Page One

Four new stops south
of San Francisco will
park thousands of cars 

Tired of airport traffic? Then leave the car in the driveway.  

By January Berkeley residents will be able to take the BART directly to San Francisco International Airport in about 70 minutes and for an estimated cost of $7 to $8. 

That trip will come courtesy of a $1.5 billion rail service extension, from just south of San Francisco to the airport, that is nearly complete.  

The project, which had been planned for 30 years and was under construction for four, has survived political intrigue, cost overruns and a rash of dead garter snakes.  

On Monday, BART and the San Mateo County Transit District, which is operating the new stations in conjunction with BART, provided a trial run of the new service for elected officials and members of the media. 

“This is truly a profound addition to the quality of our lives,” said Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Hillsborough, who worked to secure $750 million in federal funding for the project. The rest of the money came from a variety of state and local sources. 

The full project includes four new BART stations, extending south from the current terminus at Colma. The stations, from north to south, are South San Francisco, San Bruno, San Francisco International Airport and Millbrae. 

Passengers will be able to connect with Caltrain transit service at the Millbrae station and continue south along the San Francisco peninsula. 

“You’ll be able to quickly and efficiently get from Berkeley to anywhere that Caltrain travels in the South Bay,” said BART General Manager Thomas Margro.  

“This has been a long, knock-down, drag-out fight,” said James Fang, of the BART Board of Directors. “Boy, am I glad we made it.” 

The BART extension has survived funding fights in the U.S. Congress, $300 million in cost overruns and the death of three endangered garter snakes during construction – which raised environmental concerns and delayed the project. 

The project will add 8.7 miles of track to the existing BART system and is expected to serve an additional 70,000 passengers each day. The system currently serves 310,000 passengers a day. 

Each day the new stations will save 10,000 auto trips to the airport and 23,000 auto trips in San Mateo County, officials say, reducing pollution and congestion on the U.S. Highway 101 corridor. 

BART estimates that about half of its arriving passengers at SFO will be able to walk to ticket counters within five minutes. The rest will be able to take an AirTrain, a small “people mover” that looks like a monorail train, to the appropriate gate.  

In an informal poll in downtown Berkeley, BART riders said the projected $7 to $8 price tag is hefty, but suggested that they will use the new service. 

“I think $7 is too expensive,” said Kai Hutson, a recent graduate of Mills College in Oakland. “But I would do it, because normally I would pay about $40 for a shuttle.” 

BART spokesperson Ron Rodriguez said the forecasted fare would still be less expensive than driving to the airport from the East Bay when gas, tolls, parking and vehicle wear-and-tear are considered.