As it is, BART is a great way to get from the Mission to spots along the Market St. corridor but otherwise I really don’t use public transportation much to leave the Mission.

Transit for most other cities has express options, something Muni sorely lacks. BART effectively fills that gap.

Anyway, BART is serving my needs, so well so that I want more of it. (If I remember correctly, the original plans in the 50s consider several lines through SF. Marin County was originally in the mix, so there must have been a line under consideration from the Golden Gate Bridge to downtown.)

It’s so painful to get from the Mission to Presidio and (gasp) the Marina, a cross-town BART, (er, SFART?) seems obvious. I just want Gavin to buy that tunnel boring machine and NOT STOP DIGGING.

And just to prove I appreciate the Bay Area nature of BART, here’s a cool-ass track map:

http://transbayblog.com/2008/07/23/new-feature-bart-track-map/

Remember that BART is BAY AREA (rapid transit)– it was not planned to be, and thus doesn’t, serve as an SF transit system. It’s intent is to serve transportation between other areas of the bay.

While I think a first-class subway in SF would be great, too, that’s not what BART is for– and that’s exactly why it’s ‘only one line’…

Of course, this is because the planners were ready for the continued suburbanization and continued outward growth of residential communities further and further– which is unsustainable and stupid, sure… but that’s why BART isn’t serving your needs of inner-city travel…

BART is great, but only one line, while Muni is half-assed. Look at any great, world-class city and you see dense transit which supports higher population density and cooler things.

Manhattan — 1.6m people in 23 sq miles (394 sq ft per person)
Paris — 2.2m people in 41 sq miles (527 sq feet / person)
SF — 800,000 in 49 sq miles (1700 sq feet / person)

Frankly SF shouldn’t be as cool as it is given its low population density and poor transit (kidding (sort of)).

That being said, you still have cars in those cities — but usually less than one per family. Something like 1/4th of the people in Manhattan still own cars. Lots of cars in Paris, but I don’t know anyone there who has two. About 350,000 cars registered in SF, and about the same number of residents. Given the number of people I know with no cars, that means lots with two.

(Sorry I’m on such a BART tear these days, but I get excited when I see all these ObamaDollars dropping from the sky. Give me 30th St BART, SFO in 10 minutes and a bullet train to LA and I’ll shut up.)

This map only partially shows the destruction that this plan would have caused; the freeways themselves are only a minor part of it. Think about the parking this would have required, the gas stations, the auto repair shops, etc etc.

Part of San Francisco’s character has always been that it’s a city of walking and public transit. It’s about as car-unfriendly as many European cities. But this distinction has less to do with the roads themselves than with what’s between them.

Zoom of the Mission Freeway (aka Capp-be-gone)… Don’t know if it would have been elevated or not, but either way it would have destroyed the Mission.

Now imagine if you had BART along all those phantom highways — then we’d be talking.