My role as a Digitization Technician here at IGSL involves manually digitizing local government documents page by page. At face value, government documents might appear trivial to the untrained eye, but in working with our collection I have been struck by the idea that all the little things that affect everyday life that we often take for granted in our cities, from the sounds we hear to the air we breathe, are the result of deliberate engineering and policy decisions, often made long before their full impacts were understood.
I was particularly captivated by the Bay Bridge Rail Feasibility Study (2000), published by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. The document explores the possibility of reintroducing rail service to the Bay Bridge from a structural engineering perspective, holding both evidence of what exists and traces of what might have been. The study emerges at a compelling inflection point, in the aftermath of the Loma Prieta earthquake, when the bridge was undergoing reconstruction and planners were reassessing its future while reflecting on its past.
Metropolitan Transportation Commission.
Bay Bridge rail feasibility study (July 2000)
I was discussing this document with a friend who serendipitously introduced me to the iconic film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) which led me down a real rabbithole. This film fictionalizes the real-life dismantling of Los Angeles' once extensive streetcar system, Pacific Electric's "Red Car" system, to make way for freeways. A similar story unfolded in the Bay Area: the Bay Bridge once carried Key System streetcars alongside automobiles. I couldn’t help but notice parallels to today’s light rail discussions, and it turns out I’m far from the first to draw this connection. The film has had lasting cultural significance, helping to spark renewed public speculation about the demise of systems like the Key System.
As the feasibility study notes, “Under the increasing pressure for vehicular capacity, the bridge was converted by 1963 from a mixed use bridge to one accommodating vehicle traffic only.” Some have theorized—echoing the narrative depicted in Who Framed Roger Rabbit—that this shift was influenced by corporate consolidation and corruption within the transit industry.
In 47 cities across the United States, including Los Angeles and Oakland, General Motors, Standard Oil of California (now Chevron), Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, and Phillips Petroleum invested in National City Lines and its subsidiaries. These entities purchased struggling streetcar systems and converted them to bus operations, consolidating control over local transit while encouraging a broader shift toward automobile dependency (Brekke). In the Bay Area, AC Transit eventually acquired the Key System and continued its bus-only operations.
But that’s not the end of the story… the Bay Bridge Rail Feasibility Study revisited the possibility of restoring rail service across the bridge in 2000—nearly 40 years after the Key System’s demise. The feasibility document states “in 1998, voters in four cities - Oakland, Berkeley, Emeryville and San Francisco - passed a non-binding declaration of policy stating that rail service should be restored to the Bay Bridge,” without including an explicit description of what the rail service should look like. This study evaluates four alternatives including a light rail system, extending an existing BART line onto the bridge, a hybrid commuter/high-speed rail option, and a more ambitious high-speed rail proposal. Notably, Alternative A envisions a modern light rail system reminiscent of the original Key System.
The feasibility study ultimately concluded that although it would be theoretically possible, re-introduction of rail to the Bay Bridge would likely be expensive expensive (approximately $3 billion) due to necessary seismic and structural strengthening to accommodate for the additional weight.
Working with documents like this has deepened my appreciation for the often-overlooked decisions that shape our built environment. These records reveal not only the technical and logistical constraints of their time, but also the values and priorities that guided them. I am continually impressed by the shadows of the past around me illuminated by this collection.
Kyra posing beside the Key Route Train Station plaque in Oakland's Key Route Plaza.
The plaque commemorates the arrival of the first Key Route electric train in 1904
and the station's role in East Bay transportation until the line's final run in 1958.
Citations:
Brekke, Dan. “The Rise and Fall of the Bay Area Streetcar Transit System.” KQED, 19 Feb. 2026, www.kqed.org/news/12073762/the-rise-and-fall-of-bay-area-streetcar-trans...
Buchanan, Bill. “Key System Was the Bay Area’s Original BART, and Then It Vanished. Here’s How to Find It.” SFGATE, 26 July 2023, www.sfgate.com/travel/article/bay-area-key-system-transit-remembered-182...
