Richard,
Your letter is too angry to really, rationally, respond to, even where I
agree with you, but you make a few statements and assumptions that I
think must be questioned.
> * Third Street rail is partly being sold as a racial equity thing,
> promising Bayview and Vis Valley a $450ish million choo choo line as an
> urban renewal tool. The reality is that the line is a $300 million
> gift to Catellus, and that only a tiny fraction of service will run
> beyond the edge of the Mission Bay development at Mariposa Street.
While there is some truth to the view that the Third Street rail line
uses resources that could better be used elsewhere, I still think it
will prove to be an important addition to MUNI's rail network -- _if_
MUNI can manage to run it (and I do recognize how big an if that is).
First, the ratial equity issue should not be ignored; these are people
who have been ignored too long, and providing them with a fair share of
the infrastructure is not necessarily irrational or against the city's
economic interests. The fact is, this area is where San Francisco's
future growth will be, and there is a lot to be said for getting the
infrastructure to support that growth in place now, while our economy is
strong and the money is available, and when it can be done without
disrupting on-going activity (as building under Geary will invitably do,
if they ever install a rail line there). Also, there is a lot to be
said for providing the infrastructure for good public transit in place
before the people living there get totally dependent on cars, or
car-dependent suburbanites move in. Tie up the road space with rail
now, and we'll be a lot happier later on.
> Ridership is projected to be trivially higher than the bus service.
In the near term. I will be very surprised if this is the case in, say,
fifteen or twenty years, whatever the current projections.
> Because of Willie Brown's high-handed giveaway to UCSF
So, how would letting UCSF go to Oakland or the South Bay have benefited
San Francisco? Willie Brown has got a lot of well-deserved criticism,
from me as much as anyone else, but he deserves nothing but praise for
this particular deal. Sure, it's a "givaway" but every action can be
seen that way if that is what one wants. If there were any realistic
alternatives that would have left the city better off, I am not aware of
them.
> * And let's not forget that if the crazy Stockton (via Third AND Fouth)
> tunnel is built -- and let's hope it dies a quiet death in favour of
> Geary Street --, MMX will be essentially unused.
While I agree that a Geary underground should be the city's highest
transportation priority, I emphatically disagree that the Stockton
Street underground is "crazy." Anyone who spends any time downtown
knows that Stockton is probably the most congested street in the city,
and it can take literally hours for 30-Stockton to negotiate from China
Town to the CalTrain station. (During rush hour, it is literally faster
to walk from Market to Townsend.) The design may or may not be "crazy"
-- I don't know -- but the idea is not.
> The real problem, which you briefly touch on, is that Fifth and King
> is being used as a layover. It is not at all uncommon to see five $3
> It's Muni's
> inept operations, not the track layout at the station, which is the
> problem.
This probably applies to both Stockton and Third Street. MUNI, as
presently configured, clearly is incapabile of running them. But that
doesn't mean they shouldn't be built, for if and when MUNI management is
ever "fixed."
-- _________________________ Donald F. Robertson San Franciscodonaldrf@hooked.net
Donald's Space Exploration page: http://www.hooked.net/~donaldrf/index.html
The known is finite, the unknown is infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land. -- Thomas Huxley.