Former Peninsula Rail 2000 (now BayRail Alliance) board member Russell Reagan wrote to us regarding the Transbay Terminal/Caltrain extension project:

1997 was the year when it was almost killed, and 1998 was when then-SF mayor Willie Brown backed away from his sharp rhetoric that the Caltrain extension needed to be killed that made headlines in 1997. I wouldn’t tell the story that it was almost killed in one specific year; it was barely alive during the mid-90s, and others might describe other points in its history when it was almost killed. But if there was any one year when it was closest to being killed, that year was 1997.

During the mid-90s, prior to Willie Brown’s harsh position in 1997, the project to extend the Caltrain line to the TT or alternative locations was under study, while the JPB, especially its staff and general manager Jerry Haugh, showed only weak interest in the project moving forward. Support for it was weak as well with the city/county of San Francisco, while so much political muscle was behind the BART-SFO extension, especially from Quentin Kopp, chair of the Senate Transportation Committee; and as you remember, Kopp also opposed the Caltrain DTX.

It was clear to us that the BART extension would be a failure in terms of ridership, especially if the DTX were built, or even if Caltrain continued to provide service north of where the two lines connected near the airport. All of these considerations pointed to the likely demise of the planned Caltrain DTX.

In June 1998 however, the SF League of Conservation Voters began their efforts to qualify for the ballot the initiative that would become Prop. H in November 1999. We did obtain a well over half of the signatures needed to qualify for the Nov. 1998 ballot by the deadline, and then SFLCV attempted to place it on that same ballot through the Board of Supervisors. At that time (two years before district elections were reinstated), nearly all the supes were loyal to Willie Brown.

Then Brown himself, in a political move related to a dispute with MTC over the alignment of the new Bay Bridge east span, placed on the Nov. 1998 ballot an advisory initiative calling for the return of rail service on the Bay Bridge. This was in conjunction with the cities of Emeryville, Oakland and Berkeley. This was instigated by then-mayor of Emeryville Ken Bukowski. All four cities passed similar advisory initiatives by wide margins in November 1998. Implicit in Brown’s involvement with this was a reversal of his position against tearing down the TT, almost completely unnoticed by the public after his very outspoken opposition to the Caltrain DTX the previous year.

“Coincidentally” around that time, the ownership of properties adjacent to the Terminal changed hands. They were acquired by a new owner who, unlike the previous owners, KSW Properties and Fritzi Realty, supported (or at least were not against) plans to rebuild the TT. KSW Properties and Fritzi Realty had owned the parcels since the 1970 fully expecting that BART meant the demise of transbay bus service and the Terminal as well.

The last bus (AC Transit O line) departs from the old Transbay Terminal about 15 minutes after midnight on August 7.