BART ridership is going to spike for a while
April 29, 2007Oh boy, a section of the infamous MacArthur Maze in Oakland has collapsed after a tanker fire. That is not going to be pretty for East Bay commuters trying to get to and from downtown San Francisco. I’m guessing the BART will have higher-than-normal ridership along the trans-bay tunnel line. At least until the highways are fixed.
When I lived in Emeryville (a tiny city adjacent to Oakland) I would often take BART into town. Much less hassle, and given the cost of downtown parking it was also cheaper than driving across the Bay Bridge to work. The problem of course is that the system isn’t really built for peak travel, so it gets very crowded at rush hour.
My stop was the last one before entering the trans-bay tunnel, so there was usually no seating and I would have to stand during the trip. Still, I’d rather do that than sit in traffic. And now with part of the Maze out of commission, there may be no choice but BART for a lot of commuters.
For those of you who complain about traffic in Spaghetti Junction, you need to drive thru the MacArthur Maze during rush hour. Then you’ll realize how lucky we are here in Louisville, our traffic is nothing to what happens during peak rish hour in the Maze. I suppose that’s one positive out of this collapse–it should take a lot of cars off the roads for a while.