BayRail Alliance

Currently, BART ends in Fremont. There are plans to extend it to San Jose, but these plans amount more to wishful thinking than actuality, because there isn't nearly enough money available to fund construction.

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BayRail Alliance is of the opinion that the ridership estimates for the project are grossly inflated. Consider these reality checks, for starters:

• BART in downtown San Francisco today is successful partly because people have to pay to cross the Bay Bridge in an auto, whereas, BART in the Fremont-San Jose corridor is competing with free highways.

• BART in downtown San Francisco today is successful partly because the downtown area is densely developed with many tall buildings, jobs, and housing. The official projections for the San Jose BART extension assume that San Jose and Milpitas will each obtain the same number of riders as what downtown San Francisco's busiest stations draw today. Yet, San Jose is limited in how high structures can be built due to restrictions from the nearby Mineta San Jose airport, and there are strong neighborhood concerns about development. Even in 30 years, we don't think Milpitas and San Jose will be as densely developed as downtown San Francisco is today.

more detailed analysis of the ridership projections available on the VTA Watch blog:

Clear cut fraudulent BART ridership projection

Clear cut fraudulent BART ridership projection (part 2)

Common arguments for BART debunked:

Claim: Extending BART is better than building Caltrain Metro East because then people won't have to transfer. People won't stand for transfers.

Reality: BART will not have direct service from the tri-Valley and the Central Valley, which CME can offer. We're not aware of any plans by BART to build a wye at Bayfair station, so people coming from the Livermore Valley to San Jose would have to transfer at Bayfair to another BART train to head south, whereas someone on CME could potentially travel directly.

The BART extension as planned won't go into the Golden Triangle, where the jobs are and will be. So people heading there will have to transfer from BART. VTA is expecting over 30,000 boardings in Milpitas, probably with most riders transfering to light rail.

If not having to transfer is such a great advantage with BART, then why is the ridership on the SFO BART extension is still far below the original projections?

Finally, it's not the transfer itself that is such a huge deal to most riders, but how well they are timed so that one doesn't have to wait long. Witness, riders in New York City and elsewhere transfer all the time, and usually it's no problem.