Comments on: ACE up our sleeve http://www.ibabuzz.com/transportation/2006/10/18/ace-up-our-sleeve/ Getting around the Bay Area with Denis Cuff and the Queen of the Road Tue, 17 May 2011 06:04:22 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Vaughn Wolffe http://www.ibabuzz.com/transportation/2006/10/18/ace-up-our-sleeve/comment-page-1/#comment-291 Vaughn Wolffe Sun, 22 Oct 2006 18:15:51 +0000 http://www.ibabuzz.com/transportation/2006/10/18/ace-up-our-sleeve/#comment-291 Why is it necessary to make a better
connection between BART and ACE now?

Its not. Only 9% of the folks coming over the Altamont or through the Tri-Valley at commute time are going to a BART served area. This is a political push to make it look like connecting to BART will solve the congestion on I-580 & 680.

Why didn’t we do that when the
thing was started?

Because Alameda county(BART) wanted ACE to fail. Properly developed ACE would negate the need or extend BART to Livermore and San Jose. For less than $1 billion ACE would easily solve the problem that $1 billion Livermore and $9 billion San Jose BART will fail at. But ACE will not provide the construction jobs Alameda and BART are hoping for.

Until the jobs come back to Silicon Valley ACE is going to need a good
reason to increase service to a frequency that will get more people off
of I-580.

Wrong, a Santa Clara VTA study 5 years ago indicated the 8 ACE trains would carry 10,000 riders today. With Dumbarton all cross bay riders would be better accommodated by ACE direct to SF and a better transfer for Berkeley would be in Fremont. Except the city of Fremont knows this and it would eliminate any need for extending BART so they are doing everything they can to disrupt Dumbarton and side track ACE in Livermore.

Transportation planning is jobs creation. It has nothing to do will moving people.

]]> By: Aaron Priven http://www.ibabuzz.com/transportation/2006/10/18/ace-up-our-sleeve/comment-page-1/#comment-290 Aaron Priven Thu, 19 Oct 2006 20:04:52 +0000 http://www.ibabuzz.com/transportation/2006/10/18/ace-up-our-sleeve/#comment-290 BART was built in the 1950s at a time when there was no conventional passenger rail left, so there was no clear need to build a joint station. ACE was created in the 1990s on existing rail lines. Each time, it made sense. When ACE first started there was an AC Transit shuttle bus designed to meet the ACE trains, but it was cut at some point (I believe the 2003 AC Transit budget cuts).

Building a transfer station where the two lines cross would be expensive, but good from a regional transportation perspective. On the other hand, it would not be so good from the perspective of the people who live where that station would be located, who might have to be displaced and the remainder would certainly have to deal with the traffic and parking impacts.

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