# SF Bay Area's Key System history



## CHamilton (Mar 22, 2014)

How ambitious Key transit network reached the end of the line



> For decades, a grand wooden Pier Terminal rose up out of the bay, just east of Yerba Buena Island. It was the most striking symbol of a unique business venture called the Key System or Key Route - a rail and ferry transit agency that was also a real estate company.
> 
> During the early 20th century, Key System ferries and trains provided fast, cheap transportation for burgeoning East Bay cities, including Oakland, Berkeley, Piedmont and Albany. By offering a mass-transit connection to San Francisco - highlighted by a 16,000-foot-long pier that ran from the Oakland waterfront almost to Yerba Buena Island - the Key System played a major role in the growth of what it promoted as "the Eastshore Empire."


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## greatcats (Mar 22, 2014)

Thanks for the interesting article. They sure were good at getting rid of things that ran well.


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## SarahZ (Mar 22, 2014)

My friend was trying to describe this to me while we were in SF. I asked if the Bay Bridge was a double decker to allow for more traffic, and he said that it had originally been trains on one level and traffic on the other. This adds another puzzle piece to that story.


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## George Harris (Mar 22, 2014)

Not really, SarahZ. (I was trying to bring your post down as a quote, but for reasons unknown my computer or the website would not cooperate.)

As originally built, the top level was six lanes for automobiles, the lower level was two tracks for the key system plus three lanes for trucks and buses. The reason for three was that the middle lane was reversible, based on traffic. The Transbay Terminal was the terminal for trains and buses on the San Francisco side.


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## SarahZ (Mar 22, 2014)

George Harris said:


> Not really, SarahZ. (I was trying to bring your post down as a quote, but for reasons unknown my computer or the website would not cooperate.)
> 
> As originally built, the top level was six lanes for automobiles, the lower level was two tracks for the key system plus three lanes for trucks and buses. The reason for three was that the middle lane was reversible, based on traffic. The Transbay Terminal was the terminal for trains and buses on the San Francisco side.


More puzzle pieces.  Thanks for providing the rest of the story.


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## George Harris (Mar 22, 2014)

Sarah: We made our "Western Trip" in 1961, when I was in high school. We went across the Bay Bridge (unintentionally) on the lower level. At that time it was in the arrangement I described, but the key service trains were gone and they were tearing out the tracks. In less than 10 years they were building the Transbay Tube for BART. If BART would have been able to use the tracks across the bridge instead of having to build a sunken tube tunnel under the bay would have saved Millions!!!!!


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## Blackwolf (Mar 23, 2014)

George Harris said:


> Sarah: We made our "Western Trip" in 1961, when I was in high school. We went across the Bay Bridge (unintentionally) on the lower level. At that time it was in the arrangement I described, but the key service trains were gone and they were tearing out the tracks. In less than 10 years they were building the Transbay Tube for BART. If BART would have been able to use the tracks across the bridge instead of having to build a sunken tube tunnel under the bay would have saved Millions!!!!!


Unfortunately, this prediction would have only been half true. The real-estate value of those two lanes taken up by the Key System tracks would always have lost to asphalt in the long run. Indeed, I certainly could not fathom how bad traffic for automobiles would be today if the lower deck was only three lanes wide for trucks and buses, with the upper deck sharing five lanes for two-way travel. For reference, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge is the second busiest vehicular roadway bridge in the North America, and one of the top ten busiest in the world. With over 240,000 vehicles passing over the span each day (The George Washington Bridge in NY is the busiest in the world, with 276,000 a day) the tracks would have inevitably been ripped out even if the Key System and/or BART were still using them. The Tube would still have needed to be built, or another bridge constructed.

This is just my humble opinion, of course!


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## cirdan (Apr 15, 2014)

Blackwolf said:


> With over 240,000 vehicles passing over the span each day (The George Washington Bridge in NY is the busiest in the world, with 276,000 a day) the tracks would have inevitably been ripped out even if the Key System and/or BART were still using them. The Tube would still have needed to be built, or another bridge constructed.


But if they had wanted to take the ROW of a working railroad, they would have had to build the replacement bridge or tunnel at their cost. It would thus have been built out of highway funds rather than transit funds, leaving more transit money to do other things.

When the Key System folded, they basically gave that valuable ROW away for free, and when BART needed it, they had to build it from scratch at their own expense. A seamless transition from the old Key system to BART would thus have been a far preferable arrangement, even if the ROW on the bridge was untenable in the long run. Not to mention of course that the Key system went to many places that BART doesn't, so it would have been a good thing all around if BART could have inherited that as a working system and then gradually converted it.


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## third rail 1200 (Apr 15, 2014)

Well, when the rails were on the lower deck, the upper deck had 6 lanes, three in each direction. When they made the upper deck one way the reduced the lanes to 5 to allow wider trucks. While the State owned Bridge Railway was in good shape, the train control system allowed for a maximum of 35 mph. The rest of the Key was physically shot, tracks in the streets were rough as a cob. The A line stubbed downtown, the B, C and E served what were originally upper end Key reality ventures with little traffic potential. The F did go to downtown Berkeley, mostly on city streets.

At the same time, there was increasing demand for a "second crossing" for autos. It would have begun somewhere around Hunter's Point and ended in San Leandro. The end of the freeway revolt caught up with the push for it and it was finally layer to rest in the mid 1970's.

As much as the Key was fun to ride, complete with a rail fan seat, if you got up there fast enough at a terminal, I think it had to go. You can still ride one at the Western Railway Museum.

As a life long resident of San Francisco and a regular rider of BARTD, I think the tube and underground routing through San Francisco and the East Bay resulted in a far more efficient and faster network than could have been accomplished by trying to incorporate parts of the old Key System.

BARTD has many design and operational problems. I sure could have been done better but, never-the-less, It is much better than the Key of 1958.


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## George Harris (Apr 16, 2014)

Any alternative to killing the whole thing seems not to have been considered. Instead of fixing what needed fixing on the Key System, for example your "rough as a cob" trackage, they simply killed the whole thing. The railroad approaches could have been rebuilt completely at relatively low cost compared to a completely new rail crossing. Both road approaches have been rebuilt, I think more than once. As to the 6 to 5 wider lanes, the Golden Gate still has 6 lanes with the same width lanes as those that were "too narrow" on the Bay Bridge. The changes that went along with the track removal resulted in an increase of one lane only, and since one of the original 9 lanes was reverseable, it was effectively less than that much. We have now spend something over 6 BILLION dollars on a replacement for half the Bay Bridge, apparently primarily to satisfy some political egos. (I think all the real and imaginary seismic issues on the old bridge could have been fixed for something like 1% or less the cost of this replacement which provides ZERO increase in capacity.)

Tunnels are far more expensive in operation than bridges of the same length, not just in initial construction cost. Think such things as ventilation and pumped drainage, and probably others that are not coming to mind right now.


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## chakk (Apr 16, 2014)

After the Key System tracks were removed, there were five lanes of motor traffic eastbound on the lower deck and five lanes westbound on the upper deck -- except when Benjamin was driving to Berkeley from Santa Barbara to visit Elaine -- when the traffic directions were reversed.


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## sechs (Apr 20, 2014)

George Harris said:


> We have now spend something over 6 BILLION dollars on a replacement for half the Bay Bridge, apparently primarily to satisfy some political egos. (I think all the real and imaginary seismic issues on the old bridge could have been fixed for something like 1% or less the cost of this replacement which provides ZERO increase in capacity.)


The Golden Gate Bridge has two wide lanes for trucks:

http://goldengatebridge.org/tolls_traffic/vehiclerestrictions.php

The cantilevered portion of the Bay Bridge never was [SIZE=11pt]seismically fit. It was not designed for the kind of earthquakes that occur in California. It's only a stroke of luck that the suspension portion of the bridge is capable.[/SIZE]

The Army Corp of Engineers questioned whether a proper retrofit even was possible. Considering reduced maintenance costs, improved safety, and increased life, the cost of the new bridge is very similar to a compete retrofit of the old one. That one percent number is just pulling stuff out of an alternate orifice.


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## George Harris (Apr 20, 2014)

Please reference the Corp of Engineers report. Are you aware of the many serious issues with the replacement structure. One percent of 6 billion is 60 million. Justify your insult.


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## sechs (Apr 21, 2014)

Instead of insult, let's call it truth:

http://www.oaklandbridge.com/army%20final.html

Can you back yourself up with some facts? I'll tell you up front that the initial estimate on refit was about $200 million, an order of magnitude more the $60 million you just stated.


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## George Harris (Apr 21, 2014)

Let's see: $200 / $60 = 3.33. So my WAG was off by a factor of 3 1/3, which is not good, but really not that bad considering that it was what it was. An order of magnitude would mean $600 million, since order of magnitude is by definition a factor of 10.

To call something in error is not the same as calling it out of "alternate orifice." that last sir, is an insult.


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## Green Maned Lion (Apr 21, 2014)

George, WAGs are by nature pulled out of ones ass. Let's not debate the semantics. That's why they are called wild '***' guesses.


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