The Bay Area Rapid Transit District in San Francisco is planning to allow people to park in some of their lots and take the BART to SFO. Seems reasonable to me. However there is a problem, Houston…The cost. Or is there>
See, if you park and pay $6 a day for the privilege and then pay $8.50 to ride the train, (round trip) you are paying $2.50 extra for the first day. (It costs $12 to park in the long term lots at SFO). So you have to stay at least two days to break even. BUT>>>
If you have a family of four, you are paying $34 for the train fare. You will have to be away at least five days to break even. AND its certainly more convenient to drive your herd to the airport than move them from parking to train, to train to the airport.
My guess is that this policy would be great for Joe businessman or woman who is off for a three or four day road trip. They will save some money, and avoid the congestion around the airport.
Its a pilot program, but why not? If BART has the space go for it.
Oh, they do note in the article that they are eventually going to hire a private operator to run the program and pay them $1 a day per car. So far so good. However they are projecting 100 cars per each of five locations. That’s $500 a day in income for the operator, assuming they are full. Would they have to put a person at each site? If so, that $500 goes away pretty fast.
JVH
