BART service is back to normal. But transit experts say yesterday's shutdown was a harsh lesson in the need for backup for key facilities like BART or the Bay Bridge . 

 

Rod Diridon, executive director for the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State, has long argued for a second BART tunnel under the bay, one that would have allowed BART to keep operating yesterday. 

 

And Diridon says the cost--estimates range from 2 billion to as much as 10 billion dollars--would be worth it considering how fast the Bay Area is growing. "Those amounts of funds are chicken feed," Diridon says, "when you compare it to what happens to the economy of the Bay Area when those access routes are interdicted for any period of time."

 

Diridon is not in favor of another bay bridge, a so-called southern crossing. He says that would just create more traffic jams on already overloaded highways.