On August 20, 2021 the Peninsula Rail Program Executive Steering Committee’s staff (IPMT) submitted 6 cost-cutting recommendations to the ESC. IPMT Report can be seen here. One of the cuts was uniquely ill-advised:
From tables 7.1 and 7.2 on page 73 in the IPMT Report
Subject: Golden Opportunity for Early Link 21 Action
The purpose of this letter is to ask that your two Boards and the Link 21 team become champions of linking the Salesforce Transit Center to Market Street and the Embarcadero Station via a subsurface moving-ramp pedestrian connection.
At the September 9, 2021 BART Board meeting your Link 21 Team made an excellent presentation outlining its progress to date. During the meeting there was much enthusiasm expressed by all concerned for developing a truly integrated rail and bus network such as those commonly found in other advanced countries.
On May 26, 2021, a disgruntled Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) employee went on a shooting rampage at the agency’s main Guadalupe light rail yard, fatally striking nine co-workers with bullets before killing himself. There was and is universal agreement that this senseless slaughter of innocent people was horrifying and that every conceivable effort should be made to provide optimal care to the victims and their families.
But why, as a result, did the Authority shut down VTA light rail service for over three months?
There’s getting things done…..and then there’s talk of getting things done. This article examines the difference between the two.
Instead of moving the project forward, the Region backpedals. The recently-formed “Executive Steering Committee” is comprised of staff representatives from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), Transbay Joint Powers Authority, SF County Transportation Authority, SF Mayor’s Office, Peninsula Joint Powers Authority (Caltrain) and the California High Speed Rail Authority. 
They and their consultants have returned to reviewing such long-settled matters as the routing of the extension, an ill-conceived and unneeded Pennsylvania Avenue subway, the number of tracks leading into the Salesforce Transit Center (already studied and resolved twice) and the possible interface in the distant future between the Salesforce terminal and a second subaqueous rail tube, if one is ever built.
All this for a project approved by all relevant local, regional, State and federal agencies and jurisdictions over 12 years ago that received its State and federal environmental clearance in 2009.
There is a new paper out on “Seamless Transit” (previously called Integrated Transit).
Replete with attractive professional graphics, the paper outlines in glowing terms all the things that are generally regarded as necessary to get lots more people to ride trains and buses. Click here to read the paper.
Bay Area Transportation Working Group 