Deja vu all over again
In 1957, Santa Clara County (Palo Alto, San Jose, etc.) voted not to join the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART). That's why East Bay service only went to Fremont, which is in Alameda County. In December, 1961, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors responded to a racist campaign led by the developer David Bohannon and also voted not to become part of BART. That's why BART stopped at the Daly City border, and only recently was extended to SFO and Millbrae. Bohannon convinced them that criminal elements would use BART to come to their towns and rob them. How much swag could you carry back on a BART train anyway? Just picture these imagined minority race criminals standing on a BART platform waiting for the train in what were then lily white towns.
Every time I have to drive down the Peninsula from San Francisco, I think about how much easier life would have been for me and my fellow drivers if we had the option of taking BART instead of just the infrequent Caltrain service.
It's that same mentality driving much of the opposition to HSR here. Maybe we need some videos of the French TGVs or the German ICE trains to see how they co-exist with the residential environments in their countries.
