Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Wednesday Wishlist: BART to San Jose

I think this topic has been a Wednesday Wishlist item 3 or 4 times already, but it looks like it is all finally coming together. A couple weeks ago $900M in federal funds was officially committed to the first phase of the project. This portion will involve a $2.1B, 10-mile extension that will add a station in Milpitas and another in North San Jose (Berryessa). Construction is expected next month with completion as soon as 2016.

The next phase will be twice as expensive and involve 4 additional stations: Alum Rock, Downtown San Jose, Diridon, and Santa Clara. This would also mark the start of a subway system in San Jose.

Source: SJBJ



File:BART-SJ-extension-map.png

7 comments:

  1. Hi Joshua,

    Thanks for covering BART Silicon Valley on your blog! The graphics you have posted are unfortunately old an not accurate. Please refer to the following links for new renderings and project maps!

    Thanks,

    Brent Pearse
    BART Silicon Valley

    http://www.vta.org/bart/documents/other/berryessa_phase1_factsheet.pdf
    http://www.facebook.com/bartsv?sk=photos

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  2. BART to San Jose (even if it's Berryessa for starters) is going to be great. Even though it won't make it downtown initially, we will still have a link via Light rail at the Milpitas station. Maybe they could do some creative things with express trains (on the Light rail side) to link up with that station in the early days so that it won't seem so far away. I don't know where they are going to get the money from (for the subway) but that's a future discussion! Maybe if that HSR is cancelled they can grab some of that money?

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  3. Josh - Berryessa is not North San Jose! lol

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  4. Looking forward to this. BART to DTSJ is probably money better spent than HSR.

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  5. The only reason I'd ever take BART is to go drink in SF. Unfortunately service doesn't run late enough to catch it at closing time. BART is slow and smelly. I'd much rather have the money spent on HSR.

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  6. A letter to the editor in today's Mercury News suggested that Apple use some of its billions (cash on hand) to help extend BART all the way to downtown SJ and Santa Clara. In exchange, Apple employees would have free, unlimited access to the BART system. An excellent idea in my opinion.
    I'll take the idea further, as I've suggested in the past: Apple and the VTA should come together and propose a BART "spur" from Diridon Station west under/along West San Carlos street and Stevens Creek BLVD to De Anza College. It would run as a subway similar to what's proposed down in LA along Wilshire BLVD (the "Subway to the sea"). A station would be built near Valco shopping center and the future Apple campus. I'm guesstimating the 7 or so mile BART subway similar would cost between $4-6 billion, cost shared by Apple, other Silicon Valley corporations, and VTA/state/federal funding. OK, enough dreaming, "wishing" for tonight.

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