"Plan to link Bay area airports not feasible option, report concludes"

Friday, June 29, 2001

Plan to link airports not feasible option, report concludes
BY AARON DAVIS
The San Jose (CA) Mercury News


Linking Oakland and San Francisco airports by running a high-speed rail line
through a tunnel under San Francisco Bay could cost more than $4 billion,
but no one can say for sure whether it would offer significant relief from
nagging weather delays.

The state Legislature last year ordered San Francisco Airport to study the
link after critics said the airport wasn't thoroughly addressing ways to
reduce flight delays short of building runways two miles into the bay.

The idea was that creating a quick hop between the airports could lessen the
need to expand runways if passengers could shuttle back and forth to
different flights when delays stack up at either airport. Delays are common
at San Francisco Airport when fog forces the airport to close one of its two
closely spaced runways for safety.

But consultants for the $110,000 San Francisco Airport-funded report
concluded that moving passengers back and forth via a 12-mile tunnel under
the bay -- or by using high-speed hovercrafts -- would cost too much to make
the plan a feasible alternative to runways. It would also be too complicated
for travelers and would raise environmental concerns, they said.

Hybrid solutions

Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek, said she was disappointed by the
study's conclusions. ``It is certainly not time to start taking anything off
the table,'' she said in a phone interview from Washington. ``There are many
solutions that are possible, and it's more than likely that what we are
going to be faced with is a series of hybrid solutions'' to flight delays.
``I don't know yet if a tunnel or anything else is a part of that.''

Tauscher will host a public forum on Monday in Oakland to discuss flight
delays.

Thursday's report also drew criticism because it did not directly analyze
whether a tunnel or hovercraft concept could curb flight delays.

``According to most forecasts out there, by the time you would finish
building a tunnel between the airports, Oakland will have reached its
capacity for flights, too. It makes the whole plan of partnering the
airports fairly useless,'' said Harley Moore, a founder of Lea + Elliot, a
San Francisco transportation consulting firm that helped write the report.

The big picture

Critics said that like other runway-related reports the airport has
published, the most recent report missed the big picture.

They say the benefits of coupling the two airports should be looked at
together with technology improvements and other ways to curb delays to see
if a package of alternatives could together rival the benefit of new
runways.

Among the report's findings:

 A high-speed ferry, or hovercraft, service between the two airports could
be built within three to five years at a cost of $118 million. The ride
would take 20 minutes. With luggage and security checks, getting from a
plane at one airport to one at the other airport would take up to two hours.

 Extending a light-rail tunnel under the bay between the two airports would
cost $3.5 billion and take nine to 12 years to complete. The ride would take
40 minutes, but making the connection could take up to two hours.

 Building a high-speed train under the bay that would travel at 80 mph also
would take nine to 12 years to complete and cost $4.2 billion. The ride
would take 13 minutes. Getting from one plane to another would take 45
minutes, according to the report.

IF YOU'RE INTERESTED

Rep. Ellen Tauscher will host a forum called ``Holding Pattern: A Public
Forum on SFO Flight Delays and Solutions'' on Monday from 10 a.m. to noon at
the Harris State Building, 1515 Clay St., Oakland.
Contact Aaron Davis at acdavis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx or call (650) 688-7590.

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