Replying to a message of Richard Webb to Bob Ackley:

 RW>> Always wondered this myself.  To me it would make more sense to have
 RW>> bus train and air terminal in the same place.  A person who travels
 RW>> the short haul by bus or train could already be at the right place
 RW>> for the transcontinental flight.  But that makes too much sense.

 BA>> Which, of course, is why it'll never happen.

 RW> OF course not, but St. Louis is on the right track with its
 RW> Metrolink going to Lambert field anyway. OF course,
 RW> Greyhound, etc. are still downtown.

 BA>> FWIW, the Oakland, CA, airport (actually there are two, the old one
 BA>> and the new one, and they're right next to each other, making one
 BA>> really big complex) is larger (now much larger with the new one)
 BA>> than San Francisco's - which is directly across the bay (SF airport,
 BA>> BTW, is not located in SF but is several miles south of the city
 BA>> (and county) limit).  Some years back the BART (rapid transit)
 BA>> system ran a spur down to the Oakland/Alameda County Coliseum, which
 BA>> is right next to the airport.  If BART would extend that spur about
 BA>> a mile it'd be at the airport terminal, and one could then get from
 BA>> the Oakland airport to downtown SF faster than one could get there
 BA>> from the SF airport (and without having to deal with any traffic).

 RW> But this is CAlifornia, and they're not going to do that.
 RW> IT would make a whole bunch of sense to extend bart, but
 RW> they'll cry and moan about the tax dollars.

Back in the 1960s when BART was invented, one ironclad tenet was that
there would be *NO* federal money involved.  BART has strictly to that
policy and there isn't a *dime* of federal money involved in it.  After the
system was up and running the cities on the SF peninsula in particular 
wanted to have BART extend its line down the peninsula - but they refused
to abide by the *no federal money* stipulation (IOW they would not enact
the local taxes required).  The fact that BART has not extended much in recent
years can be attributed to that conflict - communities want BART service but
they also want federal money to pay for it, and BART won't allow that.  As
a result, BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit, if anyone cares) only serves San
Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

Note that for decades the feds have been trying to get control of BART, but thus
far they haven't been able to because it has no connection with the nation's rail
system (and thus cannot be involved in 'interstate commerce') and it accepts no
federal funds (so bureaucrats' threats to cut off such funds are meaningless).

Back in 1975 I rode on BART from Hayward to downtown SF.  Took less than
30 minutes and cost less than $2; the bridge toll alone at the time was $1.
When BART went into operation its stations had large *free* parking lots for
commuters (my sister says most are no longer free) and the local bus company
rejiggered some of its routes to service the BART stations.

Little known factoid, SF county includes a really big chunk of the bay.  There's
a small island just south of the middle of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge known
as 'Red Rock', and it is at the northeast corner of SF county.  The west end of the
runways of the (former) Alameda Naval Air Station (which is on the east side of
the bay) are also in SF county, as is most of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge..


--- FleetStreet 1.19+