[bluejekyll]

A huge loss is that when Bart was built Marin voted against extending it north.

The Bridge that we need foot and bike traffic access on is the Bay Bridge. That’s far more disappointing as it would better connect Oakland and SF (and Treasure Island!). With ebikes so popular now, that could actually displace cars significantly in the Bay Area.

[nullc]

> A huge loss is that when Bart was built Marin voted against extending it north.

Marin was kicked out, as a result of San Mateo pulling out leaving Bart under funded. As they said at the time, "We are withdrawing involuntarily and upon request,". A 1956 poll found that 87.7 percent of Marin residents wanted a BART line.

https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/How-BART-almost-connect...

[bluejekyll]

That is much better context, definitely conflicts with the common understanding people have of why the Marin portion failed.

[bcrosby95]

The eastern span has one. Mostly useless without one on the western span though. They seem to have a project up for it, but i'm not sure what the status is:

https://mtc.ca.gov/planning/transportation/bicycle-pedestria...

[bluejekyll]

Yeah I’ve seen all of the options for the western span, I think it’s going to require a lot of pressure on Sacramento to get any progress on this.

[duskwuff]

> The Bridge that we need foot and bike traffic access on is the Bay Bridge.

I'm not sure how useful that would be. The Bay Bridge is quite long, at ~4.5 miles end-to-end, and the east span terminates in a huge toll plaza in an industrial area of Oakland which is neither bike- nor pedestrian-friendly. I wouldn't realistically expect any significant number of bikers to use the bridge, and those that did would probably be using it more for recreation than transport. Like it or not, the Bay Bridge was built as a highway connector.

[bluejekyll]

You may be unaware, but the east bay portion of Bay trail connects to a lot of great bike infrastructure from the Eastern Span of the Bay Bridge already. It's a very gentle grade up the entire bridge, which makes it approachable for even casual riders. The connection there has many bike paths that lead between all the East Bay cities, Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, Albany, and Richmond.

From Oakland it would be approximately a 45 minute bike ride (if it existed), on an ebike probably 20 minutes. About an hour from Berkeley (and 30 minutes on ebike). These times would compete with cars during rush hour.

[closeparen]

It's true you wouldn't want to dump bikes at the literal terminus of the bridge, but a surface-level bike path could take you a little past the Maze to the vicinity of the Frontage Road & Powell St or Mandela Parkway / Horton St, both very comfortably bikeable. I used those streets for years cycling from Berkeley to West Oakland BART and the Jack London Square ferry terminal.