If California is as serious about public transit as its urban leaders claim, why isn’t there a commuter rail service running over the Golden Gate Bridge?

There’s no good reason why our state’s iconic span must devote all six of its lanes to cars. For more than 50 years, engineering studies have shown that the bridge could accommodate trains.

And now would be the perfect time to establish a rail line across the Golden Gate. On the level of symbol, train service would send a powerful message to the whole state and to the world that California offers more than just car culture. And, practically, the dense and traffic-plagued Bay Area would benefit immensely from a rail connection between San Francisco and the North Bay counties of Marin and Sonoma.

As our major regions plot new transit investments, there is no more glaring hole in California public transportation than the one across the Golden Gate Bridge.

North of the bridge, Sonoma and Marin are about to open the first phase, from Santa Rosa to San Rafael, of their new SMART light rail service (Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit). SMART, which also includes a bicycle-pedestrian pathway, will eventually serve a 70-mile corridor from Cloverdale to Larkspur, just 10 miles up the 101 Freeway from the Golden Gate.

South of the bridge, San Francisco is spending billions to construct the Transbay Transit Center, which has been billed as the Grand Central Station of the West. It is supposed to be the northern terminus of high-speed rail someday, and it should accommodate Caltrain, the commuter rail service that extends down the peninsula and all the way to Gilroy, the garlic capital at the bottom of Santa Clara County.

Toll booths at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, May 2002. Photo by Paul Sakuma/Associated Press.

But there is no plan for a train—be it via expanded BART service or a cross-bridge extension of SMART or some new service—to connect the new SMART train with the new giant train station. Which is sort of shocking for a place full of do-gooders who love to lecture the rest of us on the need to live sustainably and go boldly into the future.

So a question for the Bay Area: What in the name of progressive enlightenment are you waiting for?

The idea of a train on the Golden Gate Bridge is not a new one. To the contrary, such train service was envisioned as part of the original plan for the BART system. Michael C. Healy, in his excellent new book BART: The Dramatic History of the Bay Area Rapid Transit System, recalls that Marin County leaders in the early 1960s badly wanted to be part of BART. They were seeking to restore train service lost with the dismantling of the railroad that once took riders from Sausalito to Eureka, with a famous stop in Santa Rosa (the train plays a role in Alfred Hitchcock’s early classic, Shadow of a Doubt).

But in the fall of 1961, the governing authority of the Golden Gate Bridge balked at allowing trains, claiming that they would put too much stress on support cables. BART’s own engineering studies found that the bridge was plenty strong enough, but the bridge authority, out of what critics have maintained was fear of losing toll dollars, wouldn’t budge and produced its own competing studies. In the end, BART dropped Marin from its plans, to the frustration of several county officials. It would take more than half a century to bring rail transit to the county—in the form of the new SMART.

The idea of a Golden Gate train didn’t die. In 1990, renewed talk of BART to Marin led to a study that found the bridge could handle trains. But during the big California recession at that time, the multibillion-dollar cost of taking BART to the North Bay ended the conversation.

In this history, there’s a lesson even more dramatic than the Golden Gate: There are huge costs when California skimps on infrastructure, and fails to build the big and essential connections between our communities. A bridge train to the North Bay would have been easier and cheaper in the 1970s than now, and so for 40 years North Bay commuters have paid a rapidly rising price—in traffic, bridge tolls, time, and the extortionate cost of parking in San Francisco.

Just how much cheaper and easier would high-speed rail have been to build 30 years ago, when the idea was first suggested for California? There is real wisdom in the phrase that Healy attributes to Bill Stokes, the founding father of BART: “Build it now. It will never be cheaper.”

That’s why a train link over the Golden Gate Bridge would make sense today. Yes, such a plan would be attacked—this is the Bay Area and this is California, after all. Preservationists and aesthetes would say an iconic American landmark is being sullied by any change, as if adding rail to a roadway were the same as painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa.

Marin’s anti-growth zealots would oppose it, arguing that the train would encourage new development in their idylls. Engineers would wonder about the cost and difficulty of tunneling through the Marin Headlands to get to the bridge. And pointy-headed accounting types would cite the cost and point out that most commuters in the North Bay are going to jobs that are in the North Bay, along the very busy 101 Freeway corridor, and that with the rise of telecommuting, the number of commuters may shrink in the future.

And those who follow BART closely will argue that that system is at a difficult crossroads, and needs to focus on maintenance and other pressing projects, like a second tube under the Bay between Oakland and San Francisco.

To all such objections there is one answer: Why is the Bay Area thinking so narrowly and with so little vision for the future? As an Angeleno, I can’t resist pointing out to Bay Area friends that in the realm of public transit, we in Southern California are surpassing you, having passed sales tax increases to fund a transformational 50-year plan for a regional system that makes yours look like a disjointed joke. Are you really going to just sit there and let yourself be embarrassed for the next century by L.A.?

If done well, imagine how powerful a Golden Gate Bridge-traversing train would be. It could stop at Union Square, connecting with BART, on its way to the new Transbay Transit Center. It would draw commuters. It would draw tourists. It would draw rail fans. And it would make the planet’s greatest bridge even greater.

Such a train could be the inspirational showpiece of what the Bay Area badly needs: a new regional plan for transit that connects all nine of its counties. And when you pair the utility of such a train with its status as a powerful symbol of California’s commitment to a connected and sustainable future, you know what, Bay Area? You’ve come to this bridge. It’s time to cross it.

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Once a week, my mom and I would take the bus together down Vermont Avenue to Seafood Market and Goldilocks Bakery in Koreatown, a 30-minute trip, including wait time. My mom would only buy as much as we could comfortably lift. I would carry a brown bag full of pandesal, Filipino bread rolls, and she would hold double plastic-bagged groceries with both hands. I loved pandesal but hated the long wait at the bus stop and the bumpy journey on the road. Whenever I felt queasy on the bus, my mom would pull a plastic bag out of her pocket, widen it in front of my mouth, and pat my back. Once, on the way home after visiting the doctor, a female bus driver ordered my mom to take the lollipop out from my mouth: “Or else she’s gonna choke herself from it!” My mom told the driver she had no right to tell her what to do. We hopped off the bus before the next stop, but we still had long stretches of pavement to walk before reaching home.

In sixth grade, I became comfortable taking the bus on my own after school and on weekends. I passed the time waiting at bus stops and riding listening to Linkin Park on my CD player. The abrupt, jerky bus motions kept me from reading and sometimes still made me feel sick. But I could prevent a headache by tuning out the stops and starts and gazing at storefronts, license plates, pedestrians, and street activity through the windows. I enjoyed observing Los Angeles in its different faces, like cities within the city, from MacArthur Park to Park La Brea, Downtown L.A. to West L.A. I was able to travel as far west as Santa Monica and as far south as Long Beach on public transportation for $1.25. I could catch any one of the dozen buses heading every cardinal direction away from my busy home-base intersection of Vermont Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard. I learned by heart the cadence of passing streets as I rode the buses plying Vermont: Sunset, Fountain, Santa Monica, Melrose, Beverly, First, Third, Sixth, Wilshire. I created my own map of L.A. by surveying who got on and off the bus at which stops. While I heard mostly Spanish and Armenian spoken around East Hollywood, I would hear mostly Korean, Chinese, or Tagalog when passing neighboring areas heading south and west from home.

When I started high school at John Marshall High in Los Feliz, I rode the bus home every school day—a 30-minute wait at the bus stop plus 15 minutes on the bus. (In the mornings, I typically walked 40 minutes to Marshall because the buses weren’t always on time, and I didn’t want to be late for the bell. A ride by car would’ve taken five minutes.) I began purchasing monthly student passes in ninth grade. A day or two before the end of the month, I would stand in a long line at a cash-checking kiosk to sign up for the $24 pass reserved for full-time students. Student passes were in high demand, so Metro ran out of them within a couple days of the first of the month. When I missed getting a pass, the bill for riding the bus that month added up to about $50 just for the weekdays.

The bus was a cheap form of independence, but I was paying fare for an unpredictable experience. Even when plugged into my music, it was impossible not to overhear conversations. I once listened to a young lady directly behind me on her cellphone tell the story of her life growing up in foster homes, express her undying love for Jesus Christ, and invite the man on the line to an upcoming Bible study session. I also learned to be careful about verbal and physical harassment. I knew to check to see who I would be next to before I sat in any seat. I was cautious about wearing revealing or tight-fitting clothing because it made me feel vulnerable.

The bus has a code of behavior all its own. It’s rare to witness strangers engaging in conversation, even when people stand face-to-face in a crowded aisle. But from time to time, I see someone gesture, or communicate with a tap on the back, in order to offer a seat to an elderly person or someone with lots of grocery bags. While it’s acceptable to talk on cellphones, it’s somehow not acceptable to sing aloud.
It’s common to listen to music, but I rarely see anyone open up a MacBook on the bus. It seems a little like showing off when most riders don’t have such luxuries, plus there’s not a lot of privacy. And, at least when I was younger, people didn’t want to expose valuables on the bus—my brother had his iPhone stolen and pockets picked.

Most phones today come with applications that accurately map out bus routes and provide arrival and departure times. I spend less time waiting at bus stops, and I no longer have to walk long distances instead of guessing when the next bus will show up. I don’t have to visit the Metro website before leaving home to draw maps on paper. And as much as I enjoyed gazing out the bus windows, I prefer the way technology has integrated my riding experience with my work and personal life because I use the time to browse the Internet, send and receive e-mails, or read the news. The streets of L.A. seem more congested than they did 10 years ago, but the expansion of the Metro Rapid buses (which provide faster and more frequent service on major roads) and the more extensive subway system have made Metro more reliable. Rides are shorter now than when I was a kid.

My commute to work in Santa Monica from Mid-City, where I live now, is an hour long, and my commute back home can take more than two hours due to traffic. Taking the bus as an adult, I’ve learned to wear walking shoes and pack my purse with my dress shoes.

I walk to the supermarket during the work week, but on weekends I take the bus to go shopping in Koreatown, just like I did with my mom as a kid. And while most of my friends now have cars, I still base our meeting spots on bus routes to make things convenient, and so I don’t have to rely on them entirely for rides. We’ll meet at a subway stop that’s busy—say, Pershing Square—so it’s relatively safe to be waiting at, especially in the late evening. Then we’ll walk together to the Downtown L.A. Art Walk or a restaurant.

Growing up riding the bus has made me appreciate the city for its asphalt, its streetlights, its drivers, its pedestrians, and all its changing shapes and forms. I don’t think I stress any less about being on time than people who drive, and L.A. traffic affects me as much as it does L.A. drivers. But riding the bus has made me attuned to the city at a different pace. It’s also given me insight into the day-to-day struggles of people in my city. I’ve seen young men in suits leaving work in the evening sitting down next to red-eyed construction workers just heading out to their jobs. I’ve seen so many 17-year-old mothers guiding one or two children through the bus doors on their own. I once stood beside a short, tanned man who only made eye contact as we were both being squeezed by the doors that opened inward. He gestured to give me more space even though it limited his. As he told me in Spanish about his work in the fields and how he couldn’t speak English, I thought about how I probably wouldn’t have met him any other way.

These people are all a part of my Los Angeles, and, as they get off at their particular intersections, I get telling glimpses of the different paths Angelenos end up traveling. That seat on the bus is the best place in L.A. for tapping into the heartbeat of the city.

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I battle Caltrans (local-speak for the California Department of Transportation) each morning and evening. Caltrans and Kiewit, the contractor tasked with expanding the 405, are cunning foes. Each day I test their battle lines looking for weakness. Each night I retreat home, defeated. A commute that once took 45 minutes now lasts an hour and a half or more.

Prior to construction beginning in earnest a couple of years ago, I’d reached a comfortable equilibrium. I had a primary route that allowed me to escape traffic on the 405 by taking Sepulveda Boulevard, which parallels the freeway. If Sepulveda was slow, I could stay on the 405 or take an alternate route. I knew what to expect, how to avoid entanglements, and how to get to my destination in less than an hour. Those were my halcyon days.

Caltrans/Kiewit declared war a couple of years ago. It was a sneak attack, masterfully executed. One morning my commute seemed managed; the next, chaos ruled. No longer could I rely on Sepulveda; it crawled. The freeway was no better; it was choked with my fellow victims. Side streets buzzed with impatient commuters. My under-an-hour trip grew 50 percent longer overnight. I detected no diplomatic efforts. Peace turned to commuting war in an instant.

I quickly recognized that mornings are worst. Leave too late and lane closures render Sepulveda impassable. Leave early, and you get caught in a bottleneck as the lanes close, leaving no escape apart from illegal U-turns or other maneuvers not covered by insurance.

The first few weeks were especially awful. Naïvely, I sought out breaches in the enemy’s line, but each seeming victory was merely a trap. What saved me five minutes one day cost me 10 the next. Many of my fellow combatants employed similar strategies, rendering Monday’s best side streets impassable during Tuesday’s commute. I’ve come to believe that Caltrans/Kiewit monitors social media, looking for reports of commuting success and cracking down on anything that works.

For six weeks, I clung to my pre-commuting-war Sepulveda route, refusing to shrink from the enemy. Maybe it was nostalgia; possibly pigheadedness. For a while, I tried a hybrid approach, combining some travel on Sepulveda with some on the freeway. This saved me about 15 minutes.

Until I was discovered. I don’t know who gave me away, but Caltrans/Kiewit clamped down. Hard. First, they closed my preferred exit at Sunset. Then, when I coped by getting off at Wilshire, they reduced my favored freeway on-ramp to one lane from two. My hybrid strategy in ruins, I surrendered.

So I began avoiding the 405 and Sepulveda altogether. Driving through hilly neighborhoods worked during the summer. This time, though, Caltrans simply waited me out. Once school started, school buses and school-related traffic forced another surrender. Eventually I learned to take a different route nearly every day. By analyzing the enemy’s patterns, and keeping him confused about my own, I discovered which routes work on which days. Equilibrium seemed tantalizingly possible.

But the struggle continued. Incensed by my small victory, Caltrans/Kiewit took aim at my evening commute. It reduced northbound Sepulveda to one lane at Moraga. This left Sepulveda impassable and prevented my entering the freeway at Getty Center (my pre-construction favorite). I tried Wilshire, but Caltrans/Kiewit struck back with the Rampture. Now side streets are my only evening option to get to a point where I can get on the freeway, but everyone else uses side streets, too. Some nights half my commute is spent on the first five of my approximately 35 miles just trying to get on the 405.

Caltrans/Kiewit obstructed my evening commute in other ways. There used to be a sign on the uphill side of the Sepulveda pass announcing the number of minutes a typical freeway driver would take to reach the 118 Freeway based on traffic conditions. If the sign said less than 20 minutes to the 118, I stayed on the 405. More than 20 minutes and I chose the 101. It was helpful. So the enemy destroyed the sign. Now there is a temporary sign announcing the drive time to the much-closer 101–but, since there are currently no exits between that sign and the 101, the information is useless, which is how Caltrans/Kiewit likes it. The enemy is increasingly depraved.

Worse, Caltrans/Kiewit has allies. One of my evening routes involved getting off near Griffith Park and taking side streets to avoid a nasty interchange involving the eastbound 134 and the southbound 5. Somehow Caltrans/Kiewit got word of my success and obtained help from the city of Los Angeles, which closed down a lane on those side streets, rendering them gridlocked. I don’t even try that route anymore.

It’s not all gloom. Our commuting forces have won small victories. Recently, I tried southbound Sepulveda again on my morning commute and discovered that lanes were no longer closed on an important stretch. Has the enemy become complacent? Maybe victory will come after all. In the meantime, call it Carmageddon, call it Rampture–it’s my personal hell.

Keith R. Thorell is an attorney with a lamentable commute. He lives in Altadena with his wife and three children.

*Photo courtesy of Paul Stevenson.

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Two years ago, I moved to College Park, Maryland, to start my freshman year of college. On our way, my family stopped in Annapolis, the state capital, to do some sightseeing. I was drawn to the city’s history–which you can see all around you in the architecture, the cobblestone streets, the landmarks–and delighted by the views of Chesapeake Bay and of the sailboats on the water. I felt more welcome in that city in my first five minutes there than I ever did in College Park.

I settled into my dorm and college life, but I was desperate to get to Annapolis. There was no convenient way to travel between the two cities via public transportation, so I bought a car before my second semester began and got a retail job at a mall in the capital. Annapolis became my weekend hangout spot, too. Soon I was going back and forth five days a week. The drive became as routine as showering, and I realized that it was an act beyond that of commuting.

Even when I had no real reason to be in Annapolis, I developed the habit of jumping in my car and immediately heading east. I was constantly Annapolis-bound, heading south on U.S. Route 1, then east on East West Highway, a right turn onto Route 401 until merging onto U.S. Route 50 for the last 20 miles. I could do it with my eyes closed, and on some late nights, it’s possible that I did.

The scenery along Route 50 is basic, almost indistinguishable from other major highways on the eastern seaboard. There were certain curves and hills that added color to the experience, but it wasn’t about what I saw on the drive. It was what I felt.

Spending hours doing absolutely nothing in Annapolis brought consistent joy into my life. Yet I was never reluctant to leave. There were even times when I’d get off the highway and immediately turn onto the onramp heading back toward Route 50, never setting foot in Annapolis. As much as I hated College Park, I had friends there. And as much as I loved Annapolis, it wasn’t home. I had two separate lives in two separate cities. Route 50 was my connection between these two, and when I would drive that route, I didn’t have to choose. No matter which direction I was traveling, I had something waiting for me. On Route 50, I had everything.

Sean McEntee is a broadcast television journalism student at Columbia College Chicago.

*Photo courtesy of Dougtone.

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