You can’t put a price on the aggravation of being stuck in traffic. That comment from a Bay Area transportation official become the theme of my story today about the toll on the region from a six-day closure of the Bay Bridge for emergency repairs.
And much as that statement is true, we at the newspaper tried to take an admittedly crude stab at the cost of that aggravation. Our estimate: $7.5 million. This was based on an assumption that motorists who cross the Bay Bridge were delayed an hour a day in their commuting. Read how we made the estimate.
We invite our readers to post comments below about how the Bay Bridge closure affected them during the five and a half days the span was out of service.
Did the closure change your travel plans? Did the closure try your patience? Was it understandable Caltrans took so long to fix a Labor Day repair that failed Tuesday? Do you feel comfortable traveling on the bridge after the repairs are finished?
Let us know below, and if you leave your name and city of residence, we may use excerpts of comments in a news story.
In the saga of BART’s response to the police shooting of unarmed train rider Oscar Grant III, a few things seemed destined to happen.
First, the transit board members said publicy they were sorry about the shooting. This was in early January during the board’s first meeting after passenger-shot videos showed a transit officer shooting Grant in the back as he lay prone on a station platform. The office has since resigned and been charged with murder.
Negotiations between BART and its second biggest union will resume at 1 p.m today in an effort to avert a planned strike Monday morning, Jesse Hunt, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union announced this morning.
This will be the first face to face negotiations since the union for station agents and train operators announced Thursday that they plan a strike in response to the BART board’s decision to unilaterally impose a contract on the union. Read the rest of this entry »
The risk of a BART strike is on the verge of increasing significantly later today.
The BART board appears poised to impose contract conditions on a union for train operators and station agents later today after the employee group’s leaders late Wednesday night rejected what BART management called its last and final offer. Leaders of the union have threatened to strike if their pay and work rules were imposed on them, and two other BART unions have said they would respect the picket lines even though they have ratified BART’s contract offer.
The BART board will take up the contract issue in a special meeting 11 a.m. today on the third floor of the Kaiser Center 20th Street Mall, 344 20th St., Oakland. Read the rest of this entry »
A strike threat hanging over BART like a dark cloud for weeks has lifted mostly with a tentative contract settlement reached Friday. But the deal needs to clear an important hurdle: ratification by three different employee unions in separate votes.
If that doesn’t happen, then riders may need to dust off those contingency plans for commuting. As Yoga Berra said, “It ain’t over til it’s over.” Read the rest of this entry »
BART riders can breath a little sigh of relief with the news late last night that BART agreed to a 9 day extension of its old labor contracts, which were due to expire midnight Tuesday. Read the rest of this entry »
If you have traveled on the Metro system, share your experiences below on what it was like.
For my part, I rode the Metro during a visit to Washington D.C. about nine years ago, and found it a clean and comfortable way to get around town and the neighboring suburbs.
BART took nearly 36 years to meet its goal for weeknight and weekend service levels: running trains at least every 15 minutes..
Now that upgrade is about to get erased about as as quickly as you can say “recession.” In September, BART will revert back to intervals of train arrivals of up to 20 minutes on weeknights and Saturdays in order to save about $1 million a year. The more frequent service began in January, 2008, during a happier time when ridership was growing. Read the rest of this entry »
