OAC:
~ $500 million
~ the same number of riders
~ the same trip time (8 minutes is an old number after massive budget overruns it’s now over 12 minutes, at the same time, traffic has eased so the bus is now faster)

“I support the connector, provided that it is done in a way that is efficient, convenient, and leads to growth at OAK.”

That’s the problem, the original project was fine, the overbudget underperforming project as it exists is by no means efficient or convenient, it’s just a lot of money spent for no real benefit.

That’s just the thing… it won’t. It will barely even have any effect on transit share on the Hegenberger corridor, let alone growth at the Oakland Airport. Even BART has admitted this. The OAC is dependent on the Airport passenger volumes — not the other way around.

Those advocates who kept whining about it not making multiple stops were being ignorant (or forgetful) of AC Transit already doing that…he-lloooo.

I disagree on this point. Fixed guideway transit spurs transit-oriented development in a way that a standard bus line cannot. Each intermediate station offers the chance good for TOD and urban design that will improve and lift the neighborhood. An elevated Connector with no intermediate station only casts shadows while carrying zero benefit for the neighborhood. It makes no sense to spend so much money for a transit project that would (i) provide no transit benefit and (ii) provide no economic development benefit. But that’s exactly where we are now.

Moreover, it limits the type of rider that will use the OAC. If you have stations with new development, you enhance the transit corridor with ridership that uses those stations, rather than just the Airport. An OAC with no intermediate stations can only serve one transit purpose, and its ridership will suffer as a result. But ridership suffering –> even higher fares (assuming BART can even get the TIFIA loan), because BART will have to use fare revenue to pay back the loan.

With a bid $60M less than projected, I am hoping that BART doesn’t fudge this up again too.

Unfortunately, that bid will bid result in a slow, clumsy project. But that’s the only bid that BART could afford (assuming it had the full set of federal funding that it has now been denied).

If it’s the former, then they are the ones responsible for jobs not being created.

Should this even be a BART project? It seems airports usually build their own people-movers, like the one at SFO that connects BART to the terminals and rental cars. And I don’t think people-movers usually charge $12 round trip.

A rail connection to Oakland Airport is beneficial overall, it will help to put the entire Bay Area, including Oakland, at a competitive advantage as we integrate our transit hubs. I can only hope that BART can’t screw this up any more than it has already.

Fortunately Title VI is a good candidate to create that stake — especially since the MTC has been told by the Feds that it needs to both pay attention to its grantees and also comply in its own process and funding choices.

Both BART and its MTC overlord have been notorious for approving mainly gold-plated projects that run through or past poor neighborhoods to benefit rich mostly-white suburbanite commuters — not exactly what Title VI had in mind.

Which explains why, for example, the East Bay BRT project has become an MTC (and just recently FTA) funded darling. Linking three actual center-cities (San Leandro, Oakland and Berkeley), getting this actually built can give the MTC a “see — we get it” excuse that might help divert unwanted attention from the other bad stuff they’re still approving. The tragedy is that a better OAC project also “coulda been a contender, instead of a bum.”

So the thing with Title VI and BART, the MTC and the OAC is this: finally “completing” the OAC Title VI analysis after “inadvertently failing to do so in time” is only the beginning of the problems for the OAC. They have to deliver a complete, accurate and unbiased analysis of community impacts — and if they do so they will be “surprised to learn” that the impacts are severe and the only adequate mitigation is to scrap the OAC choo-choo train in favor of the cheaper, lower-fare, better-service and faster BRT alternative that actually stops in the local community along the way.

This now looks to be pretty much baked in the cake. We only need to keep up the pressure, so that in the end we can help provide the hammer for that decisive stake in the heart.