Stanford, Mountain View and Sunnyvale. Not to mention, from purely a logistical standpoint, the current plan for the extention forces more ridership through the tube which is already very taxed. Anyone have more insight on this?
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Nothing could possibly justify the astronomical cost of assembling a new right of way and building BART down the Peninsula.
Assembling a right of way would be nearly impossible and insanely expensive in the best case scenario. The flat parts of the Peninsula are entirely developed, and constitute some of the most expensive land in the world. Any potentially affected owners absolutely have the resources to put up a decades-long fight to keep it, or to extract a vast sum in consideration. Meanwhile, BART itself is expensive to build relative to off-the-shelf technology, because it is a custom gauge with custom equipment.
Caltrain, on the other hand, runs on a standard gauge with off-the-shelf technology in a right of way first established in 1863. Freight trains access the Port of San Francisco on the same tracks overnight, after Caltrain service ends, and BART cannot share tracks with freight trains in a similar fashion due to gauge and regulatory issues.