Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Wednesday Wishlist: BART to Santana Row
Mark from Think Bigger San Jose is proposing a different alignment for Phase 2 of the BART extension into Silicon Valley. The Santa Clara BART station is highly redundant with Caltrain service and if not for the maintenance yard nearby, it would be considered mostly unnecessary. Yes, you have SCU and large development projects like the Coleman Highline are being planned for the area, but the need for BART there is far less than the route Mark proposes--taking BART through Midtown to the Santana Row and Valley Fair area. This is a region that is booming and is in desperate need for mass transit access. At the rate "Uptown" is growing, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is not going to cut it. Check out the thoughtful post and discussion right over here.
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The counter argument that it would cost a lot to tunnel there, and that it would be unsightly to go aerial is valid. But I think that is just trying to close the discussion. First of all the tunnel from Diridon to Santa Clara is about as long, and there are not alternatives it takes the Caltrain ROW so surface options are out, elevated is a problem because they want to leave the ROW open for HSR upgrades. Following Caltrain is a no go for BART in the future too.
ReplyDeleteThere is an alternative route that is cheaper which is to go down the VTA ROW to I-280 and then take I-280 to Winchester, not as ideal a station location, but still close to the new offices, leaving VTA open to extend BART to Cupertino in the future if the need presents itself.
I like this plan for phase II much better. And going down 280 would be a good idea.
ReplyDeleteThey could even extend BART down 280 to the Apple campus!
ReplyDeleteBaby steps, how about before even proposing this we start with sidewalks on all the surrounding streets? That's more than can be said about the BART station in Milpitas...
ReplyDeleteNot sure why having Caltrain already would make BART there unnecessary. A public transit system is only really useful if you have well working connections between different systems. For example someone traveling from Sunnyvale to Fremont could first take Caltrain to Santa Clara, then BART to Fremont. Same with anybody coming from SFO. Now if we could only have a decent connection to SJC.
ReplyDeleteWe will already have both BART and Caltrain in the Diridon Station, next stop over. So if someone is coming from Sunnyvale or Fremont, they would transfer at Diridon (which they need to go to anyway) instead of Santa Clara. The main argument for the Santa Clara station is to prevent transfers for those specifically going to the Santa Clara station on BART. That likely is not going to be very many people, especially compared to the number that would head to the Santana Row/Valley Fair area.
DeleteOK, yeah, that makes sense. I wasn't aware that there will be 2 transfer points basically right next to each other (Diridon and Santa Clara). In this case I agree that this is not particularly useful.
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