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Letter: Time to reconsider Peninsula BART system

It is becoming increasingly clear that the ill understood high-speed rail project is the ego driven fantasy of Quentin Kopp and Rod Diridon.

Now the Peninsula is in danger of losing Caltrain, its anachronistic commuter rail link, due to the lack of a reliable source of funding. Perhaps we can take a moment to consider an alternative that would make far more sense and correct a 50-year-old mistake by linking BART from San Jose to Millbrae.

The benefits are pretty easy to define, and we don't have to inflate ridership estimates or understate costs to justify linking the Bay Area with a fast, safe, high speed regional transportation system. When compared to the cost of ramming the bullet train down the Peninsula, the BART extension will seem cheap.

Mark Gilles

Partridge Avenue, Menlo Park

Posted by Ian, a resident of another community, on Apr 14, 2010 at 5:03 pm

We don't have to underestimate costs? The BART extension will seem cheap? Does this guy have any idea how much a BART extension would cost. Just take a look at the price tag on recent BART extensions (SFO, SJ) to get an idea of how cost effective that would be. Per mile HSR, not to mention Caltrain, are easily cheaper options.