=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SF Gate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/chronicle/archive/2003/06= /21/BA306053.DTL ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, June 21, 2003 (SF Chronicle) EXTENSION'S HISTORY FULL OF OBSTACLES/BART tracks overcame bickering, wet w= eather, endangered snakes Michael Cabanatuan, Chronicle Staff Writer The smooth, swift ride on BART's extension to the Peninsula is in sharp contrast to the turbulent trail it took to get to San Francisco International Airport. BART's trip from Colma to the airport and Millbrae is a strange tale that blends political infighting and big money. And a cast of characters as diverse as politicos from San Bruno to Washington, D.C., a card-club owner and scores of slithering snakes. Along the way, some of those snakes got squashed, torrential rains turned the construction site into a muddy morass and accidents knocked out phone service to thousands. Costs rose and opening dates were delayed so often that BART stopped making predictions. "There were some dark moments," BART board member Dan Richard admits, "when it seemed like it wasn't going to happen." On Sunday, the saga comes to an end as BART adds four new stations -- San Francisco International Airport, Millbrae, San Bruno and South San Francisco -- and 8.7 miles of track to its four-county regional rail system. While the idea of building a subway connection to the airport stretches back as far as 1956, this tale begins in 1988. After a year of bickering over whether BART should go to the airport, even though San Mateo County didn't belong to the BART district and other areas were waiting for extensions, Bay Area politicians and transportation leaders hammered out an agreement. They made the SFO extension the region's top project to compete for federal funds, and San Mateo County, in exchange, agreed to pay $200 million to help BART build extensions to Pittsburg/Bay Point and Dublin/Pleasanton. Larry Dahms, retired executive director of the Metropolitan Transportati= on Commission, the region's transportation planning agency, considers that the key step in BART's march to the airport. "After 1988, I always believed we were going to make it," he said. "There were some trying times, but I always thought we'd get through it." But big challenges were yet to come. As the 1990s started, the debate began over whether to go into the airpo= rt or build a station in wetlands a mile and a half away, with a light-rail link to the terminals. SFO's management opposed an airport station, not wanting to raise landing fees charged to airlines to help pay for the improvement, and the airline industry agreed. So did supporters of Caltrain, who argued that the BART extension was too costly and would steal money, riders and attention away from the Peninsula's commuter railroad and its own improvement and expansion plans. The opponents were joined in their struggle against BART by the owner of a San Bruno card club named Artichoke Joe's, who feared the extension would wipe out his parking lot. Together they rallied enough opposition in Congress from outside the Bay Area to oppose funding for the project. But BART officials and the Bay Area's Congressional delegation fought back. KOPP'S CONTRIBUTION So did Quentin Kopp, then a state senator from San Francisco. In 1994, tired of the feuding, he organized a grassroots effort to qualify a ballot measure in San Francisco. Measure I, which was purely advisory, advocated a station inside the International Terminal. Opponents added a competing Measure H, promoting an outside terminal, to the ballot. San Francisco voters overwhelming favored the airport station and soundly rejected the outside station. "Quentin was brilliant," said Richard. "He said, let's let the people speak. It was just an advisory vote, but it made the other politicians listen to what the people wanted." Kopp, now a San Mateo County judge, is proud of his role, but even proud= er of the average citizens he credits with getting BART into the airport. "It took a lot of nonprominent people who signed petitions to qualify Measure I," said Kopp. "Without them, that (airport) station would have been in San Bruno." While Measure I was a big victory, BART's biggest setback came on Feb. 1= 4, 1997, in what BART officials refer to as the "St. Valentine's Day Massacre." Attending a meeting with airport officials, United Airlines executives and Mayor Willie Brown, BART officials were hoping to agree on an airport station. Instead, the airlines and airport demanded that BART pay rent at the airport and give airline employees a 25 percent discount on BART trips to and from SFO. "We got taken," said BART director James Fang. At that point, he said, he and Richard figured the project was close to dead and talked about making sure the airport at least left space for a station so a future BART board could try again. But while BART officials were appalled by the demand -- $2.5 million in annual rent for 50 years and airline employee discounts valued at $1.5 million a year -- they eventually agreed. The deal allowed BART to roll forward. Without the airline industry opposition, BART won a White House pledge to commit $750 million to the project, though the agency has to apply and lobby for disbursements each year. GROUND BROKEN IN 1997 BART broke ground on the extension in November 1997, projecting it would cost $1.2 billion and open by the end of 2001. But Mother Nature had other plans, slowing the construction with heavy rains in the winters of 1999 and 2000 and the revenge of the squashed San Francisco garter snakes. The endangered snake, protected by state and federal law, lives in the wetlands west of the airport and Highway 101. BART was required to protect the reptiles but in April 2000, a squashed snake was found. Wildlife officials halted construction for 18 days while they investigated. The delay ended up costing BART $1 million. A series of construction accidents in 2000 also temporarily halted or slowed work on parts of the project and made headlines. A welder using a cutting torch started a fire that wiped out 32,000 phone lines; a drilling crew sliced through about 5,000 more phone lines in an unrelated incident; and a two-alarm fire started at a construction site after workers left a wooden pallet sitting on top of a hot, live electrical conduit. Other delays included having to dig a 60-foot-wide, 40-foot-deep trench through dirt so hard that it bent steel pilings. And the difficulty of working around, and sometimes under, the Caltrain tracks with a minimum of disruption to the commuter railroad's service also led to delays and increased costs. BART set and reset opening dates but they kept having to push them back. So, when contractor Tutor-Saliba/Slattery missed the December 2002 deadline, BART stopped making predictions. Finally, in April, BART settled on Sunday's opening date and began final testing. E-mail Michael Cabanatuan at mcabanatuan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2003 SF Chronicle