I grew up riding streetcars and buses in San Francisco, but my only transit trips to the East Bay were on A/C Transit after the Key was gone. I think as a family we took a circle (driving) trip one Sunday so we could ride the Richmond-San Rafael ferry one way during the last year or so before the bridge opened. But let's face it: that was the time of cars and driving, and it wasn't GM/Firestone/Chevron that killed transit (especially rail) but society and economics. The Bad Boys pushed a little, but the structure had already started collapsing. And, the economy and population of the Bay Area and other places in California was completely different from what it is today, and did not go away because of changes in local transportation.

One could argue that BART should never have been built. That most likely would have led to abandonment of SF because more people simply couldn't get there any more by the late 1960s. BART literally saved SF as a viable city, and still does. Adding a bus lane to the Bay Bridge will do little to add transit capacity or reliability - BART is the capacity equivalent of a whole freeway.

The question is, do we need more, what should it be, and how should it be done? What's that old line? If you find that you're in a hole, first, stop digging? IOW, think big, and think of what will be needed 50-100 years from now, not just for gaining or increasing power in the next election. 50 years from now, our descendants (OK, Millennials) will look on BART and SMART as we do now on the Key and NWP - something quaint and cute that the grandparents rode - compared to whatever they have by then. I hope.