Alameda County, California Bridges: BART Viaduct

June 2014 (37.74957, -122.19218) BART Elevated Viaduct

Only marginally more attractive than yesterday's Airport Connector is this elevated BART viaduct that runs along the median of San Leandro Street. These trains are very convenient, especially for people not wishing to be stuck in traffic during their morning and evening commute. One can take BART from San Francisco to Richmond (traveling under the Bay), and then take Amtrak from Richmond to Sacramento.

The BART system was begun in 1964 and had to survive several lawsuits before they began building their first tracks. The line between San Francisco and Oakland began service in 1972. The viaducts were designed for earthquakes, although the magnitude of ground shaking was originally underestimated. However, the system survived the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake with very little damage (to everyone's relief). BART passed a bond measure to retrofit part of their line (after a previous measure had failed). It looks like they never got around to retrofitting this segment though.

Alameda County, California Bridges: BART Viaduct by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Alameda County, California Bridges: Oakland Airport Connector

June 2014 ( 37.72662 Degrees, -122.20199 Degrees) Oakland Airport Connector

This recently built structure carries automated cars between BART's Coliseum Station and Oakland's Airport. It's a patented system and so BART gave Doppelmayer a license to build and operate it for a number of years and keep the profit. These things aren't very attractive and they're multiplying all over the planet. A cookie cutter approach means they don't fit that well into their environment. For instance, they're not designed for the large earthquakes that can occur in Oakland. The columns are non-ductile but the connection between the steel structure and the concrete bents are designed to slide before the columns fail.

Alameda County, California Bridges: Oakland Airport Connector by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.