A.R.T.

About this blog

Andrew Sharp

A.R.T is the International Air Rail Organisation's blog, with news, articles and comment on all things related to air rail links world-wide. Your comments and thoughts are welcome: for obvious reasons, they will be moderated and may be edited.


<  Feb 2012  >
M T W T F S S
    1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29        

Search


     

Categories

Air Rail Today

Recent Articles

Have you missed one?...

Archives

Friends of A.R.T

Syndicate this blog

What is RSS?

FeedBurner
Subscribe to A.R.T by Email

Other Links

Visit Blogcatalog.com - opens in new window

Blog Directory by Blog Flux

Travel

My Zimbio
Top Stories

Hate Spammers? Check this out - opens in new window

We Support Wikipedia
Wikipedia Affliate Button

Visit the b2evolution website (opens in new window)

Aug21

Train or bus?

Permalink | 21/08/09 | Categories: Airports, Customer, Railways, Statistics | by: A Sharp English (UK)

Oakland International Airport is just over 3 km from Coliseum Station, on the BART subway system. There have been plans to put in some kind of rail connection for 12-15 years, and debate still continues.

The current connection is by shuttle bus, AirBART, which runs every 10 minutes.

The bus service could be improved, or some kind of guided system could be installed - and most of the feasible options have been evaluated in the last 15 years!

I believe that a rail shuttle, ideally with through trains to downtown San Francisco rather than just running back and forth between the airport and Coliseum, is the best solution. Especially since Coliseum is more than just a subway station - it is on the very successful San Jose - Sacramento Capital Corridor regional rail line.

What evidence is there that patronage is better (or worse!) if rail or bus is used for this kind of shuttle service?

Now is a good time to get the right answer - there is expertise within IARO, but there are also experts out there with hard evidence! Let me know, please.

Recommend this article to StumbleUpon.com (opens in new browser window)
Permalink | Add or view comment Add or view comments | 2 comments2 comments

Comments & Pingbacks:

Drago Sbragia-Zoricic, Attorney & Consultant [Visitor]
A BART connection direct to Oakland International, which would allow direct trains to downtown Oakland & San Francisco, is very unlikely for financial & political reasons. BART is a complex heavy-rail system, with very high per-mile construction costs (and no easy right-of-way available). The level of passenger traffic at OAK would probably not justify the costs.

Furthermore, BART's history with the much-ballyhooed extension directly into San Francisco International is not promising, even though SFO has several times the air passenger traffic of OAK. BART traffic levels into & out of SFO have been very disappointing. and service is being cut back -- perhaps due (at least in part) to a substantial surcharge on the fares imposed to help defray the construction costs.

Even the most logical ideas must (unfortunately sometimes face political realities.
Permalink  | Posted on: 28/08/09 @ 02:03
asharp [Member]
BART traffic levels to and from SFO may be disappointing, but only by European standards! It has the 5th highest rail mode share of any US airport - and Oakland ranks 3rd. See "Ground access to major airports by public transportation", ACRP report 4 table 4.1 on page 69.
Permalink  | Posted on: 28/08/09 @ 10:22

Comments are closed for this post.