BART Extension Fremont Warm Springs San Jose Diridon Station/Google Transit Village

[modorney]

A recent meeting brought up the challenges of BART to San Jose:

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercuryn ... 469.htm?1c

Here's my view:

1. The "top" three quarters of the extension would cost about a billion dollars, and have a ridership of about 40,000 daily. The primary user of BART would be a $35k to $60k "worker bee" who lives in the Fruitvale to Fremont corridor, and works in the golden triangle. Although new cars are needed for the extension (since it is more miles), most of the ridership would be a reverse commute. And mostly employer-subsidized tickets.

2. The bottom quarter of the extension would be 2 or 3 billion, and have about 10,000 riders daily. No primary user, a mix of students, workers and airport travelers. Very few subsidized tickets.

3. Transit is a curious mixture of transportation and politics. Politically, putting a temporary terminal at Beryessa, just south of Great Mall Station (the transfer point to light rail), would make it a "San Jose" connection. And, it would encourage development at Beryessa.

4. Great Mall or Beryessa to Montgomery is a little over an hour, so there would be quite a few commuters, including quite a few from the lower income areas south of Beryessa (city jobs in hospitality and medicine).

5. If and when built, the underground part can be built single tracked. It is doubtful that trains will run more often than every 15 minutes, and this stretch can be operated single track, just like Pittsburgh is operated, now. Building single track tunnels is a lot less disruptive to downtown businesses.

6. The whole San Jose area has a high water table, and a limited altitude restriction, due to the proximity of San Jose Airport. Those two limits make it hard to develop cost-effective buildings. If possible, available land should be developed for tax revenue, and ridership. Putting a maintenance base near SJC would not be the best use. Have some tail tracks, develop over them, and expand the Hayward Shops.

http://www.svrtc-vta.org/vta/

[Palal12]

1. "BUILD IT ALREADY!" is what most people, including me, are thinking, same as with the Bay Bridge. The same people who don't ride mass transit start cutting mass transit back and then complain that transit is inconvenient.
The basic formula of fewer transfers = better, faster transit seems to be floating midair, outside of politicians' heads.

2. If/when built, the extension could finally link the 3 Bay Area airports. This is something that the airports can use to their advantage, by offering their services as stopover points, with BART connecting the 3 airports.

3. If the downtown section is built, it would probably be wise to look into putting the tunnels one over the other, just like Vancouver did. I'm against single tunneling for the sole reason that I want to see BART circle the bay at some point in the future. If the double-track tunnel is not built now, it will never be built, as nobody in their right mind will let service disruptions take place more than once.

4. Maintenance Facility: A good place for it is either around SJC, or near Diridon Sta.

BTW. If Diridon gets BART, it will be the only station with 4 modes of rail transportation in the Bay Area: ACE, BART, Caltrain and VTA Light Rail (which should open late 2005-early 2006).

[modorney]

3. If the downtown section is built, it would probably be wise to look into putting the tunnels one over the other, just like Vancouver did. I'm against single tunneling for the sole reason that I want to see BART circle the bay at some point in the future. If the double-track tunnel is not built now, it will never be built, as nobody in their right mind will let service disruptions take place more than once.

Stacked tunnels are a good idea. I remember Market Street in 1973, and it was a mess. Construction killed most businesses, only well-heeled chains (Woolworth's, believe it or not!) and "junk" stores lined the construction.

[modorney]

BTW. If Diridon gets BART, it will be the only station with 4 modes of rail transportation in the Bay Area: ACE, BART, Caltrain and VTA Light Rail (which should open late 2005-early 2006).

Don't forget Amtrak! That makes it five!

(BTW - I'm glad to see some discussion on BART-SJC here!)

[transitteen]

BART to SJC sounds like a good idea. Honestly at this point the main ridership would probably be from East SJ to points in the East Bay or from the East Bay to SJ. Right now the Capitol Corridor is the only real service that provides East Bay to SJ service that parallels BART. The prices, however, are much higher than BART. This is a project that should be done as soon as possible because the longer we wait ~ the more the costs go up. Also, we shall see how things go if VTA decides to buy out and replace their GM. Caltrain's 57 minute Baby Bullet Service to SF from SJC would probably still dominate the SJ to SF market. All I say is enough thinking... let's start doing... building... getting it done so maybe in 10-12 years it will actually exist (let's not have this be the next Bay Bridge...)

By the way... modorney... email me and let me know where you are these days out and about around the system... was talking with Emery about his FT now... we should all arrange something to get out and about on transit one of these days and all talk... you too Palal12... something with the regulars here!

[KANDYMAN]

I'm just curious. It was written that the main users of the San Jose line are going to be people traveling up and down the East Bay and not to SF. Would it be proper to assume that BART will still terminate SF trains at or around Fremont and only extend the Richmond trains all the way to SJ? It's probably to early to know any of this but I thought I'd ask anyway.

-Steve

[transitteen]

I believe that the one of the first plans was to begin operating trains from Fremont only as far as San Francisco/24th Street starting in the summer of 2005, however with the slow progress I highly doubt this will be the case. In any case BART's plan last time I heard was to operate trains from San Jose to both Richmond and San Francisco/24th Street. This of course could wait until the possible 30th/Mission infill station is constructed. In the mean time a break facility would have to be constructed at 24th Street in order to facilitate these turns. Currently only two revenue trains turnback at 24th street with the TO's deadheading to/from Daly City. This change would save two trains on the San Francisco end of the line. These would be added on the Warm Springs end to offset the extension.

[modorney]

Transitteen makes a good point - for many years, BART has talked about adjusting the endpoints of the lines, with one of the lines ending at 24th (Fremont?), one ending at Daly City (Dublin?)and one ending at Colma (Richmond?) - the Colma parking facility is not used as much, since the extension opened.

The old versions of the SRTP (http://www.bart.gov/docs/Adopted_FY05_SRTP_CIP.pdf talked about the Fremont trains turning back at 24th, but that hasn't been mentioned lately.

What has been mentioned is the Pleasant Hill Turnback crossover, and the 30th street station, with a pocket track (like San Bruno).

With the new board, it will be interesting to see what gets promoted. Technically, the Fremont turnback was supposed to start the second Monday in 2005, but I haven't heard any rumblings in a long time.

[tp49]

The discussion leads me to ask whether the Fremont/Daly City line is one of the least used in the system. I ask because of the lack of direct trains later in the evening during the week and on Saturday and the lack of direct service on Sunday.

[Palal12]

Actually, it's used pretty heavily during rush hour. By the time the train gets to SF, there is little standing room left.

The reason there are no direct trains on it is because most of the line follows the Dublin Pleasanton line. There's no point in double-serving the same stretch of track during off-peak times. Technically, it would be sufficient to run 3 lines on BART to cover all track. However this would mean that many people would be inconvenienced by this.

[tp49]

Thanks for the answer, that leads me to another question then, why not run the Dublin/Pleasanton trains as a shuttle to Bayfair off-peak and run Fremont-Daly City but I guess it is one of those things you could do either way.

[modorney]

That's a good point. If you dig into old SRTP's, there was a "gentlemen's agreement" to run Dublin Trains into San Francisco, and not just to Bayfair.

And, late at night, the last train from Dublin goes to Bayfair, and waits for the Fremont-bound train, coming from MacArthur. Then it goes back to Dublin.

On Christmas Eve (starting about noon), attendance was so bad that BART cancelled every other Pittsburg train, and ran 30 minute service. Plus a couple of Fremont-Richmond trains were cancelled.

However, BART could have run a few shuttles between Bayfair and Dublin, using 3 operators. Then the remaining operators could have been sent to the other lines, to fill the holes. Bayfair is a handy place to turn trains, there's a couple of pocket tracks, sidings, etc., to put trains, so you can keep from bumping into one another.

That way, BART would still have 15 minute service, with only extra transfers.

[Palal12]

Bayfair needs another platform.

[modorney]

That will probably get done when they do San Jose. Dublin to San Jose tains are an idea (even if only commute-time trains). Also, turnback trains from Bayfair have been considered, so that Bayfair, etc., customers can get a seat.

That whole station is supposed to get a makeover - http://www.bart.gov/docs/planning/BAY_FAIR.pdf - and adding a third platform would be good. And, any of the station upgrades that are presently on the radar (Coliseum, Pleasant Hill) should have a center track, for either express trains or passenger loading.

My thoughts are that the San Jose to San Francisco run is so long that express trains are a viable option. The whole elevated structure is slated for replacement (seismic), this would be the time to make it triple track.

[Flxiblemetro]

My thoughts are that the San Jose to San Francisco run is so long that express trains are a viable option. The whole elevated structure is slated for replacement (seismic), this would be the time to make it triple track.

I think that is not needed, because Caltrain already directly connects passengers between San Francisco and San Jose.