MTC is proposing to use $91m of the funds originally slated for Dumbarton, Rail for the BART extension to Warm Springs. Dumbarton Rail, which is about $300 million short of funds, would get its funding restored in later years. Meanwhile the BART project, which is just about funded and scheduled to get underway next year, would get a $91 million cash infusion.

The proposal is part of a strategic plan that the MTC is scheduled to vote on next month.

The time frame for restoring the $91 million to Dumbarton Rail is 2019 - 2027. Makes you think Dumbarton Rail is a long way off, if it happens at all.

The cash transfer would make for some happy Fremont officials. They don’t support Dumbarton Rail, which would link the Union City Bart Station with the Redwood City Caltrain Station.

I’m supposed to write a story today about how much longer it’s going to take BART to fix the damage from last month’s  in Hayward, so people riding from Fremont (and Union City) to Richmond won’t have to transfer in Bay Fair.  So far all I can get from BART is an email saying it’s going to be another 4-5 weeks before direct service is restored. I’ll have another update when BART returns my call.

The fellow pictured on the right is our city editor, Rob Dennis. Sadly for the seven or so editorial folks still left at The Argus, this is his last day on the job.

Loyal Tri-City Beat readers might remember Rob as the angry guy whose lone venomous post about a bogus BART parking ticket triggered an avalanche of anti-BART rants.

But Rob is more than just a hater. He’s our best investigator, most seasoned reporter and sharpest editorial writer. He’s also our resident beer guzzler, chain smoker and card shark.

Rob has shared major awards for a series about mortgage lenders discriminating against minorities, and coverage of the Rodney Blach trial. Later this month, we’ll print a four-part series that is mostly his work.

Rob came to The Argus eight years ago after a distinguished tenure as a Wal-Mart sales associate and several years living off the dole in his native Ireland.

Starting Wednesday, he returns to his roots — mooching off other people’s tax dollars.

Rob was one of about 100 MediaNews-East Bay (our parent company) employees who took a buyout last week as our newsroom continues to shrink.

He’ll collect unemployment, freelance a little and eventually head over to Prague to work on a documentary film. He says it’ll be about Eastern Europe 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but word on the street is that it’s really a first-person piece on how former Communist bloc countries have kept beer prices under $1 a pint.

We might have to start a liver transplant fund for him.

In case anyone cared, Rob never did pay that parking ticket. BART backed down in the face of Rob’s irrefutable evidence and exasperated sighs. It was a big pain in the butt, but in the end, it was worth it. We hope that’s how Rob will come to look back on his time at The Argus.

Hey, Rob! Take care, buddy. We’ll miss you.

In response to the BART to Warm Springs story I wrote earlier this week, I got this letter from former BART Board Member Roy Nakadegawa. He thinks the extension (WSX) is too expensive and raises some interesting points:

As a former BART Board Member who’s efforts was for BART to be concerned with our environment, cost, effectiveness and social equity. With BART’s Warm Springs Extension, I have been concerned in that it is located in an area that presently has little existing development of any magnitude and that two thousand parking spaces will be built to generate its ridership. Read the rest of this entry »