It would take 10 minutes according to google maps (avoiding the freeway, 9 minutes on the 80+880 but I don’t trust the Maze in traffic) and that would be going through that street that points to Best Buy. That’s the same amount of time it takes no to take the Emery-Go-Round to MacArthur, and you have BART stops to worry about.

Definitely more buses on the 1/1R. Without dedicated lanes, that will only help so much, with the buses still fighting against traffic, but decreasing wait times will be a help. Just based on anecdotal evidence, there are still considerable gaps in service, even with running both 1 and 1R buses.

In some sense, the East Bay half of this is more “fantastical” than the San Francisco half, perhaps because there has been much less official thought or guidance on the issue. The introductory comment on this whole subway dream — that this is what could have been done in the past, rather than what should be done now — is especially true of the East Bay map.

As to your comment about putting surface LRT here in place of BART subway: I think you’re absolutely right, that would probably be enough. The 1/1R, at least the Oakland sections of it, appears to be quite popular, but ridership is still a lot less than the 38/38L on Geary, even though the 1/1R route is double the length of Geary. The demand is less, and so you’re right that really, even a robust BRT will be enough. Make it rail-ready and upgrade it to LRT to boost ridership and also to encourage more infill on Broadway, Telegraph, and East 14th.

Good point on West Oakland and Alameda. They definitely did get the short shrift on this map, and on other versions of this map, both neighborhoods have received better service. On another version, the MacArthur line (which terminates at Emeryville on this map), continues southward to serve West Oakland, and I think other versions did something else altogether.
One reason why Alameda got no service in this map is because it is a BART map, and, well, BART costs a lot. On the more realistic BRT map, there would definitely be improved service in that area.

Of course Emeryville already has standard-gauge tracks and an existing station that could be put to much better use. Have you thought about conventional rail as an alternative to BART? The westernmost edge of West Oakland — which just so happens to be undergoing intense redevelopment already — would be well served by an infill station on the Caps corridor.
This is a great point, which also raises an important general point about this map. Service should be improved on these identified corridors, and in West Oakland, dependent on what happens there. BRT? Build it now, and blindfold everyone in Berkeley until it’s built. Surface LRT? A worthwhile investment for at least some of this map. (Though for at least the latter of those, the College Ave segment could be problematic.) But BART? This map was basically an exercise in fun BART expansions, and as much as I’d love to ride the system in this map, I can’t responsibly condone that we spend the billions upon billions required to make it a reality. One way to avoid that is to redo existing infrastructure. I’d really like to see better use of the Caps corridor in general, and this move would hopefully change people’s perceptions about this corridor.

I’ve always had a soft spot for streetcars in central Oakland as well.
Now here’s something I’d really like to see– particularly if the streetcars circled the Lake.

Let me first say that I think you’re going in the right direction with the corridors, although I’d double-check AC Transit ridership data, or at least the potential BRT corridors they’ve already identified. I believe Alameda has as much potential as any of the others here save InTel, and so might West Oakland if it’s redeveloped as some have envisioned (mind you, there’s a whole gentrification issue there that I’m not even going to touch for the moment).

But then that’s the problem: Are any of these really subway-worthy corridors? Even long-term? I may have been conditioned by my experience in the U.S. to set the bar too high, but I suspect the wiser course might be surface LRT. Of course to make that work, you’d need to get serious about reallocation of rights-of-way–Berkeley NIMBYs be damned. I’ve always had a soft spot for streetcars in central Oakland as well.

Now, one place in the East Bay that doesn’t have BART service, and really should: Emeryville. Of course Emeryville already has standard-gauge tracks and an existing station that could be put to much better use. Have you thought about conventional rail as an alternative to BART? The westernmost edge of West Oakland — which just so happens to be undergoing intense redevelopment already — would be well served by an infill station on the Caps corridor. The Regional Rail Plan also suggested a multimodal station at existing West Oakland BART.

One last thing: If that line on your map from downtown Oak to a new tube really does run under Alameda, you probably should have a station or two at Point Alameda, as BART has proposed.

But really, Eric: You’ve done a solid here. I’m impressed, and I’ll bet lots of other people are, too.

There are certainly any number of places these lines could have gone — in some versions of this map, there was also a line covering West Oakland and San Pablo, or the current line ending in Emeryville could turn south to West Oakland. I’ve tried to temper this by realistic considerations of ridership patterns and development potential, so that’s why there aren’t lines everywhere. Not drawn in on this map are places in which bus rapid transit could effectively fill in the gaps, areas where transit could be improved, but where we might not necessarily want to build a tunnel. Alameda was one such location — although, in a different version of this map, Alameda was given BART service. Another compromise (keeping costs in mind) would be to set aside some of these lines as light rail.

This map does add service to South Berkeley, with new stations for Elmwood and Telegraph Avenue. In the post, I also mentioned the possibility of another infill station between MacArthur and Ashby, for more service in the South Berkeley/North Oakland area.