As part of my ongoing fantasy reworking of Bay Area transit, here is the next installment: a 150+ mile rail corridor from Cloverdale to Gilroy, including San Jose, San Francisco, Santa Rosa and more. It sounds crazy I know, but hear me out.
First of all, remember that my transit plans are only loosely tied to reality. I have created a world where the vast majority of public transit is handled by one agency: the imaginary Bay Area Metro, or BAM. In this world there are no environmental impact surveys, no budget deficits, no earthquakes and no NIMBYism. I just want to imagine what Bay Area transit could be if our leaders were more visionary, our state was less broke, and our populace was less obstructionist.
Much of the infrastructure for the Cloverdale -> Gilroy train already exists. It includes the entire length of the work-in-progress SMART system (Cloverdale -> Larkspur), approved by voters in 2008. That right there is 70 miles of track.
Additionally the 60 miles of Caltrain’s existing tracks between Millbrae and Gilroy is part of the corridor.
Finally, the 10 miles of BART track between Millbrae and Daly City is the last bit of existing infrastructure to be included.
That leaves roughly 20 miles of track to lay, and eight or so stations to construct. Not a trivial task to be sure, but far easier to get your head around than an entire 150+ mile system.
At this point I should probably explain the monstrous caveat with the above plan. You see, even though in my world Caltrain and BART (and all the other transit agencies) have merged, the physical reality is that Caltrain and BART use different gauge tracks in their systems. Caltrain uses what’s called standard gauge, where the distance between rails is 4 feet, 8.5 inches, while BART uses Indian gauge at 5 feet, 6 inches. So clearly my idea as described would appear to be fatally flawed.
The solution of course is to rip up the BART tracks (yes all 100+ miles of them!) and replace them with standard gauge, which is how it should have been built all along. Standard gauge is used by 60% of railroads worldwide, including the New York Subway and Chicago’s ‘L’ train. Once the BART tracks are replaced, we can have true integration between it and Caltrain (and eventually Amtrak’s Capitol Corridor to Sacramento, and the Altamont Commuter Express to Stockton).
Caveat aside there is still the expensive and politically difficult task of building the 20 miles of track between the southern terminus of the SMART line (Larkspur Landing) and the Daly City station. Below you’ll see my proposal for such a system. The way I see it, most or all of the new track running through San Francisco would be underground, while the part in Marin would be mostly above-ground.
And yes, it goes across the Golden Gate Bridge! How cool would that be to remove a couple lanes of traffic to accommodate a train? People would go ape-shit in protesting this of course, but I don’t care. Marin commuters can take the train to work. Commuting to downtown SF will be a snap because if you remember from my previous post, the BAM system also has a new subway running the entire length of Geary street. These two lines will intersect at a new subway station at the intersection of Geary and Park Presidio Blvd, allowing for easy access to downtown.
So I guess that’s enough backstory. Below are a few maps showing the proposed layout.
The colors are as follows: red is the existing commuter rail infrastructure (BART and Caltrain), green is future commuter rail growth (both real and imaginary), blue is existing light rail (MUNI), and cyan is future light rail growth. Purple icons represent transfer stations.
The first map shows the entire system. You can zoom and scroll around the map as with any Google map, or look below at some pre-zoomed views.
View SMART Extension in a larger map
The second map is a closeup of the new rail that would be laid along 19th Avenue/Park Presidio Boulevard in San Francisco up to the Golden Gate Bridge. Note the station placement intersects with existing light rail lines at Judah and Taraval, and the future rail line at Geary. It also has strategic station placement at SFSU/Stonestown, the museum complex at Golden Gate Park, and the Golden Gate Bridge itself.
View SMART Extension in a larger map
This final map shows southern Marin. The tracks would be primarily above ground, with two new stations south of the already planned Larkspur Landing Station. I envision a large park-and-ride at the Strawberry Station to accommodate SF commuters. And yes, I know it’s pretty ambitious to include a station at Sausalito, but what the hell.
View SMART Extension in a larger map