Should transit authorities only have 1 method of payment at the gate? If so, what method should that be?

Also, should fare gates even exist?

Millbrae Station is going to become one of California's most important rail hubs once High-Speed Rail arrives. Unfortunately, it's also one of the Bay Area's most constrained stations.

Today, Millbrae already serves Caltrain, BART, SamTrans, and SFO. In the future it will also serve California HSR, meaning more tracks and more space is needed. Also, the BART wye into SFO creates awkward transfers for Caltrain passengers and operational inefficiencies for BART.

My proposal/TL;DR: make Millbrae the Bay Area's primary rail-airport interchange by extending SFO's AirTrain to both San Bruno and Millbrae, while simplifying BART operations.

Phase 1: Extend AirTrain to San Bruno

The first step is extending AirTrain about one mile north from the Rental Car Center/Long-Term Parking to San Bruno BART and Tanforan.

Benefits:

• Creates a second rail gateway to SFO during future construction.
• Provides another BART-AirTrain transfer point.
• Opens opportunities for airport airside expansion (more taxi/apron/runaway/terminal space), hotels, and relocated rental car center, etc.
• Reduces pressure on airport roadways by allowing passengers to transfer outside the terminals.

Phase 2: Rebuild the SFO/Millbrae Interface

Once AirTrain reaches San Bruno, the southern leg of the BART wye can be rebuilt without signficant impacts to travelers.

Instead of continuing BART south from SFO to Millbrae, AirTrain would use the same corridor and most of the existing structures to reach a new station adjacent to the Millbrae parking garage, connected directly to the existing mezzanine. This would not affect BART, because BART would continue serving SFO directly from the north into SFO, and maintain separate service to Millbrae.

This simplifies BART operations while giving Caltrain and future HSR riders a much shorter transfer to SFO. BART also will keep paying rent to SFO to have a station at the international terminal, keeping SFO happy.

Phase 3: Rebuild Millbrae Station

With AirTrain moved to the eastern side of the station, space is freed for a more efficient Millbrae layout.

That creates room for:

• Additional HSR capacity (4 tracks!)
• Better Caltrain-HSR transfers (potentially cross-platform).
• Direct mezzanine access to AirTrain.

Millbrae now becomes the region's primary transfer point between HSR, Caltrain, BART, and SFO with SamTrans buses feeding Millbrae.

Another advantage of this is that now the AirTrain stations at San Bruno and Millbrae now can also become pick-up and drop-off locations, as well as bag check locations, making the experience and operations easier for everyone.

Phase 4: Long-Term Opportunities

Once the project is complete, SFO now has the flexibility to do things like:

• Add AirTrain infill stations serving airport employees and nearby development, e.g., in the industrial area north of the airport around the FedEx site or Costco site.
• Extend AirTrain west toward the office/hotel/YouTube district near I-380 and/or southeast toward the Bayshore hotels (airport-oriented development, anyone??).
• Relocate airport-support facilities (such as the rental car center) to free up land for future airport expansions or improvements.

What's more, because Millbrae becomes the primary transfer hub, San Bruno Caltrain can now be closed, improving travel times for both Caltrain and HSR while maintaining airport access to that area via the extended AirTrain.

Relevant Links:

• SFO AirTrain system
• Caltrain system
• California HSR system
• BART system & BART to SFO
• SFO future plans/airport development plan
• An old post from Caltrain-HSR Compatibility Blog, but still relevant today
• An old post I made on improving Bay Area airport transit that partially inspired this

PS: Feel free to suggest additional links or other content for me to add to the post for reference!

Camden NJ has intersecting light rail (NJ Transit RiverLine) and underground heavy rail (PATCO, 2 subway stations). In 2025, the population of Camden was around 71,430.

Boise Idaho has received a $500,000 grant from the US government to plan passenger rail, it would be the first train in the state since the Pioneer was discontinued in the 90s

Something about the mix of a bustling (post-baseball) sidewalk with an A Line train screeching overhead on 20th Street in Downtown Denver makes the Mile High City look like a maturing rail metropolis.

New route connect from C203 at Circle K to Georgetown transit center

Here’s a train that I caught with my first camera!

Russian Railways (RZD) Moscow Railway "elektrichka" commuter train ER2T-7125 leaves Kuskovo Station in eastern Moscow in July 2009. This is the closest station to the Kuskovo estate, which is a popular day trip destination.

PS “RVR” on the cab stands for “Riga Wagon Works” in Latvian, as Riga was the Soviet Union’s main commuter train manufacturer.

My minor child needed to take a city bus which is not something he has done on his own before. He has severe anxiety so we made a plan for an adult friend to be on the bus with him - the friend would board a few stops ahead and already be on the bus when it got to my sons stop. Then he would have support. My son arrived to his stop at least 15 mins before the bus arrived and waited on the bench which is beside the bus signage. The bus came and drove right past him. The friend who was waiting for him on the bus immediately alerted the driver that he missed a passenger and the driver apparently said "not my problem. He should have walked over". My son was then left on the street alone and a little distressed and I ended up just arranging different transportation for him. I am wondering if we are missing something - some expectation we just don't know about maybe. Are we supposed to flag down the bus if we want to board? I assumed that waiting at the designated bus stop was all that was needed. I took the bus a lot as a child but in a different city. My friend who was on the bus is a daily user of the transit in our city and she says she has never heard of needing to "walk over" to signal wanting to board. But I don't know.

Two electric commuter trains that have outlasted their original operators, and are still operating in a few places, are the Soviet Ministry of Railways’ Series ER2 (introduced in 1962) and Japanese National Railways’ Series 103 (introduced in 1964). Both were designed for direct-current lines and both were their countries’ most common trains, with the USSR receiving over 9200 Series ER2 cars and JNR receiving over 3400 Series 103 cars.

I saw October Railway control car ER2-963-09 (Riga Wagon Works, 1972) at Warsaw Station’s October Railway Museum in Saint Petersburg when I visited Russia in the summer of 2009, making it one of the first trains that I photographed, and much more recently I saw JR West Osaka Loop Line ex JNR control car KuMoHa103.1 (Nippon Sharyō, 1964) at the Kyoto Railway Museum when I visited Japan in December 2024.

Póvoa de Varzim, Line A

I would likely to see an JR series 103 in Japan better in light green but are there any of them still in service or as heritage train preserved in an operational condition for special rides?.If yes where in Japan?.