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  #2101  
Old Posted Jan 24, 2023, 12:17 AM
homebucket homebucket is offline
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Some more photos:





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  #2102  
Old Posted Jan 28, 2023, 5:24 PM
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Took a few of shots of the Central Subway Chinatown station recently:













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  #2103  
Old Posted Feb 1, 2023, 4:43 PM
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Peep my thread on the Central Subway and a short tour of Chinatown for a more extensive tour.
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  #2104  
Old Posted Feb 3, 2023, 9:50 PM
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I visited San Francisco recently and I didn't take any pictures, but, I must say, the Van Ness BRT looks like it came out nicely.
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Last edited by SFBruin; Feb 3, 2023 at 10:51 PM.
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  #2105  
Old Posted Feb 3, 2023, 9:55 PM
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On to Cloverdale and Ukiah!
Quote:
NORTH BAY, CA — The Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit District (SMART) is pleased to announce the agency has been awarded $34M in Transit and InterCity Rail Corridor Project (TIRCP) funds toward building SMART railway and pathway extensions to communities in northern Sonoma County.

“With these TIRCP funds, SMART will take another big step forward in its goal to reach Windsor, Healdsburg, and Cloverdale. Investing in SMART’s rail and pathway system leverages significant long-term local investments in the community. One of the reasons we were successful in this grant application, is the wide support we received from our elected representatives, cities, school districts, community stakeholders, and chambers of commerce,” said SMART General Manager Eddy Cumins.

The extension of the SMART rail system to Windsor is already 30% constructed and is a necessary step to the eventual restoration of freight and passenger rail to northern communities.
The lawsuit blocking the extension and other projects is also over.
Quote:
Last week, SMART announced that $40M in Regional Measure 3 (RM3) toll revenues allocated towards the Windsor and Healdsburg extensions, was now available due to a recent California Supreme Court decision to dismiss litigation contesting RM3. SMART is also currently awaiting announcements for three other grant applications for the Windsor and Healdsburg extensions. If these grant applications are successful, SMART will be able to complete the extension to Windsor in 2025 and to Healdsburg in 2026. SMART’s strategy is to wait for the results of these grant requests, to determine how to best leverage funding to complete the northern extensions.
Patch.com
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  #2106  
Old Posted Feb 6, 2023, 7:22 PM
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^ On that note:

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North Bay Passenger Rail Gains Ridership, Cash, Momentum
The Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit has had a good week. Two major financial wins will give the system millions of dollars to come and its ridership continues to rebound, with two days seeing the highest ridership rates since COVID began.
Feb. 3, 2023 • Andrew Graham, The Press Democrat

(TNS) — In seven days, the North Bay's passenger rail system received a sudden avalanche of $74 million for a long-stalled effort to bring the train tracks north to Healdsburg.

The first boon came last week, when the California Supreme Court dismissed a long-running lawsuit from a tax advocacy group, freeing up Bay Area bridge toll dollars that includes $40 million for the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit.

Then, on Monday, Jan. 30, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced $2.5 billion in funding grants for transportation, including more than $34 million to SMART.

"It's been incredible," SMART director Eddy Cumins told The Press Democrat in an interview Wednesday.

"It feels like SMART has so much momentum right now," he said.

The funding wins come, Cumins said, as ridership continues to rebound from the pandemic. Last Friday and the following Monday saw the highest ridership for those weekdays since COVID-19 ground public transit to a halt.

SMART is outstripping other public rail systems in the Bay Area at recovering ridership, according to Metropolitan Transportation Commission data Cumins presented at a Jan. 18 meeting of the passenger rail's board of directors.

SMART has recovered 79 percent of its pre-pandemic ridership levels, according to those numbers, the second highest among all Bay Area public transit systems, including buses.

Bay Area Rapid Transit, which feeds commuters to San Francisco, has only recovered 40 percent of its riders, according to the MTC data.

"Ridership is bouncing back and funds are rolling in," said Cumins, who took the helm of the North Bay passenger train in November 2021.

Suddenly, 16 years after voters approved a rail line that was supposed to stretch from Larkspur to Cloverdale, major construction again looms on the horizon. SMART has not opened a new segment since the train reached Larkspur in 2019.

But the work on the next segment, from SMART's northern terminus near the Santa Rosa airport to a station three miles north in Windsor, has been stalled ever since the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association sued to stop the distribution of money from a toll hike Bay Area voters approved in 2018.

The state Supreme Court dismissed that lawsuit Jan. 25.

But, Cumins said Sonoma County residents shouldn't expect construction to begin quite yet. The railroad agency has applications for three other large grants pending.

If successful, that will pull another $113 million into SMART's coffers, covering the costly $230 million expansion to Healdsburg.


Cumins has urged the board to wait until June, when SMART staff expect to have received word on all three grants, before beginning construction. Having all the funding to reach Healdsburg in hand will allow SMART to secure contractors at "economies of scale," rather than offering piecemeal bids for contracts, Cumin said.

Doing so should lower costs, he said.

"It's an expensive project," Cumins said, "you've got the rail, you've got bridges and creek crossings and you've got the major bridge across to Healdsburg."

SMART will have to replace an aging railroad bridge across the Russian River into the center of town.

In August 2021, the U.S. Congress approved President Joe Biden's massive infrastructure spending bill, setting the federal government up to spend more than $1 trillion, much of it dedicated to transportation.

"There's more funds out there today for transit and infrastructure then there's probably been in my lifetime," Cumins said.

The wins for SMART come nearly three years after voters rejected the railroad's ask for an early extension of the sales tax measure that funds its operations. That difficult blow means the sales tax will expire in 2029 if railroad backers can't convince voters to approve an extension beforehand.

When that vote occurred in March 2020, SMART officials had said the line would reach Windsor by late 2021. The lawsuit put a stop to that goal.

Now, with funds flowing in, Cumins said that with full funding the railroad will reach Windsor sometime in 2025 or 2026 and Healdsburg within a year after that.
https://www.governing.com/community/...-cash-momentum
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  #2107  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2023, 5:19 AM
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Sick shot in the Chronicle today. Star Tour vibes.

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  #2108  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2023, 1:21 PM
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  #2109  
Old Posted Feb 28, 2023, 9:11 PM
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  #2110  
Old Posted Mar 1, 2023, 6:29 AM
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Supposedly they have now decided to plan for one (two-track) tunnel under the Bay. That tunnel would be either BART or regional rail, but not both.

There are pros and cons to each - a 2nd BART tunnel would naturally lead into a new Geary subway bringing BART to the West Side of SF, maybe even across the Golden Gate to Marin one day per the original vision. However, a regional rail tunnel would finally allow direct intercity trains from SF to Sacramento for the first time in history, and allow one-seat regional rides from the East Bay to the Peninsula cities.
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  #2111  
Old Posted Mar 1, 2023, 8:21 AM
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Based on what I know about CA, I think that a commuter rail tunnel under the bay would be a good thing.
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  #2112  
Old Posted Mar 1, 2023, 1:55 PM
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It does appear the ideal would be a regional rail tunnel from Transbay to Oakland AS WELL AS a second BART bay crossing with new stations. This in my book is just as good or better than a stacked shared tube. The cost is the big question.
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  #2113  
Old Posted Mar 1, 2023, 4:11 PM
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Part of me wonders if it would be cheaper to convert BART to standard gauge and have rapid & regional transit share tracks, rather than build two new tunnels. A new Transbay, 2-track tunnel would be comparable to NYC's Gateway Tunnel, which is expected to cost more than $16 billion. Two tunnels then could be $32 billion.

Even if the costs of converting to standard gauge and buying new rolling stock are comparable to a second tunnel, it would certainly be better from an operation standpoint. It would help unify the Bay Area's disconnected rail systems, which could provide new routes and increased frequencies. A cheaper alternative could be to have BART experimenting with dual gauge tracks
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  #2114  
Old Posted Mar 1, 2023, 4:23 PM
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^ The bigger challenge to shared tunnels isn't necessarily technology, loading gauge or even inter-agency operation, it's capacity. Even if you could have BART share the tunnel with mainline rail or vice versa through the use of offset or gauntlet tracks - or a never in a million years BART move to standard gauge - you still are limited to how many TPH can fit through the tunnel in each direction. Even with communications based train control this would severly limit operations and future growth right out of the gate, especially with BART which would operate with a significantly higher frequency than Caltrain or any other regional or shorter distance mainline rail.
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  #2115  
Old Posted Mar 1, 2023, 5:34 PM
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^ Very much agree! That's why my suggestion entirely depends on the new routes that are possible with combined rapid/regional rail service.

Rather than having almost every BART line feed into the Transbay Tunnel, de-interline the system. This would mean running more circumferential routes at high frequencies and having select, high-capacity lines cross the bay at regular intervals. This would mean more riders now have a 2- or even 3-seat rides, but overall trip times should be reduced now that there's predictability for transfers and new service options. You would also still need a second tunnel, but unlikely a third tunnel. It would also open up the possibility for BART to use the Dumbarton Railroad Bridge and improve Silicon Valley service.
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  #2116  
Old Posted Mar 2, 2023, 6:07 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ardecila View Post
Supposedly they have now decided to plan for one (two-track) tunnel under the Bay. That tunnel would be either BART or regional rail, but not both.

There are pros and cons to each - a 2nd BART tunnel would naturally lead into a new Geary subway bringing BART to the West Side of SF, maybe even across the Golden Gate to Marin one day per the original vision. However, a regional rail tunnel would finally allow direct intercity trains from SF to Sacramento for the first time in history, and allow one-seat regional rides from the East Bay to the Peninsula cities.
BART would be great but regional rail is more needed, since that can also include freight. Not to mention eBart trains could run on it...
The different gauge of BART sure is a hindrance.
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  #2117  
Old Posted Mar 2, 2023, 7:50 AM
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There are way more BART riders than there are commuter rail riders between SF and Sacramento, and BART has always had mediocre coverage in SF, as well as a bottleneck and inadequate late night service, due to the single Transbay tube. And of course if the Bay Area is ever going to densify in a way even approaching what's necessary, we're gonna need improved transit. So it seems like a second BART tube (plus a new subway down Geary blvd/19th ave, not to mention the new stops in Alameda and Jack London square) would be most useful for Bay Area residents, if we have to pick just one new tunnel...of course building both the BART and commuter rail tunnels would be the best option though.

Imagine if Caltrain crossed the Bay, and went to say, Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, Richmond, Martinez, Benicia, Vallejo, Napa, etc. And then 100 years later, maybe there would be HSR to Sacramento too lol.
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  #2118  
Old Posted Mar 4, 2023, 3:29 AM
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Seen this on Bart's Facebook:
Quote:

Source
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  #2119  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2023, 4:56 PM
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Quote:
SFO's AirTrain, once North America's largest people mover, turns 20
By James Salazar | Examiner staff writer Mar 3, 2023



San Francisco International Airport is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its people mover on Friday.

The AirTrain began operations in 2003 when it connected all four terminals to SFO's rental car center. Completed at a cost of $430 million, it was the largest people mover on the continent, capable of moving 3,0000 people per hour in each direction.

Ivar Satero, SFO's airport director, thinks of the AirTrain as "the original autonomous clean energy vehicle. It truly helped SFO transform into the modern facility travelers know today, while charting a course for our environmental leadership in air travel," he said.

The system's fleet of 41 clean energy electric vehicles have top speeds of 30 miles per hour and run along more than six miles of fully automated concrete guideways. The Blue Line transports passengers to the rental car center and long-term parking garage while the Red Line loops around all terminals.

SFO completed a $259 million construction project in May 2021 that extended the AirTrain to the airport's long-term parking facility, whose transportation was previously provided by shuttle bus. The move is expected to eliminate 600,000 miles of trips annually, according to airport officials.

"With the extension of the system to serve our on-airport hotel and long-term parking facilities, we've ensured the AirTrain continues to achieve its original goals: to transport passengers safely and efficiently while reducing roadway congestion and greenhouse gas emissions," said Satero.
https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/tran...eec828770.html
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  #2120  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2023, 7:50 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tech12 View Post
There are way more BART riders than there are commuter rail riders between SF and Sacramento, and BART has always had mediocre coverage in SF, as well as a bottleneck and inadequate late night service, due to the single Transbay tube.

This is very true but the Capital Corridor trains also serve students, families and as you noted commuters. Most important, the goal is to reduce a very congested I-80 between Sacramento’s Eastern suburbs to the Bay.

Plus, given the new home work realities and housing costs, the Bay Area likely won’t densify the way you’re thinking. People are likely going to move out further from the Bay (or not. I don’t pretend to know for certain).

But yes, BART needs a second Transbay tube.

The Capital Corridor will need a sizable investment. Eventually given climate change, the trains will need electrification. HSR will never be extended to Sacramento. Not in 50 years, not in a 100 years. But I think as long as we have ACE Train extension and improvements to Capital Corridor so we won’t necessarily need HSR to Sacramento. Sacramento has frequent airline coverage to Southern California and that likely won’t change especially as HSR skims air service between LA and SF Bay Area.

But rail investments shouldn’t be an either or proposition in this State. But this is California so there’s that.
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Last edited by urban_encounter; Mar 7, 2023 at 8:08 PM.
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