Critical

This section provides an assessment of selectedmajor aspects of the history of Bay Area RapidTransit (BART), rather than attempting to narratethe entire history of transit in San Francisco.Numerous excellent descriptions of the history oftransit planning in the area already exist.4 Moreimportantly, a long and complex historicalnarrative of Bay Area transit planning woulddistract the reader from those elements of BART’shistory most relevant to an evaluation from anational perspective. The key events in the historyof transit planning in San Francisco are sum-marized in the chronology that accompanies thishistory (see page 29).

An assessment of transit planning in the SanFrancisco region naturally focuses on BART. MoreUMTA support has been provided to BART than toany other new transit system in the Nation. TheBay Area probably has committed more of itsresources to BART than any other U.S.metropolitan region has committed to a singlepublic project in any field.

In its original concept, BART was viewed as acompletely comprehensive regional transportationsystem. However, in operation BART is a regionalsystem that is largely supplementary to the region’sexisting transit systems. 5 It did not replace most of

~ Three of the more complete histories are: (1) Frank C.Colcord, Urban Transportation Dec/slonmaklng. 3: San Franc~s(o: A CaseStudy, M. I. T., Cambridge, Mass., May, 1971; (2) NormanKennedy, .San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit: Promises, Problems,Prospects, a paper presented at the 1971 Convention, Society ofAutomotive Engineers, Melbourne, Australia, October 1971;

and (3) Stephen Zwerling, Mass ‘Transit and the Po/lfics of Technology,A StuJy of BART and /he San Francisco Bay Area, Praeger Publishers,N. Y., 1974. A fourth and most complete history becameavailable as final editing of this report was being prepared:McDonald & Smart, Inc., A H/story of /he Key Decisions in theDevelopment of Bay A r e a Rapid Transit, p repared f o r t h eMetropolitan Transportation Commission, September, 197s.

~ It is Important to recognize that, as explained in theMetropolitan Setting section, BART is not the only transitoperator in the San Francisco region. It is not even the largest; itis the third largest of the region’s five major publicly ownedtransit operators in terms of ridership. In addition to BART andthree major regional operators (AC Transit, Golden Gate, andSouthern Pacific), there are literally dozens of other localoperators including one (Muni) which dwarfs BART in ridershipand which operates an extensive light rail system and iscompleting a major subway construction effort.

History of Transit Planningand Decisionmaking

the existing services nor is it primarily meant toprovide new local transit service within the manycommunities of the region where a sore need forlocal service is perceived.

Thus, BART is now but one part of a diverseregional transportation system that has developedover a long period to serve a multicentered urbanregion.

The Bay Area probably was better suited to aregional rail transit system than any other U.S.metropolitan area that did not already haveregional transit service. The high density of the cityof San Francisco and the geography of the region—in addition to the city’s well established transittradition—created favorable preconditions for aregional transit system.

San Francisco’s transit orientation stems from anearly decision by the city to operate transit. SanFrancisco’s city charter of 1900 authorized publicownership of utilities, including transportation,and in 1911 the San Francisco Municipal Railroad(Muni) was established. It is believed to be the firstpublicly owned transit system in the country. SanFrancisco offered high quality, frequent local publictransit service, with complete citywide coverage,long after transit ceased to be a profitable privateenterprise.

San Francisco’s dense pattern of developmentresulted in large part because unlike most otherwestern cities, it grew to maturity in thepreautomobile era.

Finally, the Bay Area’s water barriers encourageddevelopment of relatively independent cities in theregion with significant commercial centers of theirown. By fortuitous geographic happenstance, theseseveral centers developed generally in linearpatterns around the shores of the Bay. Themountain barriers and the great cost of construc-ting regional transportation links across the wide,deep Bay and the Golden Gate reinforced thetendenc y for development to concentrate in SanFrancisco and the region’s other cities,

On the other hand, the opening of the two majorbridges (Golden Gate and Bay Bridge) in the mid-1930’s and the construction of major regional

9

Geography was a major factor in San Francisco’s linear pattern ofdevelopment, well suited to a regional rail system

highways linking the region’s cities tended to period leading to the decision to build BART, (2) theencourage a pattern of more sprawling and period of BART construction, and (3) the recentscattered development. These effects were limited, evolution of the planning process. The discussion ishowever, in comparison to other metropolitan organized under headings corresponding to theseareas. Tolls and long travel distance over these decisionmaking periods.gateways were restraints on auto commuting whilerelatively good public transportation service linkedthe major centers. ” Topography continued toconstrain development significantly. Meanwhile,affected relatively little by the Depression andaided by the improved access, San Francisco’s CBDgrew as the regional financial and institutionalheadquarters.

The following narrative focuses on three periodsin the history of BART decisionmaking: (1) the

~ Electric rail on the Bay Bridge connected with a series ofroutes serving all major East Bay centers. The Southern Pacificprovided commuter rail service on the peninsula, and Muniprovided streetcar service to northern San Mateo County. Inaclditic)n, express bus routes crossed the bridges. (The bridgesput ferries out of business until recently when ferry service wasrestored between San Francisco and Marin County.)

TOWARD A DECISIONTO BUILD BART

By World War II, there was a consensus that thegrowth of San Francisco and its CBD would beseriously constrained unless major new transporta-tion facilities were provided. There were—and stillare—only six arterials entering the city, and trafficvolumes on these routes rapidly had begun toapproach capacity. Manufacturing and distributionindustries were beginning to locate outside the city,and constraints on office growth and other CBDactivity threatened serious economic conse-quences. This context gave rise to the decision tobuild BART.

10

Two apparently conflicting views have beenarticulated to explain the origins of this decision.The “conspiracy theory” holds that BART wasmastermind by a self-interested business elite.The “rational planning theory” views BART as alogical answer to the region’s transportation andgrowth needs. The findings of this assessmentindicate that both explanations are essentiallycorrect.

The “conspiracy theory” perhaps has best beenexpounded through a series of articles thatappeared in the San Francisco Bay Guardian,in publications of the Pacific Studies Center, and inthe book The Ultimate Highrise.7 The thesis is that avery small group of the top San Francisco in-dustrialists and bankers conceived of BART as a keyelement in a grand plan to shape San Francisco intothe “imperial headquarters” of a vast Pacificbusiness empire. BART would make possible thegrowth of a concentrated headquarters center,which would be like Manhattan in both form androle. This type of regional structure, with a highlycentralized nerve center directly linked with allparts of the region by rapid transit, was understoodto be essential to the functioning of a majorinternational business capital. Although BART wasto be conceived and brought into being as part ofthis grand plan by, and in the interests of, thesegiants of San Francisco banking and industry, it wasto be financed primarily through regressive taxeson all Bay Area residents.

In contrast, the “rational planning theory” is thatBART was an optimal solution for the transporta-tion and land development problems which facedthe Bay Area in the 1940’s and 1950’s. BART and itssupporters contend that it evolved as a result ofenlightened and courageous leadership through aplanning process that should be seen as a model forother metropolitan areas.

- Bruc c f3rugmclnn a n d Greggar SIettelancf, editors, T/JeL/ltInfIl/, Illx)lr{+, ~[1~[ [r[ltl, J~t o’. Vnd Ru>ll TLmf~r-d ill~ SLY, S a nFrancisco Bay (juarclian Boc~ks, 1971,

Susan Thistle, L’icki Smith, and William Rlstow, “BART:Fc~rcing the Mlssic>n Undergr[]und, ” %t] Fr[~r/il~~ o B~y Gu~rJl[~tl,N{~\enlber 15-28, 1 Q73,

Burton H. Wolfe, “BART: Steve Bechtel’s $2 Million Toy: ASpec-Ial Guardian Probe,’” San Francisco Bay Guardian, February14, IQ72.

“Re~l~)naljsm and the Bay Area, ” 5FXXI a ! ISS u e of the P[7~ ~llcl{,., iir~ II ({ 11,/ Lk’orl(i r~lt,:rmu, published by Pacific Studies Center,East Pal[) Alto, C-all f , L’(JI. I k, No 1, No\ember-December,1 Q72

“\’ietnam, Allen de, and BIg Bad BART: Rapid Transit as a T(xllof F(~relgn Policy, ” Gene Marine, (publisher and date unknown).

This view holds that BART planning illustrateswell how a transportation plan should relate to thedesired urban form of a region. Its exponents arguethat the BART process demonstrates how todevelop a consensus through the involvement ofelected officials at all levels of government in a verycomplex institutional-political setting. Finally, theysuggest BART was the product of a model planningprocess in that the technological system selectedgrew out of local planning, arrived at quiteindependently—and indeed in spite of—any biasinginfluences of State or Federal financial incentives,regulations, or political pressures.

The conspiracy theory is on target in manyrespects. There is no doubt that early businessleaders were involved, nor that they stood tobenefit from BART through increases in landvalues, through involvement in the construction ofBART, and through increased efficiency in conduc-ting their Bay Area business. Nor is there any doubtthat they were prime movers in persuadinglegislators, supervisors, and others to act at keydecision points, nor that they (along with otherprivate interests who joined them over the firstdecade of planning) were the principal financialbackers of the campaign to sell BART to the voters(see Table 3).

TABLE 3.—Key Figures in BART’s History

Steve Bechtel—President of the worldwide engineering firm,Bechtel Corporation, a founder of Bay Area Council (BAC);member of Board of the Stanford Research Institute, FortuneMagazine's ninth richest man in the U.S. in 1957, responsiblefor getting his firm into the BARTD top management role in1959; and major property owner in the Bay Area. The SanFrancisco Bay Guardian credits him with conceiving of theBART system as a cornerstone of “imperial headquarters” of avast Pacific business empire.

William E. Waste-Vice President of Bechtel, became Chair-man of BAC in 1950.

Adrien Falk—President of S&W Foods, President of CaliforniaChamber of Commerce, member of BAC Board, first BARTDPresident, a key organizer of the public relations campaignthat preceded the 1962 referendum.

John M. Pierce—An executive of the Western Oil and GasAssociation, State Director of Finance for 5 years beforebecoming BARTD’s first General Manager in 1957.

James D. Zellerbach—Chairman of the Board of Crown-Zellerbach Corporation, former U.S. Ambassador to Italy,member of finance committee of Citizen’s Committee forBART campaign, and a major supporter of rapid transit in pre-BART period.

11

Carl F. Wente-Chief Executive officer of Bank of America,member of BAC's Rapid Transit Committee, chairman of fundraising effort for BART campaign.

Henry Alexander—Public relations consultant, full-timemanager of BART election campaign; later he was advertisingconsultant to BARTD.

B. R. (Bill) Stokes-Oak/and Tribune journalist and supporterof BART in the BARTC period, Director of Information in earlyBARTD period and first BARTD employee; General Managerof BARTD from 1963 to 1974.

Marvin E. Lewis—San Francisco Supervisor and corporatelawyer, chairman of BAC’s rapid transit committee and BARTCommission Chairman.

Edgar Kaiser—President of Kaiser Industries, a major BARTsupplier; member of Board of Stanford Research Institute;member of BAC Board and a principal contributor to the BARTcampaign; supporter of stronger regional organization(Golden Gate Authority).

Mortimer Fleishhacker, Jr.—A director of the Clocker CitizensBank, member of BAC’s rapid transit committee.

Kendric Morrish—Vice President of American Trust (a majorEast Bay Bank); President of the Oakland Chamber ofCommerce, later Vice President of Wells Fargo Bank; memberof BAC’s rapid transit committee, and later member of BARTelection campaign committee.

Kenneth M. Hoover—Consultant to PBHM during initialsystem planning; later Chief Engineer for BARTD overseeingPBTB work.

Walter S. Douglas—Partner of PBHM, key person in gettinglead role for his firm in the 1954-56 planmaking process.

John Charles Houlihan—Mayor of Oakland, 1961-62, keypolitical supporter of BART in lining up East Bay businessmenand local elected officials.

George Christopher—Mayor of San Francisco during theBART election campaign and a key supporter of BART,closely linked with BAC.

Tom Clawson—President of Bank of America; President ofBAC; key BART supporter.

Tom Mellon—City Administrator of San Francisco and closeassociate of Governor Earl Warren; principal supporter ofearly legislative efforts.

Cyril Magnin—San Francisco business leader, member ofBAC and prime promoter of BART.

Alan K. Browne—Bank of America top executive, a principalBAC expert on finance and political aspects of the formationof BARTD.

Nils Eklund—Vice President of Kaiser, Chairman of Bay AreaTransportation Study Commission, worked for BART supportin East Bay.

Jack Beckett—Governmental Relations executive withHewlett-Packard Corporation; member of initial BART Com-mission and committee to select BART system planningconsultant in 1953; present Chairman of MetropolitanTransportation Commission and generally identified as a

12

supporter of BART extensions, particularly in San Mateo andSanta Clara Counties.

Stanley McCaffrey—Executive Director of BAC duringcreation of BART, now President of University of the Pacific.

From numerous quotes it is clear that these menhad a vision of the future of San Francisco that wasmodeled after Manhattan: a vision of high-riseoffices (many of them their headquarters offices)served directly by a regional rapid transit system.The business elite was convinced of the importanceof this pattern to the proper functioning of abusiness center for shipping, banking, and invest-ment in industry throughout the Pacific’s rim,

However, it is equally clear that a large numberof planners, other professionals, and communityleaders came to essentially the same conclusionabout the desirable regional urban form andtransportation system. And most of them came tothis conclusion, i t seems clear, quiteindependently—without undue influence fromthose who stood to gain most—through participa-tion in a planning process that was a model for itstime in almost all aspects, and a model even today inat least two ways: (1) the participation of localplanners in the metropolitan transit planningprocess and (2) the conscious use of transit toproduce a given urban form.

Need for a Coalition of Interests

Considering the obstacles that had to be over-come and the number of times the plan was nearlykilled, one must conclude that under the cir-cumstances that prevailed during the 1945 to 1962period, the BART system could not have been builtwithout a surprising identity between the smallgroup of business elite and the larger body politicthat came to express itself through the recognizedtransit planning process.

When the Bay Area Rapid Transit Commissionwas created in 1951, there were massive amountsof Federal and State funding available forhighways —and none for transit. No Federal fundswould be forthcoming for over a decade, and therewas a constitutional prohibition on the use of Statehighway funds for transit. In addition, the Statelegislature was unwilling to finance even a majorportion of the transit planning, except through aloan matched by local funds. Thus, no State moneycould be counted on to help pay for the cost of

construct ion, which was bound to be manyhundreds of times the cost of planning.

In addition, the State put constraints on theregional bonding capacity. A general State require-ment called for 66-2/3 percent voter approval ofany regional tax-supported bond issue. Attempts tolower the percentage met strong resistance fromSenator Randolph Collier, a powerful chairman ofthe California Senate Transportation Committeewho also was father of the State ’s f reewayprogram. Legislatively imposed limits on bondedindebtedness meant that additional revenueswould be needed to construct a regional system.

Raising funds for BART necessitated directconfrontation with highway interests. In order toget legislative approval for using Bay Bridge tollfunds for transit construction, BART backers hadto muster support for a bond issue of at least $500million by November 1962. In addition, as part ofthe agreement to get the legislation, B A R Tsupporters were forced to accept the removal of railtracks from the bridge to make room for moremotor vehicle traffic. (This agreement in effectmade it more difficult for BART to attract trans-Bay patronage, the heart of its market.)

The financing problems were in part a reflectionof the fact that the region had no preexistinginstitutional framework for transit initiatives.There was no established transit lobby and nosignificant support for transit from outside the BayArea, which constituted only about a quarter of theState’s population and representation in ‘thelegislature.

In addition, there was still no regional transpor-tation planning organization, and there were majorobstacles to the creation of one. A long-establishedrivalry assured that any proposals originating inSan Francisco were greeted with great suspicion inthe East Bay. Major retail business interests withinvestments outside San Francisco (in Oakland andSan Mateo counties particularly) tended to opposethe proposed system because they were afraid thattheir customers would be drawn to the city.

Due to the way BARTD’s legislation was written,there was difficulty gaining support from countieswith large populations in rural areas and outlyingtowns. The legislation provided that a county hadto be taxed as a unit, if at all, even though BARTcould offer rail service only to the higher-densityareas. Rural areas and outlying towns could becounted on to vote against BART taxes because

they did not stand to benefit from the transitsystem directly. In particular, Contra CostaCounty was split about evenly between urban andrural, for and against. It required special wooingand the promise of special favors. s

Other problems undermined BART support inSan Mateo and Marin counties. g BART wasrejected by San Mateo County in part because ofopposition from conservative taxpayers whoconsidered the plan fiscally irresponsible, in partbecause of opposition of politically powerful realestate interests, and in part because the county wasalready served by the Southern Pacific commutersystem,

This withdrawal had further repercussionsbecause transit planners had counted on San MateoCounty’s hefty tax base to balance out the weak taxbase in Marin County. Once San Mateo withdrew,there was no feasible way to finance the remainingfour-count y system because of the high cost of theMarin portion of the system relative to its tax base,

In addition, the Golden Gate Bridge Board ofDirectors had rejected the use of BART on thebridge to serve Marin County. The announced

8 Joseph S. Silva from the outlying area of Brentwood held theswing ballot on the July 1962 Board of Supervisors vote to takethe BART bond issue to referendum the following November.Silva was hosted at breakfast the morning of the vote by SanFrancisco Mayor George Christopher and Oakland Mayor JohnHoulihan. Houlihan, in an interview, said that Silva wasprimarily Influenced by the personal appeal of the mayors, buthe acknowledged that Silva’s later appointment to the BARTDBoard may have been his reward for the favorable vote.Houlihan denies that the mayors also promised Silva thatContra Costa County would get the first BART extension.Several others interviewed, however, believe that such apromise was made, although no direct witness to the promisehas been identified.

g Of the original nine counties included in the 1956 long-range master plan, three counties (Napa, Solano, and Sonoma)were not to be served by the first stage system because of theirremoteness and low population. No real effort was made toinclude them in the 1957 BART District legislation. Santa ClaraCounty’s omission, however, was a more complex matter andone that still may be seen as a decision of long-lastingconsequence to the Bay area. The decision to stay out of theDistrict was made during the legislative process in 1%7 largelybecause PBHM’s first-phase plan provided service only to theedge of the county rather than to its core in San Jose’s CBD. Theselection of the terminus for this line was based on technicalcriteria. However, this made it politically infeasible to convinceSanta Clara County’s elected leaders to accept inclusion If itmeant countywide taxation on the same basis as other countiesmore fully served by the system. Efforts to work out a specialtaxation district for the area served proved politically infeasibleas well.

1 3

opposition was based on technical engineeringgrounds, but in the view of many observers it wasmotivated by concern over the affect of BART ontoll revenues,

These two events, coupled with approachingdeadlines to get a plan on the November ballot,caused BARTD to force Marin County out of theDistrict.

BART never would have succeeded in over-coming these and many obstacles if there had notbeen a common interest uniting the business eliteand the larger public in support for BART.

Evidence of Consensus

This assessment has found no direct evidence forthe claim made by the Bay Guardian writers andothers that business leaders originated the BARTconcept. For a while after they formed the Bay AreaCouncil (BAC) in I 9 4 510 the business leadersappeared to support regional highways and bridgesas their main transportation goal—in particular byurging the construction of a second San Francisco-Oakland Bay crossing. Business leaders began topush for a regional approach to rapid transit onlywhen they became convinced that a regional transitsystem was the best way to achieve the goal theyshared with many Bay Area planners: to improveregional access to San Francisco’s CBD. BAC, toachieve its goals, picked up the lead in promotingregional rapid transit only after the concept hadbeen developed out of a planning process thatfocused on technical considerations.

During the Second World War military consid-erations gave rise to increased concerns overcongestion and lack of regional access. The 1947Army-Navy Board Report is believed to be the firstserious proposal for an integrated regional rapidtransit system with a tube under the Bay directlyconnecting transit systems on both sides. TheCongressional resolution that initiated the studywas introduced by San Francisco Congressman

10 The Bay Area Council, which is governed by a boardcomposed overwhelmingly of representatives of the region’smajor industries, has been the prime mover since 1945 for mostefforts to ~r~an ize regional government, regional planning, andpublic works projects which support regional integration. lt hasconsistently played a powerful role in shaping new regionallnstitu t ions; half of the original BART commissioners camefrom the BAC in 19.s1. See “Bay Area Council: RegionalPowerhouse,” by Les Shipnuck and Dan Feshbach, in RPgI(JHalISJH

(I td t)It’ BiIy Arm, Pacific Studies Center, op. cit,

Richard J. Welch. The motivation, for the requestapparently involved technical military concerns—partly a concern over the vulnerability of thebridges and the city to attack and partly arealization that the constraints on regionaltransportation access throughout the Bay Area hadproven to be a handicap to the development ofwartime industries. 11

By the time BAC people joined with key politicalleaders to setup a special rapid transit committee in1949, concerns over the role of transit in regionaldevelopment began to predominate over wartimeconcerns, From 1949 on, BAC and the interests itrepresented were the nucleus of support for BART.These interests seem to have played the lead role ininitiating legislation, obtaining regional politicalbacking, and raising funds to support the 1962BART bond issue campaign. Marvin E. Lewis, acorporate lawyer, San Francisco Supervisor, andchairman of the Bay Area Rapid Transit Commit-tee, is given credit for much of the hard work ingetting support for the formal legislative establish-ment of the BART Commission (BARTC) in the1949-51 period. Despite later allegations that hesought to “Manhattanize” San Francisco, Lewis,who was later chairman of BARTC, has beenquoted as saying that his goal was to alleviatecongestion and provide regional access among BayArea cities.

The charge that business interests were master-minding BART in a covert manner behind thescenes is an exaggeration. In fact, there was littleneed for covert activity. The business communitydid not try to hide its efforts, for it considered thatit was acting in the public interest. It used the mediato draw attention to what it considered to be goals itshared with elected leaders and the public.

It has been alleged that BAC dominated thechoosing of the consultants and the content of theirreports. No supporting evidence for this allegationcan be found during the early period when the basicBART system concept was being developed.DeLeuw, Cather & Company, the first consultanthired in 1952, was a local firm that had done

11 In 1943, war Pt-ociuction had become so hampered byconstraints in the regional transportation system that asubcommi t tee of the House Naval Affairs Committeerecommended that, due to the lack of regional planning, defensework should not be allowed to expand any further in the area.See “BART: Rapid Transit and Regional Control” by Greg DeFreltas, in l<t:~lotlillt,m LId ~ht’ B(7y Arm, Pacific Studies Center, opcit,

previous transit studies for the city—no special-interest relationship has been identified between itand BAC. That study resulted in the BARTCommission’s conclusion that a regional rapidtransit system was needed, and it laid out theformal planning process which was to follow.

DeLeuw, Cather lost out in the 1953 competitionfor the major system planning contract but againno special-interest relationship has been identifiedbetween BAC and the new consultant, Parsons,Brinckerhoff, Hall and MacDonald (PBHM). Thisteam was chosen because it had extensive rapidtransit experience in Manhattan and the advantageof not being associated with one specific part of theregion. The work of this consultant team resultedin the basic master plan for the BART system.

The Stanford Research Institute (SRI), which washired under a separate contract to prepare recom-mendations on the organizational and financialaspects of the proposed system, was the first transitconsultant whose personnel were directly involvedwith BAC. Several BAC people were on the SRIboard at the time, including Kaiser and Bechtel andseveral San Francisco bankers. The recommenda-tions on taxes were similar to those eventuallyused: property and sales taxes and bridge tolls. Lessregressive taxes on business or income wereapparently not considered; gasoline taxes wereconsidered and rejected. 12

It was not until after PBHM and its associatedplanning team had prepared the original nine-county master plan and the permanent BARTDistrict (BARTD) had been established that localfirms with strong BAC ties began to play majorroles in technical aspects of transit system planningand engineering. In 1959, BARTD signed a contract(the first of several) for $600,000 with the three-f i r m j o i n t v e n t u r e o f “ P B - T - B ” : P a r s o n s ,Brinckerhoff, Quade and Douglas (the new nameof PBHM), the Tudor Engineering Company, andthe Bechtel Corporation. The latter two both werebased in San Francisco. The contract wasnegotiated without competition. Steve Bechtelused his long-standing BAC relationship to advan-tage in obtaining a major role for his firm for theremainder of the system planning work and the

12 Norman Kennedy, “San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit:Promises Problems, Prospects, “paper presented at the 1971Convention, Society of Automotive Engineers, Australia,October 1971; and San Franclsco Bay Guardian, op. cit.

dominant management role for all engineeringwork after 1962. 13

Steve Bechtel does not, however, appear to havehad a dominant role in shaping the basic rail plan.By 1959, when his firm first became involved, thebasic system plan had been well established(although it was to shrink in 1962 from a 123-mile,five-county, system to a 75-mile, three-countysystem). The process of developing the basic planduring the 1954-56 period had been shaped to agreat extent by a team of urban designers andplanners working with PBHM in a fairly independ-ent capacity. This mechanism had been establishedat the insistence of BAC’s Bay Area PlanningCommittee, which was composed of planningdirectors of cities and counties of the region. Theplanning team, headed by Norma Westra of theConnecticut firm of Adams, Howard and Creeley,worked closely with planning directors of theregion to develop the regional land use plan uponwhich the rail plan was based. 14

At that time there was widespread agreementamong area planners and the planning professiongenerally on the concept of how a large urbanregion should develop. Urban renewal was neededto save the dying heart of cities; the good urban lifecould only be achieved through high densitydevelopment of the city cores and well-defined andwell-linked system of modes with clear identity.When these and related concepts were applied to

la According to But-ton Wolfe’s article in the February 4, 1973,

Bay Guardian, Bechtel received 90 percent of the eventual $150million management fee paid PBTB. McDonald & Smart (op.cit.), however, report that Bechtel received 25 percent of theJoint Venture’s fee in the 1959-62 period and 45 percent after1962. The total fee was $142 million through July 1, 1972. Allagree that Bechtel exerted his personal power to achieve the role

for his firm.1A Somewhat surprisingly, the importance of the role of local

planners and the BARTD urban planning team in shaping theplan is completely missed in most of the histories. In particularZwerling (op. cit.) and McDonald& Smart (op. cit.) both take theengineers to task for presuming a regional land use plan of theirown in the absence of any officially recognized plan. One mightreach this conclusion by talking only to the engineers and byreading only the final 1956 report, However, numerousinterviews with those involved, both in and out of the team, andmembers of various professions confirm that the urbanplanners working with PBQD in the 1954-56 period did preparea very thorough regional land development plan in closecoordination with local planning staffs, and that this plan did

form the primary rationale for the BART system in terms of itsbasic regional configuration.

1 568-642 0 -76-4

existing Bay Area conditions a plan emerged with ahigh degree of concensus, fairly precisely definingthe BART system and even its station locations. 15

It seems clear that BART was the result of both arational planning process and the promotionalefforts of businessmen. BART was achievedbecause almost all interests involved shared theinitial goals of relieving congestion and preservingand rejuvenating the older city centers. However,each aspired to these goals for different reasons:the businessmen wanted to develop a regionaleconomic headquarters center and to integrate thelabor markets and productive centers of the BayArea; whereas most elected officials and much ofthe public were concerned about congestion andthe negative impacts of freeways. Most urbanplanners coupled these concerns with a strongvision of the role of transit as a catalyst in the cityrenewal process.

Local planners and major local officials wereinvolved in the formal process of developing theplan, but lesser officials and the general public werenot. Instead, an attempt was made to enlist theirsupport for an already fully formulated planthrough a public relations campaign that wasfinanced by BAC members (although they did notin this case work through BAC) and by theconsulting firms and other firms, including severalwho expected to sell their products to BARTD. Thecampaign itself did involve some substantial effortson the part of other political leaders who were notidentified with BAC, notably Oakland Mayor JohnHoulihan. But it is commonly accepted that BACpeople were the principal force behind a well-runcampaign that enlisted most of the newspapers,radio, and television stations.

The pre-election campaign followed 6 years ofextensive press coverage that began after publica-tion of the master plan. However, despite the factthat the approach to the public by BARTD and itssupporters was entirely promotional, the public ingeneral seems to have had a good comprehension ofthe plan and of its financial impacts (insofar as theywere known at the time of the election).

1S Even though this view is general ly accepted, one critic,Martin Wohl, has pointed out several instances where theoverriding consideration was to maximize overall speed in orderto serve outlying areas well and compete with the auto.

16

The results of the election of November 1962,when the bond issue for financing BART waspresented to the voters for approval, testified to thedegree of consensus in San Francisco. The 61.2percent favorable vote was one of the highestmetropolitanwide votes ever obtained (before orsince) for a major transportation bond issue andwas probably the largest local bond issue of anykind ever passed. The vote was a tribute to thedurability of the political alliance that had helpedthe BART plan obtain an amazingly high level ofsupport.

Support for the bond issue was predictably highin San Francisco and in the most urban parts of theEast Bay where high-quality service was to beprovided. The vote breakdown by county was asfollows:

County Percent

San FranciscoAlameda . . . .Contra Costa

Average

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66.90. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60.04

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54.48

The bond issueoriginal BARTD

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61.22

passed, as was required in thelegislation, in the three-county

District as a whole-rather than on a county-by-county basis.

In only 17 of San Francisco’s 1322 precincts wasthe favorable vote under so percent. The vote wasvery high even in the northern parts of the city thatwould not be served by BART. Voting appears tohave been influenced strongly by homeownership—there was general awareness of theimpact the bond issue would have on property tax.In the East Bay, there was opposition to BART inAlbany and El Cerrito because of anticipatednegative impacts of elevated line and opposition oflocal officials. Opposition also occurred in ruralareas removed from the routes, There was little orno correlation of the vote with income or

socioeconomic status apart from what could beexplained by home ownership. 16

1 6 Wolfgang Homburger, “An Analysis of the Vote on RapidTransit Bonds in the San Francisco Bay Area,” ITTE ResearchRtporl No. 36, University of California, Berkeley, June 1963.\’oting results reported above differ slightly from thosereported in several other sources, which show results beforeabsentee ballots were counted. Homburger notes that inAlameda County the absentee vote was substantially morefavorable (by 12 percent) than the vote cast at the polls, puttingthe county over the 60 percent mark. He attributes this to thelast-minute anti-BART campaign. Absentee ballots had to becast at least 3 days before election day. Two days before electionday about two million people reported to local schools for Sabinpol io vaccine. Homburger says that BART o p p o n e n t s w e r e

handing out literature at a number of schools in the East Bay.

THE BUILDING OF BART

The building of BART has spanned 13 years,1962-75, almost as long as it took to make the finaldecision to build it, from about 1945 to 1962. It islikely that it will have taken a total of 32 years toconceive, plan, and build BART by the time the finalstation at the Embarcadero is opened and the fullsystem is in operation with planned frequency ofservice under the guidance of its ultimateautomatic control system.

In contrast to the first period, whose historyfocuses on a single overwhelmingly importantdecision (i.e., the decision to build BART), theimplementation period has several elements that

17

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19

are of significant interest to other metropolitanareas. These include:

. The taxpayers’ suit against BARTD andPB-T-B;

. BARTD’s battles with communities overelements of system design;

. Financing problems and relationships withthe legislature.

There was a dramatic contrast in BARTD’srelationship with the Bay Area community beforeand after the referendum, BART’s honeymoonwith the voters was over within weeks ‘of theelection. With few exceptions, the media, politicalleadership, and most organized groups supportedBART before the election, but not afterward. Afterthe election, BARTD seems to many to havebecome a well-funded, powerful, independentorganization with relatively little accountability.

This change in public attitude was primarily dueto a change in the nature of BARTD. After theelection, BARTD changed from a public relations-oriented organization seeking voter approval to anorganization that was financially independent. As aresult, it became less interested in the voters’wishes and more concerned with the technical andfinancial problems of building a large and complextransportation system. As this happened, thecontrol of BARTD shifted from the prereferendumleadership, which had consisted of the businesscommunity, elected officials, and public relationsexperts, to PB-T-B, the engineering consultants,who had little accountability or experience incommunity relations. This basic change in thenature of BARTD and in its relationship to thepublic set a new context for the second stage ofBART’s development.

The Taxpayer’s Suit AgainstBARTD and PB-T-B

One week after the election, a BARTD commit-tee recommended approval of a new PB-T-Bcontract for $47 million. The full board approved it2 weeks later, at which time it was confronted withthe threat of a court suit by a group of engineerswho objected to the “giveaway program.” Theengineers’ efforts were frustrated when a ContraCosta judge ruled against a temporary restrainingorder for the entire BART project,

Shortly after this a second group of four East Bayresidents and elected officials filed a suit involvingseven charges. This suit was successful in halting

BART almost completely for more than half a year,at a cost to BARTD of $12 to $15 million, primarilydue to inflation, but also to staff costs. Four of thecharges were dismissed early; the three that wereheard in court during the first half of 1963 included:

● A challenge to the validity of the November1962 election on the grounds that publicfunds had been used to influence the vote.

● A challenge to the PB-T-B contract and tothe mechanism established for deter-mining fees.

● Challenges to BARTD s ta f f sa larypayments.

Although the court eventually absolved bothBARTD and PB-T-B of all of the charges, the casepublicized significant facts about the managementstructure of BARTD/PB-T-B that were at the rootof later problems.

BARTD’s board, and in particular its EngineeringCommittee, had no real ability to evaluate oroversee the work of the consultant team. BARTDhad only 16 employees at the time, and only one,Keneth Hoover, with engineering background.Hoover previously had been a consultant toParsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade and DouglasPBQD) for about a year and a half and had beenrecommended for the chief engineer’s position byWalter Douglas, a partner of PB-T-B.

There apparently was no competition for theconsultant contract. The contract provided for feepayment as a percentage of costs, rather thanstating a fixed fee, thus providing no incentive toeconomize—to the contrary it provided an incen-tive to permit costs to increase. Several informedobservers have commented on the fact that theterms of the contract were exceptionally favorableto PB-T-B and that the BARTD board had noinclination to negotiate more stringent terms, Theconsultants were given unusually broad powers bythe terms of the contract to represent BARTD indealings with the public and local governments andto negotiate subcontracts.

The board’s lack of control of the consultant’swork can be attributed in part to the close personalrelationships that had continued to exist betweenthe business leaders on the board, the top staff, andthe consultant team. Walter S. Douglas admitted inan interview with San Francisco Chronicle reporterMichael Harris that there was greater delegation of

20

authority over basic financial matters than wastraditional in this field. 17 Harris notes that Douglaswas primarily responsible for getting Ken Hooverthe position as BARTD chief engineer, and thatHoover in turn helped PB-T-B get its managementcontract. Likewise two BARTD directors, AdrienFalk and Thomas Gray, separately testified in the1963 trial that they did not feel it was theirresponsibilit y to be concerned over how muchprofit the consultants made.

During most of the system implementation itwas difficult to distinguish between BARTD andPB-T-B staffs. Even General Manager Stokes hasadmitted it was difficult to know, in those days,who worked for whom. 18 This lack of clearidentification of decision responsibilities was one ofthe issues of the taxpayers suit.

Stephen Zwerling reflected a widespread feelingwhen he asked, “. . . who really was runningBARTD—its management, its board of directors,or the consulting engineers? The small size of theboard, the nontechnical background of itsmembers, and the highly technical nature of thetask to be performed suggest that the engineerswould have a great deal of autonomy, influence,and authority with little responsibility.”19

Unfortunately, BARTD did little to correct theproblems that were raised by the taxpayers’ suit,and there was no formal external review oroversight of BARTD for several years afterward.Three years later when BARTD’s financialproblems first came to the attention of the publicand the legislature, BARTD was trying to manage abillion-dollar construction program at the peak ofits activity with only 19 employees trained intechnical fields. It was not until after serious delaysand cost overruns had occurred that BARTD beganto greatly increase its in-house technical com-petence. By then many of the mistakes which wereto cost BARTD greatly in credibility had alreadybeen made.

BARTD’s Battles With CommunitiesOver Elements of System Design

The history of BART’s construction is one ofalmost continual battles with communities over the

1 ~ Michael Hdr-r]s, 5~ H Fr~nC/scO Ch ro~l(lc, February 4, 1966.1 ~ McDona]d & Smart, A HISIO~ O/ IhP Key D<cIsIorM, op. cit., p.

116.IQ Stephen Zwerling, Muss Tr~mi/ and the Politics Of ~e(~ndogy: A

Study O( BART and the San Francisco Bay Area, Praeger Publishers,New York, 1974, pp. 43-44.

design of the system. 20 It is perhaps inevitable inany construction activity of this magnitude thatconflict will occur between communities and thoseresponsible for carrying out the regional mandateto build the system. However, the intensity of theconflict was raised to an unnecessary level that insome instances resulted in excessive delays andcosts. Several factors were at work:

. The entire system had been specified inconsiderable detail in the 1962 CompositeReport. The bond issue approval was acommitment to this plan with very littleprovision for changes in station location,alinement, or elevation.

● Elements of system design were oftenunknown to the public until after theelection because copies of the CompositeReport, or details from it, were not readilyavailable. Only public relations materialwas available and this contained verygeneral information.

● Financing limitations and political consid-erations had forced the engineers toprepare a system plan that contained somedesign elements that were unsatisfactory

to the communities involved. BARTD hadhad to get acceptable geographic coveragewithin a legislatively fixed upper bondinglimit determined by assessed value of allproperty in the district; thus BARTplanners were forced to economize onelements of the system design to thedetriment of several communities,

20 One of the most thorough histories of BART (McDonald &Smart, op. cit., pp. 89-1 13) stresses the sensitivity of the staff tothe wishes of the communities and goes into considerable detailto explain how cost increases occurred in ways that were beyondPB-T-B’s control. This part of that history seems particularlyout of balance. Much of the text appears to come straight fromthe consultants and none from any of the many available sourcesinvolved on the other side of the various issues. Sourcesreferenced in this document as a whole appear overwhelmingly

biased toward the official view of BARTD’s history: more thantwo thirds of the sources referenced are to BARTD/PB-T-B orclosely related persons or firms and the majority of theremainder are to government documents or neutral observers.Well under 10 percent of the references are to sources thatmight be considered critical commentators and none are to any

of the several sources that might be characterized as propound-ing or even supporting the conspiratorial view of BART’shistory. Nonetheless, despite the difference in tone of treatmentof this subject, McDonald & Smart arrive at essentially the sameconclusions regarding the need for community interaction andfinancing requirements.

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● The fixed amount of funding for a fixedsystem left no room for increases in thecost of system elements during the designand construction process. This severelylimited design flexibility.

● BARTD/PB-T-B staff working proceduresdid not provide for the development andevaluation of alternatives on most impor-tant decisions; single recommendationswere almost always prepared for BARTDstaff or board action, thus tending to burypotential problems within PB-T-B staff.

● The engineers’ style in dealing with thepublic, with local governments, and withother professionals often tended to inten-sify the conflict. The leadership role withinthe Joint Venture shifted from PBQD toBechtel, which had far less experience incommunity relations.

● Eventually, increased inflation rates (andother factors) exacerbated the costsqueeze.

All of these factors combined to cause spiralingconflict, delays, cost increases, inflexibility, andpolarization between BARTD and many of those itwas dealing with.

Some conflict arose even before the bondelection. Albany and El Cerrito both objected to theelevated design through their cities and foughtBARTD unsuccessfully. Berkeley managed to getearly agreement on putting some of its downtownsection in subway. Berkeley supported the bondissue, although that city went on record as notbeing satisfied with the changes that had beenmade.

In Richmond, BARTD fought against the originalplan for the central station location because ofproperty acquisition costs. Richmond CBD in-terests and others struggled to retain the originallocation as a catalyst for redevelopment and tobetter serve much of the city including lower-income areas. BARTD supported an alternativelocation for the terminus of the line on the route ofthe existing railroad right-of-way, arguing that itwould cause less disruption, would provide greateraccess from the North where additional potentialriders were located, and would be better located forpossible future extensions of the route. BARTDgot out of this fight relatively easily when the CityCouncil eventually took a position supportingBARTD’s preference.

BARTD’s biggest fight with a city was over theremaining 2¾ miles of planned elevated line inBerkeley. The City Council had resolved to requestBARTD to place the entire line underground in1960, and the Council reopened the issue in July1963, asking for comparative cost estimates ofsubway versus elevated construction. The issueraged on for over 3 years, involving an acrimonioushearin g forced on BARTD by Berkeley, nationalpublicity unfavorable to BARTD, and wildlyvarying cost estimates—Berkeley’s as low as $6million, BARTD’s as high as $24.6 to $32.3 million.At one point BARTD issued an ultimatum: ifBerkeley did not put up the funds that would beneeded to finance BARTD’s high estimate within30 days, BARTD would proceed toward construc-tion of the elevated design.

Berkeley, led by Mayor Wallace Johnson, even-tually succeeded in its struggle by achievinglandslide support of 82 percent for a bondreferendum in 1966, which allowed up to $20million to be committed for the extra costs ofsubway construction. BARTD lost heavily in termsof delays (almost 3 years) and resulting costs, andperhaps even more heavily in terms of credibility,because of the poor manner in which it handled theissue, in terms of both technical competence andcommunity relations. The eventual extra construc-tion cost to Berkeley was $12.4 million, not farfrom its 1964 estimate of $11 million and wellbelow any of BARTD’s estimates.

A subsequent fight between BARTD andBerkeley over the design of the Ashby stationoccurred in late 1967, It was settled in Berkeley’sfavor in May 1968 in a court suit after an injunctionstopped BARTD from going ahead with construc-tion.

The city of San Francisco and BARTD had aseries of conflicts over subway design on MarketStreet and handling of Muni streetcars. Findingitself in a cost squeeze, BARTD sought to savebetween $500,000 and $1 million per station byeliminating a columnless vaulted ceiling and addingcolumns.

Another issue involved the “skylight plan.” SanFrancisco wanted frequent skylights to open up themezzanine level to the outside. The plan requiredraising the level of the ceilings and increasing utilityrelocation costs. BARTD fought the plan, saying itmight cause delays of as much as 2 years. But afterpublic hearings, critical newspaper editorials, and

22

BART’s elevated structures created controversy in Berkeleyand other parts of the Bay Area

pressure from civic groups, BARTD had i tsarchitects come up with a compromise plan thatincluded the skylights. The irony of this episode isthat after construction had begun in 1968, the citybelatedly adopted a Market Street beautificationplan that eliminated some of the skylights.

Construction on Market Street actually involvedthree major projects—BART, the Muni Metrosubway on the level above BART, and the MarketStreet beautification project. Because of problemsand the timing of efforts that were financed fromdifferent sources, there were considerable inef-ficiencies in the overall construction effort. Per-haps of equal significance, Market Street was tornup for almost twice as long as it might have been,with a resulting doubling of the social and economicdisruption to the heart of the city. Allan Jacobs, SanFrancisco’s Director of Planning, says this has had amajor impact on public attitudes and the chances ofimplementing other subway projects in the city. He

says, only half facetiously, “You can build only onceevery third generation. ”

Certainly that is an important lesson for othermetropolitan areas considering the prospect ofstaged decisions on fixed-guideway transitnetworks.

A final conflict representative of BART’s rockyhistory is the much-publicized conflict betweenBARTD/PB-T-B and its design consultants,Lawrence Halprin and Don Emmons, over design ofthe system. The two men, widely respected inlandscape architecture and urban design, had beenretained to advise on design of stations and othersystem elements. They were continually frustratedin efforts because of the constraints placed on theirdesign concepts by PB-T-B. Eventually inSeptember 1966, Halprin and Emmons denouncedthe engineer’s dominance over the work of otherprofessionals and handed in their resignations in a

23

highly charged and highly publicized episode.These events brought on a sharp attack from thepress and others that caused BARTD to take backsome of the power it had given the engineers, atleast to the extent of providing the remainingarchitectural staff and other design consultantswith more direct access to the general manager.

Despite the attention that this fight received,Larry Dahms, BARTD’s acting director in 1974,claimed, probably accurately, that quality of designis one of the BART system’s outstandingachievements.

However, the importance of this clash is that itbrought into the open one important aspect of thefinancial squeeze that BARTD was having to copewith at that time. It gave the community a grasp ofthe basic conflict between the engineering con-struction goal under a fixed budget and the goals ofcommunities as they relate to urban design.

Financing Problems and BART’sRelationship with the Legislature

In retrospect, it is highly unlikely that BARTcould have completed the system within its originalbudget, for the planners made little allowance forcontingencies other than the usual percentagesallowed for engineering projects. To have kept tothe original budget and schedule would haverequired no significant delays in construction, noprolonged court fights or strikes, no major changesin design, no major unforeseen obstacles intechnological development (although BART had todevelop much of its own technology as it wentalong because it chose to push beyond available railtechnology in so many areas), no external events tosignificantly increase inflation over the relativelylow rates experienced in the 1950’s, and no majorlocalized effect on inflation resulting from theintroduction of a billion dollars of new constructionin one metropolitan area,

The original BARTD estimates were essentiallyaccurate in their estimates of construction costs interms of prevailing prices. However, they failed toaccount for contingencies beyond the level typicallyencountered in conventional engineering construc-tion (10 percent), and they assumed an unrealisticconstruction schedule that did not recognize theneed for interaction with communities and thedesign changes that would result. By far the mostimportant of the cost escalations were the 3-yeardelay and Vietnam-fueled inflation.

Initial inflation estimates were about 3 percent,but the actual inflation in San Francisco was 6.5percent, slightly above the U.S. rate for 20 cities,due in part to the effects of BART construction.

Delays were the other major factor in the costescalations. For BARTD to have kept to its originalschedule (and therefore budget), BARTD wouldhave had to operate with total insensitivity tocommunity pressures, exempt from legislativereview and judicial restraint. As it was, BARTDfrequently has been criticized for beinginsensitive—for trying to push through itsprogram as rapidly as possible, even if it meantrunning roughshod over community preferences.

BART was caught between conflicting demands.Local communities wanted an ongoing involve-ment with a flexible planning and design process.From the standpoint of fiscal economy, however,the best way to build a transit system is to do it asquickly as possible. Community participation takestime and therefore costs money.

This, in fact, was a major conclusion of a 1968review of BART’s finances on behalf of theCalifornia Senate. Because delays were a primarycause of BARTD’s financial problems, the reviewrecommended that the legislature do away with thepublic hearing requirement—the only participatorymechanism required by BARTD’s legislation.

All things considered, BART construction camein reasonably close to the original cost estimates. InNovember 1971, by which time most of the costescalation had already occurred, costs had risenonly about 40 percent since the 1962 CompositeReport. An article in a prominent economic journalnoted that “by comparison with other publicprojects, this cost overrun is not very bad.”21 It citeda study of weapons systems which found that, onthe average, actual cost was 3.25 times theestimated cost; a study of Bureau of Reclamationprojects in which actual costs were 2.63 timesestimated costs; and Corps of Engineers projectsprior to 1951 with a 2.24 to 1 ratio (improved to1.36 by 1964). Finally, a study of ad hoc projects(one-of-a-kind projects not part of a program ofsimilar projects under development by the sameagency) found that the average cost overrun forsuch projects was 73 percent.

21 Leonard Merewitz, “Public Transportation: Wish Fulfill-ment and Reality in the San Francisco Bay Area, ” Journal of theAmerican Economic ASSO(MIIOH, November 1971,

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BART’s construction costs actually remainedbelow estimates on a project-by-project basis forthe first 20 months of construction (throughDecember 1965). However, BARTD became awareof the cumulative effects of delays by May 1965,and the San Francisco Chronicle broke news of themoney crisis in February 1966.

By July 1966, BARTD had projected a $200million shortfall. In early 1967, BARTD GeneralManager B.R. Stokes projected a complete deple-tion of available funds by 1968 and began en-couraging a new bond issue for the November 1967ballot. This trial balloon was immediately shotdown by the San Francisco supervisors, who,probably accurately, read the mood of the voters tobe negative.

The debate moved to the State Legislature, withSan Francisco representatives supporting use offunds from Bay Area toll bridges, and otherssupporting use of a local sales tax. San Franciscolegislators attempted to pass a refinancing schemebased on Bay Bridge tolls throughout the 1967legislative session, but the plan died in theAssembly after passing the Senate. Stokes beganannouncing plans for halting construction afteronly 57 miles of the 75-mile system had beencompleted. The legislature continued into a specialfall session called by Governor Reagan, who hadthreatened to veto toll financing because hefavored using the toll money to build a secondbridge for motor traffic between San Francisco andOakland. A one-half cent sales tax finally passed inspring 1969.

A final important element in BART financingwas that UMTA did not play any substantive roleduring the basic decisionmaking phase nor in thefirst half of the construction period. A $13 millioncapital grant received in August 1966 was the firstsubstantive Federal assistance BARTD received.Subsequently—and especially as BART ran furtherand further over its original estimates—UMTAfunds came to the rescue.

As BARTD ran into financial difficulties, itbecame clear that its original plan to finance therolling stock through revenue bonds would not befeasible, because no realistic appraisal of expectedrevenues and operating costs would providepotential investors with the required security forbonds. Rolling stock finally was acquired largely bymeans of UMTA grants that eventually totaled$304 million, about 19 percent of the total cost of

the system and about half of BART’s total costoverrun.

As BARTD ran into financial difficulties, therewas a realization that not only would revenues beinsufficient to secure revenue bonds, but they alsowould not come close to covering operating cost.Deficits were running about $27 million per yearand were expected to increase. 22 This inability tocover operating costs with revenues was a nationaltrend. In San Francisco, however, the operatinglosses were drastically increased by the delays inbeginning full-scale revenue operations caused byextremely poor reliability y of the rolling stock, othermaintenance and operations difficulties, andproblems with the automated control system.

BARTD had no basis for financing continuingoperating deficits and would have been forced tocease operations by late 1974 or early 1975 unlessadditional funds had been provided. This financialcrisis precipitated generalized criticism of BARTDthat was focused on BART Director B.R. Stokes,who was beginning to be blamed for all BART’stechnical difficulties with its rolling stock andcontrol system as well as for the financial problems.Stokes resigned in May 1974.23 The financial crisiswas solved some 6 months later when thelegislature extended the one-half cent sales tax andpermitted its use for BART’s operating costs.

RECENT EVOLUTION OF THEPLANNING PROCESS

In September 1970, the first permanent regionaltransportation planning agency for the Bay Area,the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, wascreated by the legislature.

Prior to this, there had been two temporaryagencies involved in BART system planning. TheBay Area Transportation Study Commission(1963-69) had been set up to satisfy the 3-Cplanning requirements of the 1962 Federal-AidHighway Act and to prepare the report that wassubmitted to the legislature and the Governor inMay 1969. The Transportation Study’s principal

22 Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Special Report on

Tran<i/ FInatIce, April 1974.

“ The fact that Stokes landed the top job at the newly createdAmerican Public Transportation Association in Washington,D. C., is indicative of the respect he had within the industry andin national circles despite his problems at BARTD.

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product was a typical 3-C planning document,containing the most comprehensive set of data evercollected on the Bay Area, and a plan that includedalmost all the projects that had been proposed forthe area. The plan, though certainly unimplement-able in full, was a good reference document onregional highways, bridges, and transit facilities,and on present and projected demographic andeconomic conditions and land developmentpatterns for the entire Bay Area. The secondtemporary agency was the Regional Transporta-tion Committee, set up in 1969 by a cooperativemutual agreement of the Association of Bay AreaGovernments and the California Department ofTransportation.

Quite in contrast to its two immediatepredecessors, the Metropolitan TransportationCommission (MTC) is unique among regionalagencies in the power it possesses. In addition to theusual A-95 review authority and responsibility forFederal transportation planning requirements,MTC was essentially given veto power over allregional transportation projects. Furthermore, in1971 it was given authority to allocate about $35million per year from the Transportation Develop-ment Act funds (.25 percent of all local sales taxes)among the several competing transit operators inthe nine-county region. MTC has the authority todetermine whether the funds are to be usedimmediately or kept in reserve to be used for futureneeds, and to determine how the funds are to beused: for planning, operation, or construction, and,in the more rural counties, for either highway ortransit.

MTC adopted a plan in June 1973 as required bythe original legislation. MTC’s plan contrastsstrikingly with the earlier Bay Area TransportationStudy plan. Instead of concentrating on long-rangeforecasts and plans, MTC’s plan stresses policydirections. Apart from the positive treatment ofnew policy directions for the region, however,much of the MTC plan is reactive. It contains noserious effort to identify new opportunities or tocreate program initiatives to achieve regionalobjectives. The plan’s critics have concluded thatthe MTC planning process is the type that mightstop some bad projects but it would never result ingetting a BART built, even if that was clearly whatthe region needed.

On the positive side, the plan has severalinteresting features:

● Twelve major corridors are defined in sucha way that the principal issues, functions,and options in each can be examinedrelatively independently in subsequentsubregional studies.

● The basic physical plan is composed ofelements that are formally assigned“status.” The categories of status are (1)projects recommended for implementa-tion, (2) those recommended for planningevaluation, (3) areas in which an issue isrecognized, and (4) projects not included inthe plan at this time. This treatment is atechnical contribution to the state-of-the-art of the type of planning process that isevolving around the country.

● The plan devotes substantial attention tonon facility programs, such as transitsystem coordination, low-cost transit andhighway improvements, transportationmanagement programs, and incentiveprograms.

● The financial plan developed is in keepingwith MTC’s legislative mandate to providea financial plan that is not constrained byexisting financing mechanisms or programrestrictions. An interesting attempt ismade to forecast the Bay Area’s ability toattract Federal aid, and a wide variety ofdifferent types of regional taxes andbonding mechanisms are examined.

● The plan is unusual among metropolitanarea transportation plans in that itstreatment of costs gives balanced con-sideration to capital and operating costs. Itincludes analysis of the impact of capitalimprovements on overall transit systemoperating costs.

● In keeping with the mandate of the MTCenabling legislation, the financial plananalyzes the potential of a wide variety ofdifferent types of regional taxes andbonding mechanisms. Part of this effortinvolved an interesting attempt to forecastthe Bay Area’s ability to attract Federal aid.

● The Metropolitan Transit Federation and aTra f f i c Management Counc i l a rerecommended to accomplish needed coor-dination among transit operators and toachieve more efficient use of streets andhighways.

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MTC appears to be an appropriate structure forimproving coordination among transit operators,particularly through the bargaining power it has inthe allocation of the Transportation DevelopmentAct funds. It has made some efforts to set standardsand to link funding to these standards.

MTC has substantial powers but has beenreticent to use them for fear of legislative reprisal.It did take some initiative in exercising its powers toinfluence highway programing and the use ofhighway funds for transit (about $20 million peryear are being shifted). In general, however, MTChas chosen the route of friendly persuasion, ratherthan risk loss of its powers by using them in conflictsituations.

The mandate of MTC, the tenor of the times andthe reaction to past programs and their style ofmanagement have all combined to push MTC in thedirection of crisis intervention at the expense ofmore thorough and deliberate planning. MTC staffdeliberately has sought to involve operating andimplementing agencies in its planning process togive them a stake in plan implementation.

Assemblyman John Foran of San Francisco,author of the MTC legislation, sees it as a half stepin the evolution of Bay Area government and amajor step away from the single-mode, single-function approach at the State level.

Since 1970, BART extension studies have beenconducted in several corridors:

●

●

●

●

●

●

Geary Street in San Francisco

San Francisco Airport

BART-type technology versus SouthernPacific upgrading for the Peninsula (out-side BARTD’s jurisdiction)

Oakland Airport

Livermore

Pittsburg-Antioch

In contrast to earlier BART system planning,these studies generally have been conducted in anopen manner with study direction typically comingfrom local government, MTC and BARTD, withsubstantial opportunity for citizen participation.

Outcomes of these studies vary widely. If all ofthe extensions for which BARTD is responsiblewere to be constructed (i. e., excluding the full

peninsula route), it would double the current 75miles of system at an estimated cost of another $1.5billion. 24 Based on past experience, even thisprobably is an optimistic price estimate. The fulllength of a San Mateo County extension wasestimated to cost $807 million from Daly City toRedwood City near the Santa Clara County line.25

Cost estimates for the extension of this line to itsmore logical terminus in San Jose are not available,but it is likely that this project would add roughlyanother half billion dollars to the cost for this 16-mile length. When financing costs and morerealistic inflation costs are included, it is likely thatthe full cost of all the above extensions would be inthe $3.5 to $4 billion range.26

How many, if any, of these extensions are likelyto be built is a matter of conjecture. Forecasts varyamong those interviewed from no future exten-sions to almost all of them.

The San Francisco airport extension is stronglysupported in San Francisco and is one of the easiestto justify in a benefit-cost sense. However, adecision on it is intimately linked to the considera-tion of an extension down the Peninsula. Thisproposal raises one of the more difficult transporta-tion issues that the Bay Area will face because of itshigh cost, the existence of the S.P. commuterservice, the fact that three counties and many citiesare d i rec t ly invo lved , and many o therramifications.

The Geary Street line in San Francisco wouldalmost certainly be built as a Muni route ratherthan a BART extension if any fixed-guidewaytransit were to be built—which appears doubtful asa result of the study.

The Oakland Airport extension has substantialsupport in the East Bay even though it wouldattract far less patronage than other extensions,particularly in the short term. The San Franciscoairport extension may not be politically feasiblewithin the regional decision making process unless

24 Testlmon y of B. R. Stokes in hearings before theSubcommittee on Transportation of the Committee on PublicWorks, Uni ted States Senate, May 24, 19’74, in San Francisco.

~’ PB-T-B-Wilbur Smith-Klrker, Chapman, San kf~lm COUn@Tr[~rl~l/ DWtlOlJrnetIi proleit. Alr[wr(-kfenio Purl, final draft report,April, 1974, pp. s-14 and xvi-2.

LO Interview with Lawrence Dahms, Acting General Managerof BART, September 1974.

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it is coupled with the Oakland Airport extension, asMTC found when its staff attempted to set such apriority during the process of making its 1973 plan.

The Pittsburg-Antioch extension has a great dealof local support, apparently much greater than theLivermore extension. The former has the potentialfor becoming the catalyst for renewal of two olderdeterioratin g cities and would provide service to

substantial concentrations of population andindustrial employment. The costs of a BART-typesystem are very high, however, for the levels ofridership anticipated. The Livermore extension hasa considerable amount of opposition from op-ponents of growth in that area. This, plus poorereconomic justification for the route, make itunlikely that this route will get built in the near tomedium-range future, if at all.

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