Most people would probably take BART and the Oakland International Airport connector shuttle. (The trip takes about 45 minutes and costs around $10.)

But Delta Airlines offers a new option. Their “Weekly Fare Specials” newsletters alerts travelers to the special fare of $69 from SFO to OAK.

You will go through Salt Lake City, where you will have about an hour layover. Your total time for the trip will be around four hours, not counting the usual air travel issues of security and the like.

Such a deal!

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image from Drewski2112′s photostream

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Blaming yesterday’s moderate breeze — in the 20-30 mph range around the bridge — is unacceptable. The original bridge lasted for 70+ years in all sorts of weather conditions. The bridge has to be functional every day, not just in good weather.

Someone has to have been criminally negligent in this incident.

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UPDATE: Go here for an excellent rundown of the problem and its repair.

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Maybe it’s just because I’m familiar with it, but the freeway system in the Bay Area seems a lot more sensible than in DC, where I have been visiting.

To go left in the nation’s capital you usually have to start off to the right. Generally, to get anywhere at all you have to go in a circle first.

Something fitting in that.

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Image (not acually DC) from 1Sock’s photostream.

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Remember these transbay terminal designs? It turns out, according to “state transportation officials,” the terminal would be inadequate to serve projected travelers, and it would also pose engineering problems.

“Three sets of engineers met and they concurred that the design for the station was inadequate and useless for high-speed rail,” according to Quentin Kopp.

Another triumph for the City That Once Knew How.

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Story via the Chronicle. Enjoy it, because the paper says it might not stay in business much longer.

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Did you know the cable cars have their own website (separate from the rest of MUNI)? Besides route maps it offers cable car history, interactive demos, even guidelines for hopping on and off.

B in the D, when I lived in Cow Hollow near the Marina, I commuted by cable car for a while. Back then residents as well as tourists rode cables car lines. Now they are more expensive that buses and streetcars, and have become basically a novelty ride for tourists.

Still, it’s good to be reminded that if you’re traveling to the city you don’t need to bring your own bike, as you can rent one here. In 2001, when the article was published, an Elite Hybrid with front shocks for city touring could be rented for $38/day from Blazing Saddles.

Florio also reminds us that you can bike from San Francisco over the Golden Gate Bridge and then return via ferry if you wish. (Ferries stop in Marin at Sausalito, Larkspur, and Tiburon. In the East Bay they go to Vallejo, Oakland, and Alameda). From Tiburon you can also take your bike on a ferry to Angel Island, where cars aren’t allowed (I want to do this!). The ferries contain racks for bikes.

Florio says that “San Fran traffic reminded me of driving in Mexico.” Which I can understand, but if you’ve traveled in Mexico you need to to be aware that the roads there are better. (Incidentally, to my ear the phrase “San Fran” grates worse than “Frisco,” which at least sounds either historic or trashy depending on your point of view.)

She also remarks, “The Golden Gate Bridge is a misnomer, to my thinking [can a bridge be a misnomer?]. It’s not golden at all.” You think? Maybe that’s because the name refers not to the bridge but to the entrance to the Bay, which was called the Golden Gate long before the bridge existed. Why is this misconception so common? You would think enough pictures of the bridge had been published by now that people would stop expecting it to be golden.

It was the photographer Dorothea Lange who convinced the powers that be to leave the bridge its reddish color (the color of the underpainting on the Bay Bridge). But that’s a story for another time.

The Alameda / Oakland Ferry is a good way to get into the city from the East Bay, though a bit more expensive than BART at $11.00 round trip for adults. A full service beverage and snack bar is included. Bicycles can be brought along.

The ferry’s ports of call include Jack London Square, Alameda, the San Francisco Ferry Building, Pier 39/Fisherman’s Wharf, AT&T Park, and Angel Island. At present there are 13 trips a day between Jack London Square and the Ferry Building; the full schedule is here.

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LINK: A quick guide to SF Bay ferries

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The Transbay Joint Powers Authority board approved the proposal of the Houston-based Pelli Clark Pelli / Hines group for the design of the new Transbay Terminal. (See photos of the three finalists here.) The tower envisioned in the group’s design soars to 120 stories high. The PCP/H proposal had previously won the favor of by a recommending jury not only on its design merits but committing $350 million to the authority (the second-ranked team only $145 million).

In keeping with the project’s general tone of excess, the jury’s report is available as a 5+ MB pdf download. (Which makes me cranky –why is it that us ordinary bloggers learn to optimize our graphics for the viewer’s convenience but as soon as your start throwing millions of dollars at something even the most fundamental things can’t be handled properly?) Here’s a portion of the jury’s report:

The Transit Center fits beautifully as part of the urban form of San Francisco both from an aerial perspective and at ground level. The Tower works as a marker on the skyline of the Transit Center below. The Transit Center edge is well scaled and retail is visible and inviting. The proposal expands the program of the Transit Center beyond a transportation hub to add value through a wonderful urban “City Park.” As a catalyst for development in itself, the park has the potential to link to new adjacent buildings as redevelopment proceeds, further defining the urban form. Design of the Transit Center structure and rooftop park conveys not only a sense of light heartedness, but also a concern for the environment, wholly in keeping with the San Francisco spirit. “Mission Square” provides a great room or hall as a civic space and grand entry to the Transit Center and City Park. The design also addresses and lessens the “tunnel” effect on First and Fremont streets. Overall, the design is not as much about itself as a single building as it is about its role in the neighborhood and City, providing new usable open space and vibrant street life as the focus of a mixed-use, dense neighborhood.

The photo is from the City Hall presentation. 

Again this year the Bay Area is ranked second in the nation for traffic congestion by the Texas Transportation Institute. And highway 80 is the worst of a bad lot. Do you think maybe BART should expand in that direction?

How do you pass the time in traffic?

BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger gets pay raise to $322,500 a year.

BART leadership has announced a change of strategy that will see it abandoning the expansions of recent decades in favor of running more trains more closely together and adding more stops on existing lines. There is talk of adding an earlier train to the airport (though just a train or two scarcely sounds enough to make much of a difference).

Early trains to the airport are a good idea, since BART strangely went to the trouble of expanding there and then failed to provide the trains that would enable travelers to catch the peak early morning flights. But if BART really wants travelers to use it to connect with flights, it needs to add luggage ranks to the trains. And it needs to provide a shuttle to the Oakland airport that is not sheer misery, like the current packed cattle cars.

While it’s true that expansion has been a bit precipitous, BART should nonetheless expand along the I80 corridor, which is an idea that it dropped twenty-five years ago and never picked up again. Highway 80 is consistently ranked as the worst or second-worst commute in the nation. Yet BART has preferred to expand to places like Pleasanton and Pittsburg, rather than do something to help alleviate the worst traffic problem in the entire country.

image of BART station from SF Travel