Infrastructure Weak

We need to get the fire code fixed to stop this wide-road-on-two-sides nonsense

“We’re really banking on SB 63 because if we don’t get that, it’s going to look very dire, and we’re going to have to cut service even more,” Walsh said. “It’s going to be very important for people who care about transit … to get involved.” www.dailycal.org/news/city/tr... @dailycal.bsky.social

VTA Wants to Give Up on BART Cost Savings The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA)’s $12.75 billion BART Silicon Valley Phase II (SVBARTII) project has been criticized…

New from me:

At a meeting on the Silicon Valley BART project starting now, VTA is proposing to stop efforts to find major cost savings in its tunnel design.

VTA has the money to push construction forward, but not to finish. If they give up on these savings, they will need to find billions later.

In 2021 Metro formally adopted a goal of 10k units of TOD near its station on Metro-owned land by 2031.

In 2025, a third of the way to 2031, Metro has only delivered 377 units at four sites.
metro.legistar.com/LegislationD...

Mobile screenshot of the VTA website, with partial views of a map and list of TOD sites. The 12 sites visible on the list are: A. Almaden Phase I (Completed) B. Ohlone/Chynoweth Phase I (Completed) 1. Alder Station (Opportunity Site) 2. Almaden Station (Opportunity Site) 3. Alum Rock Transit Center (Opportunity Site) 4. Berryessa/North San Jose Transit Center (Active Development) 5. Blossom Hill Station (Active Development) 6. Branham Station (Active Development) 7. Capitol Station (Active Development) 8. Capitol Caltrain Station (Opportunity Site) 9. Cerone Division (Opportunity Site) 10. Cottle Station (Opportunity Site)

The site could be outdated, but VTA doesn't mark any of its 28 projects as complete. The previous two projects, Almaden Phase 1 (at the defunct station) and Ohlone/Chynoweth Phase 1 were done in the '90s.

www.vta.org/programs/toc...

I haven't been able to determine whether the 26ft fire hydrant requirement was in effect in Milwaukee in ~2005. Where it applies, though, fire departments are often strict about it. San Francisco's Fire Department doesn't like letting flex posts or mountable curbs into the clear zone, for example.

Not so. Appendix D is part of the US & Canada "International Fire Code." Adoption by a given jurisdiction is optional, but quite common. The California Fire Code is modeled on the national one.

BART riders will soon be able to pay by tapping a credit card. Here’s when After a long wait, BART commuters will finally pay for rides the same way they pay for literally everything else: by tapping a debit or credit card at the gate.

Bay Area transit riders get open payment - pay with credit/debit card - starting next week - starting with BART. The feature will be available on the other 24 agencies using Clipper technology later in the year. www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...

The legislature is working on a Cap and Trade Reauthorization deal. We want the deal to:
1. Pilot a multi-year investment framework to fund the State Rail Plan
2. Guarantee a minimum of $1 B/year for High Speed Rail
3. Eliminate free allowances to make polluters pay & increase C&T revenue
🧵

Is the average wait time truly 18 minutes, or is that the maximum? One vehicle running in shuttle mode should be providing 18-minute headways.

America needs more homes. A long-forgotten idea from California could be the solution. The suburbs around big cities are slowing down real estate development. Forming regional entities would make it easier and cheaper to buy a home.

New from me: America needs stronger regional governance to fix its cities and end the suburban free rider problem. I look at a few good ideas for this that California considered and then abandoned in the late 80s/early 90s. www.businessinsider.com/lower-home-p...

For the 26ft requirement at the hydrant one might argue there needs to be a 6ft standoff for hoses, then a truck, and then room for passing trucks?

You can usually come up with a reason having a code requirement would be nice, but I don't think much work has been put into whether this is worth it.

I've never dug into the code adoption history for the actual rationale argued, but a justification I've heard is that a ladder truck needs to be able to deploy outriggers and then still have room to be passed by other trucks.

Street safety advocates want narrower roads. The fire department is opposed Slowing traffic and more bike lanes could make it harder for Oakland Fire to fight fires

It's unfortunate that Appendix D is still (apparently) driving street design in Oakland. Street safety advocates have been pushing for a better safety balance, between maximum fire truck access and pedestrian and bike protection, for a long time.

That width - 11+5+7+3 - totals to the magic 26ft clear required by the "fire apparatus access road" code. Fire department requirements are likely driving this configuration - if the bike lane were parking-protected, the parked cars would impede the 26ft.

Interesting bus lane setup in Stockholm where center-running lanes split into two counterflow bus lanes.

Photo through the front of a bus within the Salesforce Transit Center, showing one of several overhead speed check digital displays. This one displays "YOUR SPEED: 10" next to a static sign reading "SPEED LIMIT: 10." The transit center's white, architecturally exposed steel facade and ceiling paneling can also be seen.

This transit center also has a strict 10mph speed limit throughout, which makes for an excruciating multi-block crawl to one's bus bay. I think our liability emphasis and low value on "will the transit be good" produces this sort of purpose-ruining treatment for anything novel or "facility"-like.

I'm interested in the legal & design culture differences that enable that yield crossing operation in Stockholm, while the same movement in San Francisco requires a gated & staffed full stop.

Sure, and at sufficient level of BART service the existing cross-platform Bay Fair transfer is an excellent way to access local destinations on BART. Much better than adding another wye to the system, which would break that transfer and reduce effective frequency between legs of the new wye.

Crude rail line drawing on a satellite map of the Tri-Valley and South Bay areas of the San Francisco Bay. Two lines have been drawn in. One is the ACE right of way, with ~5 stops and a relatively direct route from Livermore in the east to San Jose in the south. The other is the BART right of way, with ~12 stops and a jog to the west on its route from Dublin/Pleasanton in the east to San Jose in the south.

Improving the ACE ROW and service would be far more ideal than a one-seat ride on BART from Dublin/Pleasanton to San Jose.

As it well shouldn't. The late 2010s shift in management and board consensus away from 3rd rail extension and to core service improvement was important. BART is neither the right network layer nor an efficient infrastructure for long distance.

As I understand your proposal, it is 30tph transbay and none from 12th to Lake Merritt.

In the future where we're building again, that's less capacity than BART's Metro 2030 study for post-CBTC service (below). East Bay passengers would take up room on SF trains & get less local frequency.

I can't see a shuttlized Dublin branch proposal (good future concept - more trains to San Jose) without pitching the regional rail conversion (pair with Altamont tunnel and Link21 for Livermore/Tracy/Lathrop/Modesto/Stockton to SF)

That's such a clutch location. You're right, the crazy pencil-sharpened crayon thing would be fun to do for that project. I'm feeling held back by opaque freight dealmaking, and an assumption that cross-platform would be more headache than it's worth.

Short thread responding to a Jack London Square BART infill station idea

There are many options for rapid transit to Jack London Square, e.g.:

• Trenching & electrifying the mainline with Link21
• JLS stop on a light metro running from Alameda to the 12th St basement, if freed up by other crayon.

In the near term bus service just needs to be saved via the 2026 measure.

Map of the Downtown Oakland and Jack London Square area, around the BART Oakland wye. The wye sends trains between the north, east, and west directions. In the marked up lines on this map, the east-west leg of the wye, which currently is a double S curve, has been replaced by a bypass line farther south. The new segment of line is shown with a station at Broadway and 4th in Jack London Square. Source: https://medium.com/@infrastructureweak/late-opinions-on-link21-a8b8aed383b3

Here's a 2023 crayon for a Jack London infill BART station that would also fix the wye. Lake Merritt losing SF trains may be unacceptable. I've never seen this bypass concept studied, and it'll be far future before it's useful - CBTC will improve the wye to 30 tphpd in the transbay tube.

Map of Downtown Oakland and Jack London Square, showing options considered for BART infill stations on the west leg of the Oakland wye near Jack London Square. Option 1 is furthest east, right at the bend out of the wye tunnel. Option 2a is five blocks farther west, in line with Interstate 980. Option 2b is two blocks farther west than that, out of the Jack London Square area proper. Source: https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/docs/JLSFeasibility1.pdf

Long text excerpt, same source. OPTION 1: INFILL STATION AT WASHINGTON STREET PORTAL The installation of a station at the exit of the Washington Street BART Portal would provide the greatest proximity to Jack London Square. The track in the vicinity of the Portal has a 3.75% grade, while BART’s station design criteria require an overall grade of 1% or less.1 Consequently, to allow for the necessary grade at an infill station, some tracks that converge under- ground in the Oakland Wye would have to be re- configured. Moreover, the three switches located in this area of track would need to be maintained. The addition of a station would thus entail the relocation of the existing switches westward towards the West Oakland Station. In so doing, the aerial structure would need to be reconfigured to carry the three tracks and associated switches. These factors would make the location of a sta- tion here an enormously costly endeavor with sig- nificant operational impacts in the densest por- tion of the BART system where routes merge and diverge. Since revenue service would have to be maintained during construction, this would add greatly to the complexity and cost of the project. While the precise cost of such an endeavor is unknown, it is many more times greater than other options considered in this study. A thorough analysis of this option would require substantial funds for an engineering review.

Another text excerpt. OPTION 2A: INFILL STATION BETWEEN CASTRO AND MARKET STREETS Another option is to locate the station closer to the existing West Oakland BART Station, utilizing the existing track configuration and conforming to design criteria. One such location for such a station exists between Castro Street and Market Street. To utilize this site and maintain opera- tional flexibility, a third track would need to adjoin one of the two platforms. Unfortunately, the vertical curve in the existing trackwork lead- ing out of the Portal compresses the available space for a turnout and crossover to be installed, and precludes this track from fitting between the Portal and this particular site. However, locating the station slightly further towards the West Oakland Station to make room for the turnouts and crossover only pushes the station past the available straight section of track. As a result the station cannot be constructed at this location to meet BART’s criteria and is therefore not a viable option.

BART maintains that a station at Brush St would have unacceptable operational impacts - see the 2003 Jack London study.

I agree: the wye is the system constraint, and too tight - one train in it blocks two paths. A two-track Brush St station would allow station incidents to deadlock the wye.

Screenshot of the Google MyMap linked by the poster above. It shows a BART station at Jefferson and 4th, a few blocks west of Broadway in Jack London Square, Oakland.

3d satellite view from Google Earth of the area from the map. The elevated BART tracks are visible in front of elevated Interstate 880. On the right/east side of the image, where the infill station was marked, the tracks are still sloping out of the ground. They level out on the left/west side of the image.

The existing BART tracks aren't level at Jefferson Street where you've shown this Jack London infill station, however that doesn't mean a station is impossible. First, the tracks are level to the west at Brush St, so could accommodate side platforms. However...

Short thread here, responding to a suggestion that BART be extended north of Richmond to Vallejo: