Published Friday, June 20, 2003, in the San Mateo County Times

BART to open SFO line on Sunday
After 47 years, Bay Area's top transit project finally arrives

By Sean Holstege

It was spring 1997 and decades-old plans for BART serving San
Francisco International Airport teetered on the brink of oblivion.

Airline executives privately wrung the wrists of BART and SFO
officials, while they leaned on powerful people in the U.S. Senate to
kill the rail extension. Senators were listening.

Prospects of getting key federal funding seemed slim and slipping. It
was the moment BART considers the darkest hour in its 47-year-long
campaign to bring trains to SFO.

But a deal with the airlines was struck, the money came and, on
Sunday, the first of those trains will pull into the SFO station
carrying fare-paying passengers.

Sunday, BART opens the $1.5 billion, 8.7-mile line and its four new
stations. The project has topped the region's priority list of
transportation projects since the early 1980s.

"In the final analysis, what it took to make this project work was
bringing together a lot of disparate people who had never worked
together," said Larry Dahms, who spearheaded the effort as executive
director of the region's Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

"This project, more than any, brings the Bay Area together, because it
isn't just getting to the airport, it's connecting transit. This is a
physical connection, whereas it took a political connection to make it
happen. It's better than building pyramids," Dahms said.

Reactions outside the Dublin/Pleasanton BART station Thursday
afternoon were favorable toward the extension.

"I think it's something we might use," said Ben Folden of Pleasanton,
adding that he had been discussing the extension just that morning
with his mother. "I think it sounds definitely very appealing," he
said.

Miguel Salsedo, buying BART tickets, agreed. He and his family might
duck traffic by taking BART instead of driving when they fly out of
SFO.

"You don't have to go through the hassle of parking," Salsedo said.

Thursday, beaming BART officials and a curious gaggle of press got a
look at what patrons can expect. From the polished platform, they will
see views of trains and looming tails of 747s just beyond. Entering
through a huge revolving glass door, they are greeted by the sights
and sounds of the cavernous international terminal.

The extension still has its critics. They complain that service costs
too much, takes too long or involves too many transfers for passengers
on the Richmond or Fremont lines.

Some think trains will get cluttered with luggage and daily commuters
will be inconvenienced by tourists. And there are many transit
advocates who just don't like BART and would rather the money had been
spent on buses and cheaper forms of rail transit.

Nonetheless, for most Bay Area residents, Sunday's opening ushers in
an era of promise and of new choices, and not just for the airport.

The joint BART-Caltrain Millbrae station will instantly be the third
busiest in the system, BART expects. It will be the first station west
of the Mississippi River where passengers can walk across a platform
and board two different commuter rail systems.

[BATN note: LA MTA's red line and Amtrak and Metrolink are in the same
building. BART and the Capitol Corridor share a station in Richmond.
BART and Muni share four stations in San Francisco.]

It promises to open up a whole new commute to the Peninsula for East
Bay residents, a real connection in both directions between homes and
jobs in San Francisco and San Jose, and an economic shot in the arm
for San Mateo County. Every BART extension opening has been followed
by a local burst of commercial building.

But it was the airport, and the Bay Area's disgust that the fifth
busiest airport in the country remained unconnected to rail, that
prompted all the shouting. It was unthinkable such a cosmopolitan area
be so behind the times, people here thought.

SFO is the first airport in the west with direct train service to an
air terminal.

"This is what we fought for: a station in the airport," veteran BART
Director Dan Richard said.

Whether it matches all the pent-up expectations remains to be seen.

Transportation experts say that the BART-like service to Washington's
Reagan National Airport is the model. One rider in seven on the
heavily used system goes to the airport, which relocated its terminal
to be across the street from trains.

[BATN: This is under half the usage of conventional rail links to
many airports in Europe and Asia.]

Elsewhere, airport transit service is a mixed bag. Service to
Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport has not been widely embraced. Some
airports do not have direct rail connections, but rely on
people-movers or light rail.

In 1999, at the peak of the pre-9/11 air travel boom, the Transit
Cooperative Research Program concluded for the National Academies that
"transportation improvements are essential" and that airports "be
accessible by convenient and affordable transportation services."

Researchers noted that 20 U.S. airports were considering some kind of
rail connection, because "traffic congestion near large airports is
particularly problematic."

Dahms and others agree, and think SFO will fare better than most
airports for that very reason. "I think it will do much
better. Highway 101 is a bloody mess," he said.

BART General Manager Tom Margro said the Bay Area's confining
geography of hills and bay waters will lure people, particularly from
the East Bay, to take the train to SFO rather than drive.

"We have the potential for a lot more riders than we project," Margro
said. BART planners say 33,000 people will ride the new line
initially, a number they say will grow to 70,000 by the end of the
decade.

Who rides where, and how it affects regular service is the only
remaining question in Margro's mind. For two weeks, BART has been
running empty trains on the extension, using the same schedule and
service as will be in place next week. There have been no major
hitches, he said, noting BART has learned from its troubled opening of
the Pleasanton/Dublin Station in 1997.

That extension was delayed months because BART couldn't figure out how
to get new machines to talk to 30-year-old computers, particularly the
ones that control train movements. This time BART tested the
communications over the Internet as construction progressed.



Staff writer Brooke Bryant contributed to this report.