By 7-1 vote, BART Board of Directors approved the Oakland Airport connector:
The BART board voted to award $440 million in contracts for the construction, operation and maintenance of the 3.2-mile Oakland Airport Connector. Construction of the automated, driverless train system that would whisk passengers to the airport in 14 1/2 minutes is scheduled to start next summer and take 3 1/2 years.
14.5 minutes to travel 3.2 miles == 13.2 miles per hour
This, for a line with no intermediate stops. Bicycling would be faster!
The illustration looks familiar, but tracing the route on Google, I could see no such deviation of the people mover route from Hegenberger Road. Then I remember where I saw it. Isn’t this the Airport link of the Canada Line in Vancouver, BC, bridging the Fraser River?
At San Francisco Airport it always seemed like the trek to Gate 84 took one nearly to one’s destination. In a similar vein, this drawing reveals the Oakland Airport shuttle is a major regional connection linking BART with an important (Canadian) airport. In which case the 14 minute travel time makes more sense.
Great observation. If only this design really was like the Canada Line bridge. The Canada Line bridge has an integrated bike/ped path — if something similar had been done with OAC it would have greatly improved access to the Bay Trail from the BART station.
[…] a train platform. And Coliseum/Oakland Airport station, also in District 4, is the location of the Oakland Airport Connector (OAC). BART lost a $70 million grant for that white-elephant project due to Civil Rights […]