Back when BART was being planned in the 1960s, each Bay Area county decided whether or not to support it, and the original system (map) — as it existed from the 1970s to the 1990s — reflected the fact that both Marin and San Mateo Counties were left out of BART. (The stations built in San Mateo County south of Daly City station, connecting BART to San Francisco International Airport and to Caltrain in Millbrae, are the result of several whoops-I-guess-it’s-actually-a-good-idea votes in the late 90s.) This new map of all Bay Area rail (large .gif file) by SF Cityscape highlights Marin County’s isolation. (Courtesy CurbedSF)

It’s a local urban myth that snobbish Marin voters rejected BART because they feared it would bring the hoi polloi to its gentle shores. But the truth is more complicated. As told in the book “Paying the Toll: Local Power, Regional Politics, and the Golden Gate Bridge,” by Louise Nelson Dyble, the 1962 decision to eliminate Marin from the BART district was the result of Golden Gate Bridge District intransigence and indecision by the Marin County Board of Supervisors. Read a page of the book from the Google Books scan.

Although San Francisco was one of the first cities to have Google’s camera-equipped cars tootling up and down its streets to produce Street View imagery, the service has never been very good for the southeast part of the city. With yesterday’s update to the service, several neighborhoods, including much of Bernal Heights and Visitacion Valley, still lack coverage. Here’s Bernal Heights:

As a Bernal Heights resident whose block is not covered, I have mixed feelings about being left out. Should I feel exclusive, or excluded? At least it’s an improvement over the original coverage which showed only half the city.

Click the image above for an image that shows the southeastern quadrant of the city, where coverage is lacking.

Previously:
SF stops at Cesar Chavez?
Google maps now displays BART, Caltrain lines
Petition to have bike routes on Google maps
Fun with Google maps

Saw this first on Curbed SF — Google maps now displays color-coded BART lines, along with the Caltrain line. Apparently the San Francisco Bay Area is the first metropolitan region to get this feature. Click the thumbnail to go to Google maps and see the BART and Caltrain lines (the latter being the grey line going down the Peninsula, of course).

However, the feature only displays a straight-line route map from station to station, often distorting the actual location of the route taken between stations.

See after the jump for an example.