Ironically, my car was eventually stolen from my home when in a gated parking area.

Sure, but that doesn’t mean parking needs to be free. Charging a fair market rate for parking means it will be available at all times of the day to anybody who wants it.

Won’t the hundreds of new residents near MacArthur Bart make the surrounding area far safer to walk in than it is right now?

And if there was no parking at the North Berkeley station, wouldn’t you be walking home with your neighbor, or waiting with her for the bus?

On the one hand I can see the issue of subsidies skewing the distribution of expenses to benefit mostly longer distance commuters at the cost of non-drivers and local bus riders.

But on the other hand I do also understand and sympathize with many of my neighbors who won’t take BART at all unless they can drive and park at the station. They do this because they don’t feel safe waiting for a bus at BART stations and don’t feel safe walking home.

And indeed one of my neighbors was mugged at the North Berkeley BART station a couple of months ago as she came home in the afternoon. My neighbors is a true trooper, walking the 2 miles to and from the BART station regularly. (She does this because it takes less time from our West Berkeley neighborhood to walk than to take AC transit to the BART station.) But she is also retired. And I fear that she might be permanently harmed by a mugging gone too far. I wish that she would drive to the station despite her environmental consciousness. I don’t want to see her get hurt.

North Berkeley BART has historically had a fair number of “rat pack” muggings. In the past the City of Berkeley has employed part time police aides to offer assistance to BART riders because of the security concerns. This service stopped when the city budget became tight.

I can really see why people close to the MacArthur BART station don’t want to see any reduction in parking. Some the areas to the west of the station aren’t very safe places to walk, bicycle or wait for a bus.

When advocates push people to ride the bus, they often miss one of the reasons why people who are otherwise sympathetic drive instead. And that is that in many neighborhoods it simply is less than safe for people to walk to and from the bus stop at certain times of day. Also many people don’t want to have to transfer between busses at some intersections (for example along San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland) after dark.

The reality of the level of crime on the street affects our modal choices. Providing parking at least offers some people the opportunity to use transit when otherwise they might not.

Better access for drive/BART connections would help transit a lot. The Fremont BART station is hemmed-in/cut-off by a hospital and city park. The Warm Springs Extension (even without going on to San Jose) would bring BART closer to I680, I880, and 237.

Enjoy your well used and safe transit parking and access controlled system. Here in Sacramento, parking ones car at the Light rail station is only done if you what to donate to the local parts houses. The homeless don’t need to sleep in parked cars when they can sleep in the Air Conditioned trains for free.