I guess. I don't think BART needs to go to San Jose down the Peninsula; from Fremont, sure. But Caltrain does a good enough job. And now there's an intermodal station at Milbrae (close to SFO) that gives direct access to San Jose riders to BART.
>> Those two cities have been connected by rail since the 1860s.
>
> which has not been upgraded since that time :-).
Completely false. Caltrain has seen incremental upgrading despite fierce opposition. And they are just about done double-tracking:
http://www.caltrain.com/news_ctx_fact_sheet.html
> Sure, Caltrain runs from Gilroy, CA all the way to San
> Francisco -- at about 30 mph. The extension of
> BART to San Jose is still in limbo, I think.
On the other hand, Caltrain from San Francisco to Milbrae runs in about 25 minutes (best express time :22), compared with BART/Embarcadero to Milbrae in about :36 ... BART, despite futuristic looks (and costs!) isn't actually all that fast. Yes: you can go under the bay at 80mph, but average scheduled speeds show a different story:
The best San Francisco -> San Jose (47.5 miles) express train is presently 1:15 which will go down to :57 (=50 mph) with the introduction of skip-stop express ("baby bullet") service in May:
http://bayrailalliance.org/caltrain/bb/
Here's some info about BART, mileage, scheduled time and speeds:
A-line from Fremont to Lake Merritt, 23.8 miles [:33 43mph] M, W and Y-line from Oakland West to Millbrae, 27 miles; [:42 38mph] R-line from Richmond to MacArthur, 10.6 miles; [:19 33.4mph] C-line from Pittsburg/Bay Point to Rockridge, 29.3 miles; [:32 54mph] L-line Dublin/Pleasanton to Castro Valley, 14 miles. [:11 76mph]
Note that last one is a short extension that has no stops in between
those two stations. So: just because it's BART, doesn't mean it's fast
:-)
> I have to admit, however, that a surprisingly large crowd
> demanded expansion of the transit system, even though there
> is no political will in Annapolis to do so.
Again making my point; thanks!
/jordan