More BART-SFO access sought

Papan urged all sides to come together and find a way to offer more trips to the airport, as a means of taking cars off the road, improving ridership for the train agency and easing access.

“If we expect to serve this region and the regional airport, something needs to be done as quickly as possible,” said Papan.

While sharing their desire to beef up airport ridership, BART officials detailed the systematic hurdles they face in balancing Millbrae’s needs against the obligations of running a train system spanning much of the Bay Area.

Limited space at the Millbrae station for train storage and operations as well as the need for additional train cars to serve the whole system are among the challenges currently hamstringing BART operations, rail officials claim.

BART principal planner Kim Koempel though said her agency would not allow the challenging nature of the dilemma to impair their commitment to serving its keystone access point to the Bay Area’s largest global transit hub.

“We do want to solve this problem, but there are a lot of balls in the air and we are trying to figure them out,” she said.

A central stumbling block for BART in its effort is inadequate space at the Millbrae station to store train cars while also needing to preserve room for deactivating cars temporarily at the end of the line before sending them back toward the heart of the system, said Koempel.

The system anticipates extending its track further south, but a portion of the opportunity for improved efficiency will likely be consumed by plans to bring more cars online across the system, Koempel noted.

“As we have more cars, it compounds our storage problem,” she said.

Ultimately, BART officials said they are hopeful to offer more rides from Millbrae to the airport over the next few years. Papan though pushed back on such a timeline, claiming the heightened frequency is long overdue.

“Everyone has just been talking for years,” said Papan, claiming she has long heard promises of system improvements followed by inaction.

Airport officials also called for urgency, noting that the Millbrae BART stop is the second most popular origination point for travelers to the airport barring downtown San Francisco.

“We have to get this going,” said Julian Potter, the chief administrative and policy officer for San Francisco International Airport. She added the improved service would benefit airport workers too, potentially taking cars off the already congested roads and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

To help facilitate the process, Papan questioned whether San Mateo County officials could collaborate to purchase more BART cars to be stored at the Millbrae station for more frequent airport connections.

BART officials noted the expense of each car — expected to range between $3 million to $4 million per order — but did not seem opposed to the idea.

“That’s a pretty good proposal. I don’t know if it’s practical. But it is a good proposal,” said BART director Joel Keller, representing district 2.

Keller, whose electorate is comprised of Contra Costa County, noted financing — or the lack thereof — is essential to most of the service issues facing Millbrae.

Since San Mateo County does not pay into a tax measure directly benefiting BART as is the case in other parts of the Bay Area, some of the region’s concerns may not be prioritized as highly, he said.

Despite the monetary differences, Keller held fast that BART is responsive to local concerns, while acknowledging there is room for improvement.

“Maybe we haven’t done as much as you would like us to do and maybe we can do more but we have not ignored the city of Millbrae in this process,” he said.

In the effort to do more, officials agreed to meet with increased frequency and continue discussions on the matter. To that end, the Millbrae City Council later in the evening approved paying a shared portion of an access study for the city’s train station, alongside BART, the High-Speed Rail Authority and San Francisco International Airport.

With an understanding that additional work is in order, Koempel said she is confident the collaboration will continue.

“We’ll just have to follow up on existing solutions,” she said.

austin@smdailyjournal.com

(650) 344-5200 ext. 105