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Originally Posted by CharlesCO
One of the few things that fflint left out that's also important to note: BART technology would provide slower service than Caltrain down the peninsula unless if it was also built using skip-stop service or express trains. Travel times on Caltrain Baby Bullet trains and pretty much every non-local train are shorter than the same theoretical distance traveled on a local train even on BART technology.
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Correct. BART and Caltrain have the same allowable top speed--79 mph--which the Baby Bullets sometimes approach when skipping several stations in a row. When electrification is complete, Caltrain's non-local service will technically be faster than BART.
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It's also one of the reasons why the BART extension to SFO has had far lower ridership than what was initially projected. BART's original ridership estimates for the Millbrae line accounted for a high number of Caltrain riders transferring to BART at Millbrae, which, in practice after Baby Bullet service was introduced, is actually a very small number.
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BART to SFO opened in 2003, well into the dot-bomb recession that devastated SFO's annual passenger counts (down 15.6% in 2001, down another 9.2% in 2002, and down yet another 6.8% in 2003). The demand for trips to SFO dropped across the board, but it made the new airport line look really bad. It doesn't look so bad anymore.
In 2005, SFO was BART's 32nd busiest station (out of 43), with 3,628 exits. So far this year, SFO is BART's 20th busiest station (out of 44)--one rung above Pleasant Hill and two rungs above Walnut Creek--with 6,724 average daily exits. No other station moved higher in the ranking in that timeframe.