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Old Posted Jan 16, 2010, 12:59 AM
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Gordo Gordo is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dimondpark View Post
Seems to me that taking BART over the Altamont Pass and into Tracy would be a much better part of their plan for expansion. The number one destination of drivers on 580 is the Tri Valley anyway and most large office parks have free shuttles to and from BART stations.
That idea has some merit, though I think that the best solution would be to have conventional rail of some type (DMU's perhaps, like those for SMART) run from Tracy to Dublin. BART tech is just too expensive (billions and billions and billions) to run all the way to Tracy for the amount of riders that it would generate - especially since the ridership would likely be overwhelmingly at commute times. Also, a conventional rail upgrade would have the option of running service from Tracy to Dublin, as well as Tracy to SJ (current ACE service). A BART connection from Tracy to San Jose would be too long and basically useless, unless top speeds could be increased or trains made more comfortable (like the ACE trains) with tables, electrical outlets, restrooms, etc (unless a BART 680 line was built connecting the Tri-Valley area with SJ, but you're talking $15 billion+ for that).

It would probably be cheaper to just build an additional lane in each direction over Altamont, make it HOV, and run buses every 5 minutes to Dublin BART than to build full-fledged BART.
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