Ah, it’s time again to play “Guess The Opening Date”—money wagers only, please. Although the details weren’t revealed (if they even existed), we all knew that when BART announced last June that the Milpitas and Berryessa stations would open before the end of 2019 that it was another conjuring act for the easily duped. Yesterday BART as much as admitted that. With the “discovery” of over “1,000 problems” in the new stations and track, there likely isn’t enough time to resolve them and get testing done to open those stations this year. But thank goodness BART has assigned “its very best engineers” to do testing! Whatever. I’m sure they’re on it.
There hasn’t been a construction deadline that BART hasn’t blown by years, so whatevs. And to think the original opening date was projected to be 2016. Well, that’s just three- no, four years late. But arriving late is so fashionable, n’est-ce pas? We are going to be damn lucky if Berryessa station is open in time for next year’s Mt. Hamilton ride in November.
And with its track record [pun intended] BART has the gall to come to the table to ask for another fat tax measure to line its dysfunctional coffers. Aren’t you getting the feeling that BART is an endless black hole of tax money? We just passed Measure RR and now BART is already planning its next mugging. It’s like building more freeways: you never catch up because expansion just induces more demand, which leads to BART needing still more money. People have already realized that in the Bay Area we can’t continue building more freeways. When are we going to come to the same realization with BART?
You may use BART to get to work. But how many Spokers actually use BART to get to rides? On the rides that Roger and I lead, which we try to start at BART stations to encourage use of public transportation, I’d say only about a quarter of riders do; most people drive to the start. But parking at BART stations on weekends is awesome!
The Chain Letter 