Sigh. Eric Fischer brings us BARTstalgia (or whatever the word is for the transit path not taken):
Northbound BART train in Marin County leaving Sausalito (February, 1961)
BART passengers on platform (September 1960) (aka “Mad Men on a train”)
BART passengers on train (September 1960) (Hey, triplets on a train!)
And can ever forget the view from BART over the GGB?
Just call YUkon 2-9838 to express your support for BART to Marin County:
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Posted by Burrito Justice
Hmm. Dulay Lines? Or a little known piece by Theo van Doesburg?
Fans of Tufte will immediately recognize it. If you guessed something transportation related, you are correct. The great dataplotter Eric Fischer has once again wrangled meaning out of a hapless API: The chart above shows BART train movement between Millbrae (top) and Richmond (bottom) between 7:30 AM to 9:30 AM on July 2. The entire day along with Eric’s comments are available on Flickr.
(I find the thought of a Muni version of this chart mildly terrifying.)
On a side note, Eric is in print! His tourist vs local mapping made the Boston Sunday Globe! Congratulations!
3 Comments | transportation | Tagged: BART, eric fischer, tufte | Permalink
Posted by Burrito Justice
Jeff at Spots Unknown points us to another example of a big thing just not giving a damn:
A few weeks back they painted the Powell/Montgomery/Embarcadero BART stations. Great, right? Well, in the process, they changed the signs. Not that they were so great to begin with, but the ones they replaced them with had me convinced that these were temporary ones until they were able to hang some fantastic new signs that would match the new paint scheme.
I can be naive.
I’ve seen this happen multiple times now – since these signs are posted at a height that is below the height of a BART train, when there’s a train in the platform, the signs are completely obscured…
This is easy enough to fix though:
Is apathy the real issue?
Stuff like this makes me sad. It makes me sad because sometimes I like to entertain the notion that San Francisco is a special place where the people who live here and the people in charge of stuff actually give a damn, that they’re proud. This blog is based on that innocent premise. But other times, I’m reminded that, to a large degree, it’s just not the case, that we are one big earthquake away from Louisiana status.
The frequency of transit fails on both BART and Muni are worrisome — do they point to a lack of investment and preventative maintenance? Is this what the Romans were thinking in the 3rd century? “Hey, the Via Appia used to be great, but it’s total crap these days.”
It’s not like we’re asking for mosaics made of Murano glass. (Actually, that would be very cool. I want stylish and highly visible rows of repeating signs made of Murano glass tiles please, distinct for each station. Thanks BART!)
Between civic apathy, an unwillingness to pay taxes for infrastructure, and government budget shortfalls, if there were a another 1906 level earthquake I have to wonder if San Francisco would end up like Detroit.
And don’t get me started on our creaking water and sewer infrastructure. If that goes, we’re historical footnotes.
16 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: BART, infrastructure, transportation | Permalink
Posted by Burrito Justice
Once again, Eric Fischer to the retrofuture with San Mateo County’s 1960 Master Plan.
BART around the Bay, to SFO via Brisbane, and over the southern bridges.
And look closely — that’s not 101 along the edge of the Bay, it’s a super-extended Highway 87 from San Jose to SF, extending through marshland and to the east of SFO.
And of course a dam.
Those mid-centurains sure had it in for the Bay, slicing and dicing it in their dreams.
There is a dam across the Dumbarton Bridge, turning the south end of the bay into a freshwater lake.
All kinds of freeways that never happened: the Bayfront Freeway from San Francisco to San Jose; the Willow Road/Sand Hill Road freeway in Palo Alto; a Skyline Boulevard freeway north of where it meets Interstate 280; extension of the Route 92 freeway west to Highway 1; extension of the Highway 1 freeway south; Interstate 380 extended west and east; Route 84, 92, and 238 freeways in the East Bay; and the usual ones in San Francisco. No Southern Crossing, though.
And BART around the bay, and on the Dumbarton Bridge and San Mateo Bridge. In San Francisco and Oakland the routes still follow the 1956 Regional Rapid Transit alignments.
2 Comments | historical, transportation | Tagged: BART, bridge, retrofuture, sf bay | Permalink
Posted by Burrito Justice
More Eric Fischer retrofuture scanning – SFO rapid transit alternatives from 1968.
($300 mil is ~$1.8 billion in today’s dollars.)
I’d take the Geary section over the Central Subway in a second. Hopefully the 1968-Third would have been faster than today-T-Third’s 29 minutes from Embarcadero to 3rd/Carroll. BART is 32 minutes from Embarcadero to SFO, but it that just seems like a lifetime.
As an aside, here’s a fun smackdown comparing the T-Third to Dublin’s theoretically more expensive LUAS.
They were also considering a Third St monorail to SFO. Yours for under $100 million 1968 dollars! And don’t forget the 1956 Valencia-Mission Skytrain! Man, that that would have sucked.
I still say that we keep that Central Subway tunneling machine running to dig out a crosstown subway — take a left at Divis, then shoot through Castro and Noe to hook up with a 30th St BART and the Muni ROW coming down San Jose Ave. That would make it way easier for me to see shows at the Independent. Also, I’d be able to take the Geary subway to get to GAMH. That just leaves Slim’s, but a Van Ness line would take care of that nicely. Anyone have five billion handy?
2 Comments | historical, mission, music, transportation, valencia | Tagged: BART, monorail, retrofuture, sfo, transit | Permalink
Posted by Burrito Justice
Eric Fischer’s scanner has captured five SF-Marin transit options in 1970 neon excitement, including:
(The colors are real, though I did adjust the black levels for added blogging excitement.)
Here’s a blowup of the numbers. Awesome. Can you imagine what a blog from the 70s would look like?
Sadly there are not enough vibrant colors visible to the human eye to get past five. 6 is into the ultraviolet and 7 starts emitting x-rays.
Through exhaustive Internet research, I have uncovered a video representing the BART plans described above:
All I can say is if Pointer Sisters had gotten behind the 70s BART expansion we’d be riding it to Santa Cruz today, never mind Marin and the South Bay.
5 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: BART, map, retrofuture | Permalink
Posted by Burrito Justice
Quick! What’s this?
Is it a contour map of Bernal’s western slope? Perhaps a chart of KevMo’s popularity over time?
Here’s a hint. And the color is important too.
Bigger hint:
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: BART, map | Permalink
Posted by Burrito Justice
Sum of 1967 alternatives for San Francisco-Marin crossings, tube and bridge, via Eric Fischer and Scott Dowdee.
You give me these as BART bridges and tunnels, then we’re talking.
And in addition to going down Geary, any Marin line would obviously have to connect to my cross-town line: Fillmore-Castro-Noe-30th St, then down to Candlestick-SFO. (Just sayin’ in case Gavin gets some Obamadollars and buys the Central Subway‘s tunnelling machine.)
I still like this bridge best though.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: BART, bridge, retrofuture, tunnel | Permalink
Posted by Burrito Justice
As we await the death of the 26-Valencia, safest bus in the Mission, Nick (loyal SoMa reader, rider of the Mission-traversing 12-Folsom/Pacific and Buboblogger) asks exactly what an “incident” is on Muni.
UPDATE: Per secretivek’s request, here’s a quick and dirty conversion to a scatter plot (click to embiggen).
I found the SFPD source document for the bar chart that sheds more light onto incidents. The data below is from January to August (which raises another question, since the minutes were recorded during Sept-Oct — if you KNOW there are 4x the incidents on the 14-Mission, why are you spending twice the time on the K? Then again I’d rather ride the K than the 14.) Here is a breakout by crime:
Assult and disturbance/disorderly conduct is over 37% of incidents. Fare evasion is about 3% of incidents (though I don’t know if this includes fare inspectors). I’m kind of curious on Operator/Passenger assault. Is that the driver attacking someone?
Only one insane person, but I guess that can be enough.
Here are the figures for Ingleside Station that includes the southern Mission, Bernal, Glen Park, Portola, Excelsior and Visitacion Valley.
Here we learn it is significantly safer to ride Muni in the morning:
Muni in morning
BART at night
You will get
Home alright
3 Comments | crime, mission, transportation, valencia | Tagged: BART, crime, muni | Permalink
Posted by Burrito Justice
Eric Fisher has unearthed and scanned proto-BART plans from 1956. Some fascinating detail, including a Marin line routing along Kearny, Columbus and down Lombard (instead of Geary in later not-to-be plans).
Various alternatives were presented. One included underground stations for the Marin line at Lombard & Van Ness, with a tunnel under Russian hill to Columbus & Green, and a terminus at California & Kearny. Both elevated and suspended trains were considered.
A few different options were proposed for downtown.
One was a tunnel from the East Bay meeting with the Marin terminus at California, dodging over to Market as we know today, then continuing down Valencia.
The alternative would have come in from the East Bay over the Bay Bridge and run above Mission (with stops at 4th and 8th).
The Peninsula line would have dangled above Valencia (with stops at 14th and 22nd), then cut down Tiffany Ave to a tunnel at Dolores & San Jose, exiting around Bosworth, with a station at Ocean.
The plans show the line continuing south down the Peninsula to Palo Alto with a maintenance yard at Arastradero.
All sorts of crazy detailed suggestions for Marin, and past Palo Alto to Santa Clara / San Jose / Los Gatos (no 280 or 880 yet!) More can be seen on this system-wide map and the rest of the detailed maps on Eric’s Flickr stream.
7 Comments | infrastructure, mission, valencia | Tagged: BART, futurist, mission, valencia | Permalink
Posted by Burrito Justice
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