New San Francisco Bay bridge should become an extension of Interstate 380, thus eliminating Interstate 238, if this idea gets to the ballot to vote on.
http://padailypost.com/2017/12/10/feinstein-proposes-new-bridge-across-the-bay/
yawn
Quote from: ACSCmapcollector on December 25, 2017, 09:29:12 PM
New San Francisco Bay bridge should become an extension of Interstate 380, thus eliminating Interstate 238, if this idea gets to the ballot to vote on.
http://padailypost.com/2017/12/10/feinstein-proposes-new-bridge-across-the-bay/
This has been looked at so many times. Why a new bridge, as opposed to expanding the existing bridges? I see a small advantage in that I-380 and I-238 would be good approach roads, feeding traffic beyond US 101 and I-880, but that doesn't seem worth building a freeway along Lewelling Blvd. or building across the widest part of the Bay, or the difficulties keeping it low for the approaches to SFO and OAK. For that matter, 101 is a bigger bottleneck than the bridges.
The figure in the newspaper story is only for a 4-lane bridge! Hardly worth getting out of bed just to make a 4-lane bridge. It also doesn't show the BART tracks that were mentioned in the text. How would the BART tracks hook in to the existing system? The biggest obstacle to using public transit is BART doesn't go where most commuters need to: distant suburbs to south Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, and the South Bay. This wouldn't change that. A start would be running express buses.
A 4 lane bridge for the bay area isn't close to what they need. I would go for an 8 lane (6 travel 2 auxillery) bridge. Doesn't have to be interstate standard but it would be nice.
All other things are well covered by kkt.
Ahem! This should be moved to Fictional, because I haven't heard of any such proposal, but yeah, it would be nice to get rid of I-238 once and for all with an extended I-380.
Quote from: Henry on December 26, 2017, 09:13:35 AM
Ahem! This should be moved to Fictional, because I haven't heard of any such proposal, but yeah, it would be nice to get rid of I-238 once and for all with an extended I-380.
A long bridge should be built
just because I-238 has a bad number?
Quote from: Henry on December 26, 2017, 09:13:35 AM
Ahem! This should be moved to Fictional, because I haven't heard of any such proposal, but yeah, it would be nice to get rid of I-238 once and for all with an extended I-380.
Well, this idea is being floated by California's senior U.S. senator, not just one of us. That takes it out of the "fictional" realm, whatever you might think of her idea.
Quote from: 1 on December 26, 2017, 09:15:15 AM
Quote from: Henry on December 26, 2017, 09:13:35 AM
Ahem! This should be moved to Fictional, because I haven't heard of any such proposal, but yeah, it would be nice to get rid of I-238 once and for all with an extended I-380.
A long bridge should be built just because I-238 has a bad number?
Of course not. That would be stupid. The bridge is proposed because existing bridges over the bay are very backed up, and (like I posted above) I-238 and I-380 would give good access to the bridge from the outer freeways I-580 and I-280. It's just questionable whether that's enough of a reason for an entirely new bridge.
Quote from: oscar on December 26, 2017, 09:23:18 AM
Well, this idea is being floated by California's senior U.S. senator, not just one of us. That takes it out of the "fictional" realm, whatever you might think of her idea.
Of course, although the idea is not fictional, the southern crossing may be. Remember: This isn't a new proposal: it's shown up with astounding regularity: 1935, 1946, the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s.... Money is spent, studies are conducted, and the conclusion is that it isn't worth the cost of building another crossing at that point for a wide variety of reasons: the cost of the crossing, the traffic impacts, the impacts on the feeder roadways. Basically: the crossing is the least of the problems; the real issue is getting to your destination once you reach the correct side of the bay. No bridge will help that, for all the feeder roads are already clogged.
$12.8 billion (the project cost mentioned in the article) might be better spent on existing highway improvement. A bunch of the existing highway infrastructure in San Francisco and other Bay Area cities is pretty old and not up to current Interstate highway standards.
OTOH, everything is so jam-packed in there that adding more capacity (lanes) to freeway re-build projects would be somewhere between very difficult and just impossible. Any act to replace an aging elevated highway structure, such as the intersection of US-101 and I-80 in San Francisco might actually create an opportunity for anti-freeway crowds to push for entire highway removal. Maybe removal might not be such a bad thing either, but I mean that is a bit of a more sinister, cynical way. Much of the Bay Area is now in an economy almost entirely detached from reality. The area has long been squeezing lower and middle income workers with very high living costs. If they want to remove some freeways and make it even harder for service industry workers to commute to their service counter jobs from outer suburbs it will just be one more thing to get a lot of working class people to leave that area. Then they can deal with labor shortages.
Quote from: Bobby5280 on December 26, 2017, 01:48:38 PM
$12.8 billion (the project cost mentioned in the article) might be better spent on existing highway improvement. A bunch of the existing highway infrastructure in San Francisco and other Bay Area cities is pretty old and not up to current Interstate highway standards.
OTOH, everything is so jam-packed in there that adding more capacity (lanes) to freeway re-build projects would be somewhere between very difficult and just impossible. Any act to replace an aging elevated highway structure, such as the intersection of US-101 and I-80 in San Francisco might actually create an opportunity for anti-freeway crowds to push for entire highway removal. Maybe removal might not be such a bad thing either, but I mean that is a bit of a more sinister, cynical way. Much of the Bay Area is now in an economy almost entirely detached from reality. The area has long been squeezing lower and middle income workers with very high living costs. If they want to remove some freeways and make it even harder for service industry workers to commute to their service counter jobs from outer suburbs it will just be one more thing to get a lot of working class people to leave that area. Then they can deal with labor shortages.
Then also it would be a good access point for the San Francisco International Airport too, I realized this idea has been "floated" around and now it is Senator Feinstein's idea.
Actually, Senator Feinstein has proposed this idea the last couple of times it came around too.
Expanding the Dumbarton Bridge to at least 4 lanes each way, of which one would be HOV 3+, combined with express buses from Santa Clara Valley to Tracy or Stockton throughout the day would be a better investment.
Quote from: kkt on December 26, 2017, 04:41:02 PM
Actually, Senator Feinstein has proposed this idea the last couple of times it came around too.
Expanding the Dumbarton Bridge to at least 4 lanes each way, of which one would be HOV 3+, combined with express buses from Santa Clara Valley to Tracy or Stockton throughout the day would be a better investment.
Effectively that would entail
twinning of the existing Dumbarton Bridge; something that would likely also require a complete revamping of the bridge's outlets to US 101 on the west and at least a rebuilding of the Decoto Rd. I-880/CA 84 interchange to include direct flyovers -- or, better yet
and in addition, an expressway extension of CA 84 east to CA 238 north of the Niles district.
Quote from: sparker on December 27, 2017, 01:39:02 AM
Effectively that would entail twinning of the existing Dumbarton Bridge; something that would likely also require a complete revamping of the bridge's outlets to US 101 on the west and at least a rebuilding of the Decoto Rd. I-880/CA 84 interchange to include direct flyovers -- or, better yet and in addition, an expressway extension of CA 84 east to CA 238 north of the Niles district.
Is the Route 84 realignment between I-880 and Route 238 even going to happen? I know there was a corridor proposed partially along Decoto Road but it doesn't seem like any progress has been made since this was first considered several years ago.
Quote from: TheStranger on December 27, 2017, 11:01:33 AM
Quote from: sparker on December 27, 2017, 01:39:02 AM
Effectively that would entail twinning of the existing Dumbarton Bridge; something that would likely also require a complete revamping of the bridge's outlets to US 101 on the west and at least a rebuilding of the Decoto Rd. I-880/CA 84 interchange to include direct flyovers -- or, better yet and in addition, an expressway extension of CA 84 east to CA 238 north of the Niles district.
Is the Route 84 realignment between I-880 and Route 238 even going to happen? I know there was a corridor proposed partially along Decoto Road but it doesn't seem like any progress has been made since this was first considered several years ago.
Amazingly -- seeing as how the corridor was adopted in the late '60's -- the cleared ROW for this corridor is fully intact all the way to CA 238. I say "amazingly" because the Gianturco Caltrans administration ('75-'83) disposed of quite a bit of ROW at auction during its time, and the Bay Area in general, via their MPO's, hasn't been predisposed to new highway or freeway alignments for some time now. Now -- whether this land will just exist as a grubbed strip or will eventually host some sort of facility has yet to be determined -- but in the interim housing -- and a regional park -- has been developed adjacent to the ROW; and that part of Fremont has seen almost continuous housing and commercial additions for a couple of decades now; I wouldn't be at all surprised if there are contingency plans to sell off that strip if development doesn't occur within a specified time frame. OTOH, since it essentially functions as an extension of the Dumbarton Bridge approach -- and augmented intraregional bus service is perpetually being discussed in these parts -- using the ROW as a dedicated busway might be a concept that could readily gain traction.
What this stuff has been discussed for decades. I have doubts that. But I hope I-380 does connect to I-238.
Of course, you all know such a bridge will never be built, right?
Quote from: The Ghostbuster on December 27, 2017, 05:46:50 PM
Of course, you all know such a bridge will never be built, right?
Since the attempts to do so are most likely in double figures by now, that's not an unreasonable assumption. But barring the complete economic and/or physical collapse of the region, another crossing -- likely in the distant future -- is inevitable. Given the area's penchant for increased transit (according to Gary Richards, the "Murky News" own Road Man, about 62% of the revenues from the increased gas tax -- at least in the Bay Area -- will be apportioned to transit rather than roads), that crossing may well be dedicated to public transit. Even with Senatorial support (that assumes Feinstein will survive the reelection process!), any such project -- given all the preliminaries it must endure before actual construction -- is likely at least decades away. So while we all can muse about where it'll go and what form it will take, it's not happening anytime soon!
Quote from: sparker on December 27, 2017, 06:25:30 PM
Even with Senatorial support (that assumes Feinstein will survive the reelection process!), any such project -- given all the preliminaries it must endure before actual construction -- is likely at least decades away. So while we all can muse about where it'll go and what form it will take, it's not happening anytime soon!
Not in her lifetime, anyway. She's 84.
Quote from: The Ghostbuster on December 27, 2017, 05:46:50 PM
Of course, you all know such a bridge will never be built, right?
"Never" is a long time. While it's certainly not likely in the near future, I wouldn't rule it out for 20 or 30 or 40 years from now. Traffic could keep increasing, and more efficient cars could make air pollution and global warming less of an issue.
The graphic in the news article shows a tunnel on the west end which appears to be around 3 miles long. The article mentions the BART tunnel, so I'm assuming the train would be in the tunnel but vehicular traffic on the bridge.
But the bridge cross section in the middle of the bay (not on the tunnel section) does not show train tracks, making it unclear if the train is on the bridge or in a tunnel.
So I'm wondering, why is there is tunnel section depicted at the west end, and is it for the train only, or both trains and vehicles?
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fpadailypost.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F12%2Fsouthern-crossing-specific-illustration.png&hash=a8c90b7b90b82ee350a3149a358941e895f5758b)
Quote from: MaxConcrete on January 02, 2018, 09:56:22 AM
So I'm wondering, why is there is tunnel section depicted at the west end, and it is for the train only, or both trains and vehicles?
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fpadailypost.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F12%2Fsouthern-crossing-specific-illustration.png&hash=a8c90b7b90b82ee350a3149a358941e895f5758b)
The tunnel, which is from an earlier study report, is likely there due to the proximity to the landing approach to SFO. You don't want a bridge at that point due to safety reasons. Look at the positioning of the runways, and that become clear (and think about accidents like the Asiana crash of a few years ago, and imagine if that clipped a bridge tower instead).
You certainly wouldn't want towers, but there's no need for towers across most of the bridge. There's just a narrow ship channel in the middle and the rest of the bay is shallow. Where it's marked as the tunnel, they could put a bridge just above the water level, supported by piers from underneath, just like the San Mateo Bridge.
I wonder if the SFO Airport would be friendly towards rebuilding the Airport BART station as a through running station, with the BART line continuing across the bridge or tunnel to the Castro Valley BART line.
Quote from: kkt on January 02, 2018, 12:59:00 PM
You certainly wouldn't want towers, but there's no need for towers across most of the bridge. There's just a narrow ship channel in the middle and the rest of the bay is shallow. Where it's marked as the tunnel, they could put a bridge just above the water level, supported by piers from underneath, just like the San Mateo Bridge.
I wonder if the SFO Airport would be friendly towards rebuilding the Airport BART station as a through running station, with the BART line continuing across the bridge or tunnel to the Castro Valley BART line.
Long-range plans extend BART down the peninsula to Santa Clara, where it is expected to meet the East Bay line coming down from Fremont (currently either U.C. or in planning stages) via San Jose. Whether the airport will be directly on that line or functioning as a spur has yet to be determined; either way, taking tracks across the bay on a new facility will be tricky but probably at least as "doable" as the project as a whole. Since the east end of this corridor looks like it's not too far south of Oakland International, there might be a push to "kill two birds with one stone", so to speak, by using such a BART line to physically connect the two airport facilities; currently Oakland is served by an elevated-train shuttle service from BART to the terminal.
Quote from: sparker on January 02, 2018, 03:53:15 PM
Quote from: kkt on January 02, 2018, 12:59:00 PM
You certainly wouldn't want towers, but there's no need for towers across most of the bridge. There's just a narrow ship channel in the middle and the rest of the bay is shallow. Where it's marked as the tunnel, they could put a bridge just above the water level, supported by piers from underneath, just like the San Mateo Bridge.
I wonder if the SFO Airport would be friendly towards rebuilding the Airport BART station as a through running station, with the BART line continuing across the bridge or tunnel to the Castro Valley BART line.
Long-range plans extend BART down the peninsula to Santa Clara, where it is expected to meet the East Bay line coming down from Fremont (currently either U.C. or in planning stages) via San Jose. Whether the airport will be directly on that line or functioning as a spur has yet to be determined; either way, taking tracks across the bay on a new facility will be tricky but probably at least as "doable" as the project as a whole. Since the east end of this corridor looks like it's not too far south of Oakland International, there might be a push to "kill two birds with one stone", so to speak, by using such a BART line to physically connect the two airport facilities; currently Oakland is served by an elevated-train shuttle service from BART to the terminal.
The BART mainline bypasses the SF Airport stop. SF Airport is on a spur, and I was thinking the spur could be extended across the bay.
I'm not going to pretend to know the exact traffic patterns, but it seems to me this crossing would only exacerbate existing problems: on one side I-880 in Hayward is already chronically congested, and on the other this bridge would put downtown SF-bound cars onto US-101 and I-280, both of which are also chronically congested.
I would think the point of a new crossing would be to relieve traffic coming from the north and east over the Bay Bridge into downtown (and vice-versa), so what about this: a new bridge splitting off I-80 around Albany, heading SSE about 5 miles to the northern tip of Treasure Island, then SE into downtown, paralleling the Bay Bridge. It would touch down around Broadway and go into a tunnel which would lead under the Financial District and to a series of underground parking garages, plus access to the BART stations at Embarcadero and Montgomery. Limited access to get out beyond, including an additional toll, to discourage thru traffic (i.e., heading to the south or west parts of the city or down the Peninsula).
Typing it out makes it look more ridiculous than it was in my head, but just spitballin' here.
Quote from: kkt on January 02, 2018, 04:25:31 PM
Quote from: sparker on January 02, 2018, 03:53:15 PM
Quote from: kkt on January 02, 2018, 12:59:00 PM
You certainly wouldn't want towers, but there's no need for towers across most of the bridge. There's just a narrow ship channel in the middle and the rest of the bay is shallow. Where it's marked as the tunnel, they could put a bridge just above the water level, supported by piers from underneath, just like the San Mateo Bridge.
I wonder if the SFO Airport would be friendly towards rebuilding the Airport BART station as a through running station, with the BART line continuing across the bridge or tunnel to the Castro Valley BART line.
Long-range plans extend BART down the peninsula to Santa Clara, where it is expected to meet the East Bay line coming down from Fremont (currently either U.C. or in planning stages) via San Jose. Whether the airport will be directly on that line or functioning as a spur has yet to be determined; either way, taking tracks across the bay on a new facility will be tricky but probably at least as "doable" as the project as a whole. Since the east end of this corridor looks like it's not too far south of Oakland International, there might be a push to "kill two birds with one stone", so to speak, by using such a BART line to physically connect the two airport facilities; currently Oakland is served by an elevated-train shuttle service from BART to the terminal.
The BART mainline bypasses the SF Airport stop. SF Airport is on a spur, and I was thinking the spur could be extended across the bay.
You're correct about the spur aspect (there's an actual wye for trackage) of the SFO BART server; the main line extends south to the Millbrae Avenue station, where it terminates into storage tracks south of the station itself. There seems to be easement along the Caltrain tracks as far as the Burlingame city line; the Caltrain/former SP line is pretty hemmed in by streets and housing south of there all the way past San Mateo. If and when BART extends further south than Burlingame, it'll likely be in a tunnel under local streets. But I do concur that if some sort of new bridge/tunnel has its landing near SFO, that might be a pathway for a new cross-bay BART line -- but given the layout of SFO, it probably won't be a direct extension of the spur (it would have to tunnel under runways, which might in itself be a non-starter) but rather employing another rail junction north of the main line -- probably right around the I-380 overpass; that would be optimal for a direct BART line into the tunnel section of that specific bridge proposal. But I still maintain that the east end would be best utilized by serving Oakland Airport before joining the East Bay BART line through East Oakland.
I won't attempt a comparative analysis against other ways to spend $12B, but this alignment makes sense to me. It would alleviate congestion on the SF Bay Bridge, the San Mateo - Hayward Bridge, I880, and the section of US 101 between I380 and CA 92. On the other hand, it would probably increase congestion on US 101 north of I380.
Quote from: mcarling on January 27, 2018, 02:19:17 PM
I won't attempt a comparative analysis against other ways to spend $12B, but this alignment makes sense to me. It would alleviate congestion on the SF Bay Bridge, the San Mateo - Hayward Bridge, I880, and the section of US 101 between I380 and CA 92. On the other hand, it would probably increase congestion on US 101 north of I380.
Since it would be a "relief route" for both the Bay/I-80 bridge and San Mateo/CA 92 bridge, it would likely increase congestion to some degree in both directions of US 101. Also, the existing I-380 would likely experience additional congestion as traffic to the new bridge from I-280 would be added to the present load.
https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2018/01/25/the-beautiful-bay-bridge-frank-lloyd-wright-never-got-to-build/
Wow even Southern Crossing was proposed by Frank Lloyd Wright.