BART: Bay Area Rapidly Toppling

We don't spend much time talking about BART since it stops in Millbrae (except for some train car storage in B'game) and isn't likely to ever expand south down the Peninsula.  But watching the South Bay expansion plans topple over due to climbing costs is instructive.  As the Merc notes:

The extension would create six miles of new track — including a subterranean tunnel underneath San Jose — looping BART service from the north part of the city to downtown and then up to Santa Clara at its Caltrain terminal.

South Bay residents shocked by last fall’s price jump for the San Jose BART extension — from $9.1 billion to $12.2 billion — may need to brace themselves again.

In a turn of events that could have major consequences for an extension already struggling with exploding prices and timeline delays, an independent assessment set to be released this month from federal officials may peg the project’s cost even higher than the agency’s $12.2 billion estimate, the Valley Transportation Authority’s chief megaproject officer told The Mercury News in an exclusive interview this week.

In October, VTA announced its most recent cost jump and an expected completion date of 2036 — a decade later than originally expected. The announcement sparked the VTA Board to create an oversight committee investigating issues facing the project.

You know things are bad when a governing body creates an "oversight committee" to shield themselves from criticism for not doing the job they were elected or selected to do themselves.  And then there is this common refrain:

The report states, “Due to frequent turnover and vacancies in key (BART San Jose extension) positions, (the Project Management Oversight Contractor) is concerned about the lack of succession planning and inadequate transition periods in dealing with attrition and turnover.”

All of this uncertainty and cost explosion is over just six miles of track!  Just imagine what the real numbers for High-Cost Rail are if anyone from Newsom on down were actually paying attention.  It can boondoggle the mind.

Comments

[Joe]

From the weekend Comicle:

As commutes to downtown San Francisco have plummeted, BART stations near the system’s endpoints are among those suffering the most. Here’s what officials say that means.

Along with North Concord, the Warm Springs/South Fremont and Millbrae stations suffered some of the largest overall ridership losses last year. Warm Springs saw 72% less ridership in 2024 compared with 2019, and Millbrae saw 67% less.

Some of these declines are more easily explained than others. As BART spokesperson Alicia Trost pointed out, Warm Springs was the southernmost BART stop in 2019, but in 2020 the Milpitas and Berryessa stations opened, shifting some ridership there. And Millbrae, a transfer point for similarly struggling Caltrain service from the Peninsula, has seen service reduced from every 15 to every 20 minutes on weekdays.
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And then comes the tax shoe dropping
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Local officials are working to find ways to keep the transit agency from having to take the drastic measures that could sink the system entirely. State Sens. Scott Wiener and Jesse Arreguín introduced legislation Monday that authorizes a sales tax measure to be placed on the ballot in up to five Bay Area counties to fund public transit. It would also require those transit agencies to improve their financial efficiency and coordination with other agencies in order to receive that funding.
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San Mateo County will have the option to "opt out" of being included in the additional sales tax. We shall see if the County Supes can read the tea leaves.

[Joe]

Today's reminder about all-your-eggs-in-one-basket:

May 9, 9:09 a.m. -- BART resumed limited East Bay service, hours after failing to boot the system up on Friday morning.

"Blue Line trains will run between Dublin/Pleasanton and MacArthur stations. Yellow Line trains will run between Antioch and MacArthur stations. Orange line trains will be normal running. There is no Red or Green line service at this time," the agency wrote in an update just after 9 a.m.

There is no update on service across the bay in San Francisco and San Mateo, and the agency continues to advise riders seek alternatives to BART.

BART said it was unable to power up the system on Friday, leading to train control problems. The last time a similar issue arose, it took several hours to recover. BART staff fanned out to stations to inform and direct riders to buses and other modes of public transit.