Bridges must evolve to include trains
Regarding “Be bold, Bay Area: Run train across Golden Gate Bridge” (April 9): Joe Mathews is right about an urgent agenda for serving all nine Bay Area’s counties by rail. But car-addicted pavement planners and “the city that knows how” just expensively blew both our two lowest-cost-option bridge links for trains. The Bay Bridge is renewed in high-carbon, 20th century mode: only for traffic! No restoration of its clean swift-rail capacity and no trans-bay bicycle or pedestrian ways.
It’s my understanding that the visionary Golden Gate Bridge and its approach were designed to accommodate double tracks across the center of (not under) the deck. But no way, then, could they feasibly be run down around Sausalito, nor, until recent rail traction technology, could trains pull through the steep Waldo Grades to and from Marin.
Now, though the Golden Gate Bridge’s car volume has been decreasing since 2000, we’ve dismantled strong Doyle Drive’s statistically safe, aesthetically small footprint, reducing and dominating shoreside Presidio parkland with a new freeway (technically — alternative fact — “parkway”).
John Diamante, San Francisco
Convert rail tracks
I fully agree with Joe Mathews that we should have a rail line across the Golden Gate Bridge. But it should be an extension of SMART southward, not a northern spur of BART, because SMART is standard gauge while BART is broad gauge. That means that the interoperability of BART is limited, while SMART trains can run on almost any track in California or the continent — or, indeed, the world. Someday, BART will have to be converted, at great expense, to standard gauge. I hope that all extensions of BART are getting built with some kind of accommodation for rapid conversion to standard gauge at some future date, but they probably aren’t.
John Wills, Oakland
Outrageous behavior
Contrary to popular opinion, I feel that Dr. David Dao was largely responsible for the fiasco that occurred on the United Airlines plane, and I feel that United Airlines is being unfairly maligned. The other three passengers who were asked to exit the plane complied with no problem, but Dao necessitated security to come on board to escort him off the plane. I do not believe that anyone could have foreseen the catastrophe that was going to ensue. Any injuries that Dao suffered I believe are the result of his own outrageous behavior.
Gloria Judd, San Francisco
Ban vanity license plates
Regarding “Battling bumper bigotry: DMV fights ugly messages on the road” (April 12): As a motorist, I’m glad that the Department of Motor Vehicles is banning vanity plates that promote hate, violence, sexism and vulgar language. It’s frightening enough that our state has many violent gangs and white nationalist groups that promote bigotry. The last thing we need are license plates that carry that message to busy freeways, where drivers upset by them might get “road rage” and cause accidents.
Lisa Wang, Mountain View
Imbalances in tech
Regarding “What Apple, Google preference means” (Insight, April 9): The way that Google and Apple might manage their employees’ food, bike and parking needs may differ, but both tech companies sadly have one thing in common: an underrepresentation of women in the workforce.
As the website TechRepublic recently reported, both Apple and Google have about 70 percent male workers and 30 percent female workers. And workers of both genders are largely white or Asian, while the percentage of African American and Latino workers is low. Regardless of whether one’s preference is an iPhone or Android, why can’t companies as innovative as Apple or Google figure out ways to change the gender and ethnicity imbalances in their workforces?
Vivian Wexford, San Francisco
Should be on front page
Regarding “3 killed in likely murdersuicide at grade school” (April 11): Eight-year-old Jonathan Martinez and his teacher, Elaine Smith, were killed in their classroom, and a nine-year-old was wounded, by a man who walked into the classroom with a gun to shoot his estranged wife.
The man then shot and killed himself. All of this in front of the other children in the class. The Chronicle placed this story on Page 5, and the New York Times placed it on Page 19. Are we getting so immune to school shootings and domestic violence that women and children dying are not as important as salmon or the Giants, the stories that made the front page?
Olga Ryerson, San Francisco