This morning, the BART Board of Directors unanimously supported Alternative 2B as the preferred alignment and certified the the Program EIR.  Although BART to Livermore has been discussed as a possibility for decades, today’s vote puts the project closer than ever to being a reality.  Still, a great deal of difficult work remains, not the least of which is funding.

Alternative 2B is an 11.3-mile extension, projected to attract (for whatever the number is worth) 31,900 riders.  Not surprisingly, then, it is also identified as the “environmentally superior” alternative in terms of air quality and reducing vehicle miles traveled, particularly in the congested Interstate 580 corridor.  It includes two stations: one in downtown Livermore, and another at Vasco Road.  Here is a map of the alignment (click here for a larger PDF):

BART to Livermore, Alternative 2B. Courtesy of BART.

Under Alternative 2B, tracks would be extended east of BART’s current Dublin/Pleasanton terminus along the median of Interstate 580, and then would go into a trench at the Isabel interchange.  There would be a cut-and-cover subway under Portola Avenue and Junction Avenue, with a new subway station in downtown Livermore, as in Alternative 3.  East of downtown, the tracks would resurface and basically follow the Alternative 2A alignment parallel to the Union Pacific right-of-way, heading toward a surface Vasco Road station to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.  Both the downtown and Vasco Road stations connect to existing ACE stations, and could facilitate an intermodal transfer with upgraded intercity rail in the Altamont corridor.  A yard and shop would also be constructed east of Vasco Road.

This alignment is notable for breaking the historic pattern of confining the BART right-of-way to freeway medians.  Although Alternative 2B does include several miles of running in the freeway median, the decision to turn the tracks south of the freeway towards downtown demonstrates an evolving understanding of the role BART could and should play in the region.  Rather than simply choosing the path of least resistance along the freeway to shorten suburban commutes, Alternative 2B strives to extract more long-term value from an expensive project.  Alternative 2B could more satisfactorily accommodate transit-oriented development — including the 11,550 housing units that would have to be planned near extension station areas — without disturbing Livermore’s urban growth boundary.  Station sitings near downtown and the laboratory are perhaps the most natural choices, in that they give riders easy access to local destinations and convenient transfer points to intercity rail.

Of course, none of that comes cheaply, and Alternative 2B would be the most expensive of the bunch.  Preliminary estimates peg the cost at $3.83 billion.  It is a hefty chunk of change to extend heavy rail to a suburb with less than 100,000 people — although the Altamont connection would also put Central Valley riders within one transfer of many Bay Area destinations.  It will take a lot of time and effort to secure the diverse portfolio of funding needed to construct the extension.  $95 million is available to preserve right-of-way in this corridor, but many other sources will also have to be considered — including federal New Starts, potential revenue from high-occupancy toll lanes on Interstate 580, and future re-authorization of Alameda County’s Measure B sales tax.

VTA seeks a $900 million federal contribution toward the $2.1 billion Berryessa extension.  The ROD qualifies VTA to move forward in the process, and the next step is to execute a Full Funding Grant Agreement (FFGA) in February 2011, which would allow VTA to obtain the federal funding it needs to build the project.  Construction could begin in 2012, and revenue service could commence in 2018.

Caltrain, unlike other transit operators that have been deprived of State Transit Assistance funds, does not enjoy a dedicated revenue source.  Rather, its operations depend mostly on farebox revenue and contributions from San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties, the three member agencies that make up the Joint Powers Board.  It’s no small problem, then, that San Mateo has suggested it may reduce its contribution by 70%, which would trigger corresponding reductions from San Francisco and Santa Clara.  The end result, if that were to happen?  A roughly $30 million budget deficit off of a $97 million budget.  Caltrain has indicated that balancing the budget under those circumstances might require cutting all off-peak service — midday, nights, and weekends — by no later than June 2011.

It hardly needs to be said that this would be a fundamental change for the worst.  It would reduce rail service on this corridor to bare commuter operations, while decimating the utility of Caltrain for transit-dependent and recreational off-peak riders.  If such a deep service cut were approved, it would be a giant leap backwards, in the exact opposite direction from where Caltrain should be headed as it moves toward electrification.

It is not yet clear whether the situation will actually turn out to be that bad.  So far, all we have had to go on  is Mike Scanlon’s initial doomsday pronouncement at the April 1 JPB meeting.  Clearly, though, there will be an important discussion in the near future about Caltrain’s upcoming budget and the viability of its service.  In some sense, Caltrain has so far held on surprisingly well under the circumstances, since it was able to deflect an unpopular cut to weekend service when closing a $10.1 million budget deficit for this fiscal year.  But ridership has decreased as compared to last year, so there is reluctance to further depress ridership by increasing fares — and even a steep fare hike would not be nearly enough to close a $30 million deficit.  State funding, restored by the gas tax swap legislation, would also not be enough, providing Caltrain with just $5.1 million for this fiscal year and $4.5 million in FY12.  With the JPB’s three member agencies threatening to turn inward and reduce their financial support to Caltrain in these tough economic times, there are limited options available under the current governance scheme that would ensure Caltrain’s long-term financial sustainability.

Passenger rail on the Peninsula was almost laid to rest in the 1970s, but was ultimately saved.  It could be saved again (though the threat now does not look that severe).  But is there the political will to make the necessary changes?  Caltrain has come a long way even with minimal means, but it has been subject to the whimsy of its member agencies, who have other priorities.  Meanwhile, the progress that has been made on electrification has been sluggish, even though electrification points the way toward the promise of the future.  Since introducing Baby Bullet service, Caltrain has assumed a more prominent role in the Bay Area’s regional rail network, but it has outgrown its existing, primitive method of financing.  It is worthy of a three-county special district, along the lines of the BART district.  By reconstituting as a special district, Caltrain would be granted valuable taxing authority and dedicated funding.  Making this change will not be easy, because it requires enactment at the State level — but doing so would give Caltrain access to tax revenue, while ensuring the security of future service.

A number of potential alignments for a BART project to Livermore have been studied throughout the years, such as the diesel tBART project (which, like eBART, was conceived as a cheaper alternative to conventional rapid transit, but whose price quickly ballooned from about $200 million to $500 million). Also considered was a roughly 50-mile diesel route between Walnut Creek and Tracy parallel to Interstates 680 and 580. This concept, which contemplated connections to both the Walnut Creek and Dublin/Pleasanton BART stations, may well have been a more effective project than the bona fide BART alternatives now being analyzed.

Bouncing off of a scoping process that took place this past year, BART has selected 9 alignment alternatives to extend conventional third rail BART service (in contrast to eBART, which will use diesel multiple units) several miles east from the current Dublin/Pleasanton station to a new terminus in Livermore. The project would be in the mold of the usual BART project: extending service at least in part via a freeway median, even deeper into suburbia. By extending the track east along both I-580 and the Union Pacific right-of-way, the project would parallel a greater length of one of the Bay Area’s most congested stretches of freeway, and in the process capture new suburban riders; but it would also further strain the capacity of the Transbay Tube. And naturally, these endeavors do not come cheaply: most of the serious alternatives under consideration are pegged to cost $3-4 billion.

The Livermore extension does, however, provide an opportunity to fill a gap in the Northern California regional rail network, by furnishing an intermodal connection between BART and Altamont Corridor rail. The opportunities for such connectivity are discussed below in the context of each potential alignment, and will also be a topic in Part 2 of this post.

BART to Livermore: Alignment Alternatives

The Livermore BART DPEIR is a definitive, albeit preliminary, step forward in what promises to be a lengthy planning and funding process. The environmental document examines 9 alternatives that include variations on a few basic flavor of alignments. These alignments collectively feature a handful of station sites and three potential sites for future rail yards. The upcoming goal will be to whittle down the list of alternatives and adopt a preferred alternative. The images directly below show all alternatives on a single map, or you can click here to view a full-size PDF.

Alternatives. Top: west half (Dublin/Pleasanton to Downtown Livermore).
Bottom: east half (through Greenville East). Click here for a full-size PDF.

The alignments (other than the standard “No Build” alternative) are summarized below. All alternatives continue in the I-580 median east of BART’s current Dublin/Pleasanton terminus for a certain distance, but then split off at different points near the Livermore Municipal Airport. The routes range from 5.2 to 13.2 miles long, and travel times are generally estimated at one minute per mile. Ridership projections (given below) target that about 80% of the extension’s ridership would consist of new riders. The projections are, per usual, high. On an average per-station basis, they resemble San Jose’s overstated figures, although Livermore’s projections are for the year 2035. The cost estimates (also given below) are in 2009 dollars.

Alternative 1: This route follows the I-580 median at grade for most of its length with an elevated structure at the eastern edge, allowing the track to curve northward and then duck under I-580, aligning parallel to the Union Pacific right-of-way near Greenville Road. Alternative 1 includes a new rail yard north of I-580, as well as two new stations: a median station at Isabel, and an intermodal BART/Altamont station at Greenville East that would replace the current Vasco station.
(Estimated Cost: $2.92 billion. 38,100 daily entries and exits.)

Alternative 1A: In contrast to Alternative 1, where the track follows the I-580 median for most of the extension, in Alternative 1A the track diverges from the I-580 median within one-and-a-half miles of Dublin/Pleasanton, ascending via elevated structure along El Charro Road, and then afterwards on retained fill to align along the UP right-of-way. Alternative 1A includes the same Greenville yard north of I-580 as Alternative 1, as well as two new stations: an intermodal BART/Altamont station in Downtown Livermore, and a BART-only Greenville East station.
(Estimated Cost: $3.61 billion. 35,300 daily entries and exits.)

Alternative 1B: This alternative is very similar to Alternative 1A, with respect to its configuration along the I-580 median, El Charro Road, and the UP right-of-way approach to Downtown Livermore. The stations and rail yard are also the same as in Alternative 1A. The main difference is visible in the sketches located on the right: east of Downtown Livermore, the track in Alternative 1B follow the segment of ex-SP right-of-way.
(Estimated Cost: $3.65 billion. 35,300 daily entries and exits.)

Alternative 2: Like Alternative 1, this alternative includes a lengthy initial segment at grade in the I-580 median (about six miles). Leaving the median, the track ascends in an elevated structure along Las Positas Road, and then aligning east onto the UP right-of-way. Alternative 2 includes a new rail yard east of Vasco station, as well as two new stations: a median station at Isabel (as in Alternative 1), and a BART/Altamont intermodal station at the site of the current Vasco station.
(Estimated Cost: $3.28 billion. 35,400 daily entries and exits.)

Alternative 2A: This is basically a hybrid of Alternatives 1A and 2. The western segment of the route (along the I-580 median, El Charro Road, and approach to Downtown Livermore) follows 1A. East of Downtown Livermore, the track follows the UP right-of-way but with a short 0.3-mile elevated segment crossing over the right-of-way. Alternative 2A includes the Downtown Livermore station — and, as in Alternative 2, a Vasco station and nearby rail yard. Both proposed BART stations would be intermodal Altamont stations.
(Estimated Cost: $3.8 billion. 35,200 daily entries and exits.)

Alternative 3: This shorter alternative is notable for its subway. As in Alternatives 1 and 2, at grade track in the I-580 median extends to the Isabel station (but unlike Alternatives 1 and 2, the station would be below-grade in the median). The track then dives into a subway under the eastbound lanes of I-580, traveling under Portola Avenue and Junction Avenue, and finally terminating at a subway station in Downtown Livermore. This downtown terminus would provide an intermodal Altamont connection, though it would be configured differently from the downtown stations in other alternatives. East of downtown, the track would resurface and lead to a new rail yard.
(Estimated Cost: $3.47 billion. 34,300 daily entries and exits.)

Alternative 3A: This alternative adopts a variation on the route of Alternatives 1A, 1B, and 2A, but is notable for its downtown elevated segment. As in previous alternatives, track in the I-580 median curves southward, is elevated along El Charro Road, and then follows the UP right-of-way on retained fill. In Alternative 3A, though, the track is then elevated through downtown. East of downtown, the track leads to a new rail yard. This alternative has two stations along the UP right-of-way: one station at Isabel/Stanley, and the elevated Downtown Livermore station, both of which would provide intermodal connections to the Altamont corridor.
(Estimated Cost: $3.38 billion. 33,600 daily entries and exits.)

Alternative 4: This alternative is the shortest of the bunch — a single station 5.2-mile eastward extension within the I-580 median, terminating at the Isabel station. Tail tracks east of the station could be built to hold six ten-car trains, but there would otherwise be little space for storage and maintenance. Alternative 4 does not facilitate an intermodal Altamont connection. It was basically conceived as the initial operating segment of a two-phase extension.
(Estimated Cost: $1.12 billion. 25,100 daily entries and exits.)

Alternative 5: This is the second-shortest alternative of the bunch, and it is notable for being the shortest extension that could facilitate an intermodal Altamont connection. Alternative 5 (which includes the elevated El Charro Road segment) terminates at the intermodal Isabel/Stanley station, and is basically an initial operating segment of Alternative 3A. As with Alternative 4, maintenance yard space is limited except for tail tracks east of the station.
(Estimated Cost: $1.61 billion. 23,100 daily entries and exits.)

More to come in Part 2.

All images are courtesy of BART.

So what’s the beef now? Rather than employ the downtown extension alignment and station location previously adopted by the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, the CHSRA would instead like to override the TJPA’s previous efforts and study alternative locations for the San Francisco terminus in its project-level EIR/EIS for the San Francisco-San Jose segment. In particular, the CHSRA has set its sight on another terminal to accommodate its exaggerated capacity requirements — the Beale Street terminal, situated parallel to Beale Street, and stretching roughly from Mission Street to Harrison Street. But this is an alternative that was resurrected from the dead. In the 1990s, a handful of potential Caltrain downtown extension alignments were considered. Most of those, including alignments leading to a Beale Street terminal, were rejected as undesirable or infeasible:

Rejected DTX alternative alignments. Courtesy of TJPA.

California has submitted project requests to the U.S. Department of Transportation, including a $400 million request that, if granted, would allow the Transbay Transit Center’s train box to be excavated sooner rather than later, using a “bottom up” construction approach. Transbay, by virtue of its completed environmental documents, is classified as a “ready-to-go” project, eligible for a Track 1 high-speed rail stimulus grant. In just a few weeks, the Federal Railroad Administration will announce the Track 1 projects that it has selected for grants.

On the surface, the CHSRA’s interest in the Beale Street alternative appears to reflect the simple desire to comply with a legal opinion it has obtained (endorsed by Gensler Architects), which stands for the proposition that Transbay will have too few platform tracks, and that the CHSRA is legally required to study the Beale Street alternative. But it does not seem coincidental that the agency’s temper — presumably largely fueled by, or embodied in, its ever-colorful former chairman, Quentin Kopp — flares up at the exact points in time when the TJPA competes with the CHSRA for access to new pots of funding that are being made available for high-speed rail. In November 2008, it was the Proposition 1A bond, and now, it’s the high-speed rail stimulus funding. Given that the FRA will announce its Track 1 selections in the next few weeks, it is perhaps the near-term implication of the legal opinion that explains why the CHSRA has resurrected the Beale Street terminal at this time.

Californians observing this process, as well as most government agencies, believe that the location of San Francisco’s rail terminal has been finalized. The DTX alignment adopted by the TJPA is, after all, long-standing, and it is supported by a Record of Decision from the Federal Transit Administration. But if the CHSRA can introduce a fog of uncertainty by evincing interest in (and carrying out subsequent environmental review of) the Beale Street terminal, then the Transbay Transit Center will lose its air of shovel-readiness and will no longer be a promising candidate for stimulus funds. What the FRA will see is that two key agencies, the TJPA and the CHSRA, cannot even agree on the answer to a simple question like where the shovels should begin digging. That strikes a chord of administrative dissonance, and it may leave the FRA with the impression that Transbay is not ready for prime time. Why, then, would the FRA dignify it with a handsome $400 million award? California’s HSR project has a high profile and is poised to become a national model. If Transbay were not awarded a grant, then surely, given the importance of California HSR, other components of California’s application falling more directly under the CHSRA’s purview would be in a better position to receive funding instead.

And for how much longer must we endure Quentin Kopp’s anti-Transbay/DTX agenda? California voters, when passing Proposition 1A in November 2008, explicitly authorized a high-speed rail line whose northern terminus is the Transbay Transit Center. A Beale Street terminal might be near Transbay; but the length of its platforms would lie orthogonal to the length of the bus station, and it would not strictly be located in Transbay, as called for by voters. The CHSRA’s essentially obstructionist reopening of alternatives also demonstrates an utter lack of respect for a years-long land use planning effort in San Francisco. The Planning Department’s work to date strives to guide the city through the complex process of transforming uniquely valuable, downtown-adjacent former freeway parcels into a living, breathing neighborhood. But that process has operated under the assumption that a significant rail and bus transit hub would eventually be built at Transbay.

Let’s allow decade-old rejected alternatives to rest in peace. San Franciscans, and a majority of Californians, have supported a high-speed train project terminating at Transbay. I do not want to sweep under the carpet, so to speak, the Transit Center’s design flaws. Those are real, albeit distinct from the CHSRA’s pet complaints; and they would ideally be vigorously addressed, rather than weakly justified. But the CHSRA’s last-minute resurrection of Beale Street does a disservice to the high-speed train project it purports to manage. If you happen to be interested in maximizing our chance of securing $400 million of ARRA federal stimulus funds for the Transbay train box — to construct the station from the bottom-up, and to extend commuter and high-speed rail service downtown, preferably within our lifetimes — then it wouldn’t hurt to mention that to the Governor’s office, which will soon send a letter about California’s high-speed rail priorities to Secretary Ray LaHood.

But like the Ugly Duckling, this story also looks like it will have a happy ending. For high-speed rail will soon sweep into the region, transforming and re-energizing interest in the ex-SP corridor. BART’s gauge, unlike Caltrain’s, is incompatible with high-speed rail; so, when all is said and done, BART’s once-futuristic technology will be exposed as the dinosaur, while the ugly duckling Caltrain will at last transform into the swan.

Creating swans out of ducklings of course requires money, but money is almost certainly on the way. Fast on the heels of the Workplan released by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission has released its draft plan for the Bay Area’s high-speed rail stimulus application, which has been dubbed the Peninsula Corridor Investment Strategy.

MTC envisions a two-phase strategy. The California High-Speed Rail Authority has already prepared a programmatic EIR/EIS, which examined the environmental impacts and benefits of the high-speed rail project at a broader level. CHSRA is now preparing more detailed environmental documents that will assess environmental impacts and mitigation measures on individual segments of the HSR route, for example, the San Francisco-San Jose corridor. This will probably be completed sometime in the next couple of years and will shed light on various other HSR-related infrastructure projects, including: Caltrain stations that will need to be redesigned to accommodate high-speed rail, and various tunneled and elevated segments of track needed to separate the many grade crossings along the Caltrain corridor. These projects are deferred to Phase II. They are not ready to be constructed; indeed, it’s not even clear how much they will cost to build, so we will not pursue ARRA stimulus funds for them.

So what will we seek federal funds for? For specific projects that have already passed through or are exempt from thorough environmental review, or which will be cleared within a couple of years. These projects will be ready for construction, pending detailed design work. The funding allocations are as follows:

Transbay Transit Center, San Francisco: Constructing the above-ground portion of the Transbay Transit Center facility will cost $1.19 billion, and building the subway station box in the first phase of construction will require $400 million extra upfront, but TJPA projects this move will save $100 million over the course of the project. As such, the Bay Area will request $400 million of ARRA money to fast-track the train box. Moreover, $52 million will be requested for design of the 1.3-mile downtown rail extension (DTX), and an additional $205 million toward lengthening the platforms at the Transbay Transit Center, in response to the CHSRA’s demand for 1,312 feet of fully tangent platform (see schematic below, which shows the curvature on the western side of the platforms, and the platform extension eastward). The 250-foot extension increases station length to about 1,750 feet, so it is curious that this relatively short extension generates the need for a disproportionately high amount of additional funding (over half the total to excavate the rest of the train box).  This amounts to a total of $657 million ARRA money requested for Transbay/DTX.

Courtesy of MTC/TJPA.

4th & King, San Francisco: Pending alteration of the DTX track layout to allow trains to move efficiently in and out of Transbay, the platform track allocated to high-speed rail would provide sufficient capacity; but some Caltrain or high-speed runs may terminate at 4th and King as necessary. In any case, $98 million will be requested toward funding a $100 million reconfiguration of the existing Caltrain terminal at 4th & King.

San Bruno: $212 million (out of $275 million) will be requested to construct grade separations at San Bruno Station.

Corridor-wide Improvements: $230 million (out of $231 million) to be requested for positive train control, which, by federal mandate, must be implemented by 2015. $301 million (out of $785 million) will be requested for Caltrain electrification.

San Jose Diridon: This is a high-speed rail station that we have spent noticeably less time on than Transbay. $149 million (out of $150 million) will be requested to expand and reconfigure Cahill Str… ahem, San Jose Diridon Station, which will be served by high-speed rail, Caltrain, Capitols, ACE, Coast Starlight, VTA light rail, and maybe even BART one day. As we discussed several months ago when 2008 Measure B passed, the City of San Jose and SVLG are positively salivating at the idea of creating a Grand Central in the Bay Area, because it would place San Jose in conscious competition with San Francisco (which for years has informally referred to its planned Transbay Transit Center as the region’s approximation of Grand Central). The City of San Jose has partnered (PDF) with the Harvard University Graduate School of Design to reimagine “the premier transportation hub of northern California.” The question is: which station, Transbay or Diridon, will be grander?

No, scratch that; the real question is, or should be: how are we going to plan, fund, and build a well-coordinated and efficiently-operated rail corridor?  At this point in time, our regional dollars should be directed entirely toward fulfilling this latter concern, because there is no shortage of engineering issues that lie ahead. To the extent that any of the requested Diridon money, if obtained, goes toward designing the functional layout of the station, that’s fine. But note that Caltrain already plans to reconfigure this station with two additional island platforms and four platform tracks, in addition to a fourth track between the station’s north end and CEMOF, Caltrain’s maintenance facility. As is true with certain other transportation projects planned for San Jose, this station seems to be more about glitz than effective transportation, and using stimulus dollars to design an architecturally grand structure is not really at the top of the list of regional priorities. It is, nonetheless, still unsurprising that this piece of the pie will be requested on San Jose’s behalf. The standard rendering and a diagram below:

Top: courtesy of Newlands & Company. Bottom: courtesy of MTC/City of San Jose.

All in all, these projects total to $3.378 billion, but the Peninsula Corridor Investment Strategy recommends that only $1.647 billion (49%) of that be directed to our high-speed rail stimulus grant application. Even so, $1.6 billion is a full 20% of the $8 billion that the stimulus has allocated to high-speed rail nationally, and many other states are naturally interested in pursuing new rail service. So it remains to be seen how much stimulus money we will actually get.

In several places, the Workplan pledges its support of current efforts to plan and build mixed-use transit-oriented development throughout the region — to encourage transit use, decrease congestion, curb emissions, shorten commutes, and to ensure that there is sufficient housing at all income levels, as allocated by ABAG; major projects like Mission Bay and Bay Meadows were specifically highlighted. The Workplan also briefly discusses NSPs as a tool to stabilize areas hit especially hard by foreclosures. Meanwhile, the transportation section does not really contain any surprises. MTC’s efforts on the stimulus (which we discussed previously) are included in the Workplan, along with various pedestrian/streetscape Transportation Enhancements projects, and some HOV projects; also included are transportation improvements that upgrade trade links, e.g. Port of Oakland and the Capitol Corridor. In anticipation of the $8 billion of discretionary competitive grants set aside for national high-speed rail projects, the proposal includes $3.4 billion worth of projects that fall under the heading of Caltrain/high-speed rail prep, including: positive train control (due by 2015), electrification (which, after years of endless delay, is now declared to be of “highest importance”), grade separation at San Bruno Station, $500 million for redesign and expansion of San Jose Diridon Station, and $400 million for the train box at the Transbay Transit Center.

TTC cross-section; courtesy of TJPA (larger version here).

In related news, this week the Transbay Joint Powers Authority board is expected to approve a resolution that will include the below-grade levels in the detailed Design Development of Phase 1 of the Transit Center. This resolution, which will override TJPA’s previous “top down” strategy, advances design and construction of the train box and the support columns onto the Transit Center’s timeline (although the finishes, like the platforms and track, will be deferred to Phase 2). One stated reason for moving the train box forward is everyone’s favorite reason these days: using construction projects as opportunities to stimulate job creation during an economic downturn. As usual, though, the rationale really boils down to time and money, neither of which are in abundant supply. Although shifting the train box in to Phase 1 would require the additional $400 million upfront, the train box would at least be eligible for ARRA stimulus high-speed rail grant money. And the shift is estimated to save $100 million over the course of construction, speed up the construction schedule, and reduce disruptive impacts by avoiding excavation under an at least partly completed bus terminal. Focusing on this one design alternative (instead of carrying both forward) will save about four months and $12 million. Building the train box in Phase 1 will ease and improve waterproofing. It will also permit mechanical rooms, transformers, and other necessities to be located below grade, on the concourse mezzanine level, which leaves more space above ground for retail and circulation.

BART has released its 2008 Station Profile Study, updating its last study from 1998. The data, which is collected from rider surveys, is BART’s version of the census. It reveals the demographic profile of BART riders, and it provides valuable information on how riders use the BART system: where they are coming from, where they are going, how they travel from their home a nearby station, and how they travel to their destination after riding BART. The data, which is available both system-wide and for each individual station, confirms what we know anecdotally about the role of urban vs. suburban stations: 81% of riders at 16th/Mission walked to BART, while merely 3% walked to Orinda; 72% of riders drive to North Concord/Martinez, but a miniscule 1% drive to Powell. I plan to do some number-crunching on the data in the future; but for now, I wanted to share some interesting results and initial impressions. In addition to clarifying how BART riders currently make use of the system, the survey data reveals how the Bay Area could better take advantage of this critical regional asset than we do today. The lesson we learn from the data is the lesson that we already knew: we need to do a better job of linking transit and land use, particularly along BART’s heavy rail metro lines. This is something that we are always talking about, and the BART surveys do suggest that the region is moving in the right direction in terms of promoting transit-oriented development. Bicycle trips from home to station bumped up from 3% to 4%, while transit trips declined from 23% to 15%. Nearly half (49%) of riders access stations by car (34% solo, 10% dropoff, 5% carpool), the same as in 1998. However, more people are now walking to BART stations from their home than they were a decade ago: 31% in 2008, compared to 26% in 1998. More people are also walking from BART to work or other destination: 74% in 2008, compared to 67% in 1998. Furthermore, at 6 major CBD stations (12th St, 19th St, Lake Merritt, Berkeley, Montgomery, Powell) and 5 other mostly urban stations (Ashby, North Berkeley, El Cerrito Plaza, Colma, and Balboa Park), home origin points increased by 10% or more, while car and transit origins decreased. More home-based pedestrian trips at downtown stations reflect a trend toward urban/downtown infill housing, epitomized by Jerry Brown’s 10K housing initiative in Downtown Oakland and San Francisco’s Rincon Hill plan.

Better Stations, Better Neighborhoods

But the survey data also shows that we can still do much better on both ends of the stick — both by augmenting service where it is needed, and by increasing density on valuable parcels adjacent to stations, in places where land use is currently not as intense as it should be. Contrast home origin locations for riders using 16th Street Mission with home origins for riders using North Concord/Martinez Station. The map on the left for 16th Street shows a dense residential population walking, biking, or taking transit to the station (median of 0.46-mile trip); the map on the right for North Concord/Martinez shows a dispersed ridership that mostly drives to the station (median of 6.04-mile trip):

Home origin locations, by mode. Left: 16th/Mission (circle = 1/2 mile radius).
Right: North Concord/Martinez (outer circle = 1 mile radius). Purple = walking,
green = bicycle; blue = transit, orange = drop off; red = car. Courtesy of BART.

The data also conveys another idea: while commuters are willing to travel a longer distance from their home to a station, they prefer their place of work to be more immediately located to a station. This principle should influence how we design transit-oriented development, and it should be taken into account in all station area specific plans that cities might prepare. To the extent that a “transit village” houses both commercial space and significant residential stock, the parcels immediately adjacent to the station are best reserved for significant office space with ground floor retail (perhaps destinational in nature, or of regional appeal), while outer parcels are well-suited for residential or mixed use, with ground floor commercial space that serves the neighborhood. All or most of this development should be located in a one-half mile radius of the station. This suggests that BART’s current practice of reserving station-adjacent land for large above-ground parking garages should be corrected at existing stations and avoided for any new stations that are built.

Filling In the Urban Core

We can also infer from the data prime locations to augment service and increase the value of the system by constructing infill stations. An infill station is under construction at West Dublin/Pleasanton, filling the long gap between Castro Valley and Dublin/Pleasanton, and that station will anchor a transit village. But we can also build infill stations to bring under-served urban neighborhoods (where there is already a transit-dependent population) into the fold of the system.  BART stations are closely-spaced in the San Francisco and Oakland CBDs, but they are usually at least a few miles apart in the suburbs. This has prompted the observation that the BART system is not quite a proper urban subway, nor quite commuter rail, but rather is a hybrid of the two. Within the urban core, but outside of the CBDs, the stations are more closely-spaced than in the suburbs — but not as closely-spaced as they really ought to be to properly serve the corridor. BART’s data confirms the rule of thumb that most people are willing to walk to a station within one-half mile but become disinterested in walking distances greater than one-half mile. Ideally, then, BART’s urban stations would be spaced so that mostly everyone living on the corridor is within one-half mile of a station. That is often not the case, because the system was originally designed to facilitate quick trips from suburbs to urban CBDs that would be competitive timewise with freeway driving. The result is that many urban areas outside the CBDs, even those neighborhoods on the right-of-way, lack convenient (i.e. easy non-vehicular) access to BART.

Courtesy of BART.

Nowhere is this more true than in Oakland, southeast of the lake, where a roughly 7-mile segment of the BART corridor parallel to Interstate 880 and East 14th Street is served by just two BART stations, Fruitvale and Coliseum. The fabric of East Oakland grows increasingly suburban as you move toward the high-numbered avenues; but the area is still denser than most other places in BART’s domain, and it deserves better service. There is no station in the 3-mile stretch between Lake Merritt and Fruitvale, which means that BART trains whisk right past the Eastlake and San Antonio neighborhoods. This is one the densest sections of the East Bay, but the local residents are in large part not riding BART. This can be inferred from the survey data. Check out the map excerpted above; orange dots represent residential points of origin. There is a gray hole with no orange dots, roughly midway between the Lake Merritt and Fruitvale stations, indicating a lack of rider surveys from that area. A more fine-grained analysis shows that the highest density of riders using Lake Merritt Station live north of 8th Avenue; similarly, the highest density of riders using Fruitvale Station live south of 25th Avenue. The transit-dependent population that lives in the middle zone currently relies on AC Transit to get around rather than BART; but high population density, coupled with the presence of nearby commercial districts, suggest that this would be a successful infill station.

Courtesy of BART.

Another natural location for an infill station is 30th Street/Mission, which would close in an almost 2-mile gap between 24th Street and Glen Park, the longest stretch of BART track in San Francisco without a station. As shown at the map at right, the survey data demonstrates a hole in ridership near 30th/Mission. The hole is less pronounced than that near San Antonio — in part because of the shorter distance to nearby stations, and in part because this intersection is already a nexus of several Muni routes, many of which connect directly to 24th Street or Glen Park. Indeed, the fine-grained data shows that the densest ridership at 24th Street lives north of Cesar Chavez; similarly, the densest ridership at Glen Park lives south of Holly Park. Residents near 30th/Mission that use BART generally choose 24th Street station, but they mostly access the station via Muni or drop off, rather than by walking. The station at 30th Street would have the benefit of drawing riders from neighborhoods like Bernal Heights and Baja Noe, further removed from Mission Street, thus opening up a new cross-section of residential neighborhoods (and an additional commercial segment of Mission Street) to BART service. The station site also presents nice opportunities for transit-oriented development, both at the large Safeway parking lot and at smaller vacant lots scattered throughout the area.

Posted in BART, East Bay, Oakland, Regional Rail, San Francisco, Transit Villages ]]> http://transbayblog.com/2009/05/10/bart-2008-surveys-tell-the-story-of-bay-area-regional-growth/feed/ 16 transbay bart_home-work-origin 16st_north-concord_home-origins lakemerritt-fruitvale-countywide_origin 24st-glenpark-countywide_origin http://transbayblog.com/2009/04/22/april-2009-bart-budget-and-project-updates/ http://transbayblog.com/2009/04/22/april-2009-bart-budget-and-project-updates/#comments Thu, 23 Apr 2009 06:15:12 +0000 Eric http://transbayblog.com/?p=3707 Continue reading »]]> UPDATE (24 April 2009): At its April 23 meeting, the BART board decided to postpone approval of the Oakland Airport Connector, but nonetheless approved the transfer of $50 million of seismic retrofit funding and $70 million of ARRA stimulus funding to the project. Meanwhile, the FEIR for eBART was approved 8-1, with Tom Radulovich dissenting. More details on those projects below.

My apologies for the slow posting schedule lately. I will be very busy in upcoming weeks, so posting will be on the slow side by necessity, and may have to go on hiatus. I have not yet forgotten about the promised posts on the Delta; but for now, here is a post on tomorrow’s BART board agenda.

BART’s $54 million FY10 budget deficit — which it is projected will enlarge to a $249 million deficit over the next four years — has already gotten quite a bit of publicity. To close that deficit, BART is considering several measures, including additional parking fees at East Bay stations, and a 10% fare hike starting July 1, 2009. BART may also reduce evening and weekend headways from 15 minutes back to 20 minutes, restoring the pre-2008 timetable; also under consideration is a reduction of service to the Peninsula stations from two lines to only one. Even if these changes were implemented, there would still remain a $23 million deficit for this fiscal year. To deal with that remaining $23 million gap, some combination of additional fare hikes are possible, including: a $2 increase to the SFO station fare, a 25-cent increase to the minimum fare, a 10-cent increase for transbay trips, or increasing the proposed 10% fare hike to 15%. Further service reductions are also a possibility, although raising fares would bring in considerably more revenue than the amount of money that would be saved by cutting service. Midday service between South Hayward and Fremont may be reduced from two lines to one line, and direct service between Richmond/Fremont and San Francisco may also be eliminated during midday hours.

In spite of budget woes, BART will also be moving forward on several ongoing capital projects that will now be partially funded with ARRA federal stimulus funds.

Oakland Airport Connector (OAC): Thanks to an influx of stimulus funds, BART is moving quickly on the once-languishing OAC, the planned people mover that will link Coliseum BART to Oakland International Airport. The project was supposed to be partially funded from private sources, but the private partners have withdrawn. Despite protests from transit advocates, $70 million of ARRA stimulus funds will be applied to the project — but in order to actually take advantage of the use-it-or-lose-it ARRA funds, the OAC must be put out to bid by this June. An RFP and RFQ will be issued this May, with proposals due in September, and a contract awarded by November. BART plans to apply for a  maximum $150 million TIFIA loan to close the funding gap. $50 million of Regional Measure 2 and other funding from the seismic retrofit of the Transbay Tube will also be applied toward the OAC.

Balboa Park Station West Entrance & Walkway: The Board is expected to authorize a $2.8 million contract to Novato-based West Bay Builders for improvements to the Balboa Park Station in San Francisco. A station entry plaza and ADA acccessible walkway will be built on the west side of the station to provide direct access to Ocean Avenue and City College.  This project will be federally funded, with $2 million from ARRA and the remainder from ADA.

Facing east toward Railroad Avenue: cross-platform transfer between BART
and eBART at Pittsburg/Bay Point station. Courtesy of BART.

eBART: The Board is expected to approve the final EIR and adopt findings for eBART, a $502 million DMU line with two new stations at Railroad Avenue/Pittsburg and Hillcrest Avenue/Antioch. The cost includes over $36 million to alter the existing Pittsburg/Bay Point BART terminus, permitting a cross-platform transfer to eBART trains. The tracks will be located in median of Highway 4, and eBART construction will be coordinated with the widening of the eastern segment of freeway. In addition to the preferred DMU project, the EIR also contemplated four self-evident alternatives: no build, bus rapid transit, light rail, and conventional BART. A future extension is planned so that the line would eventually serve the full 23-mile corridor extending through Oakley, Brentwood, Byron, and Discovery Bay — but this EIR only analyzes the first phase, a roughly 10-mile extension terminating at Hillcrest. The EIR anticipates 3,900 daily entries and exits in the year 2015 (anticipated opening year of revenue service) at the two new stations, and 10,100 daily entries and exits by 2030, with the vast majority of those riders transferring to and from BART.

Central Contra Costa County Crossover: The Board is expected to award a $28 million contract to Shimmick/Balfour Beatty for the Contra Costa County crossovers. This project will add two C-line crossovers between the Walnut Creek and Pleasant Hill stations (along with two traction power substations), to ease the process of turning trains around early for Pittsburg/Bay Point peak hour short line service. Although once planned to be funded straight out of RM2, the crossover project will now take advantage of $13 million of ARRA stimulus funds, with the remainder coming from RM2 and the FTA.

“We realized the error of our ways,” admitted Steve Heminger, Executive Director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.* “The climate change crisis demands that we take a truly new direction. If the Bay Area is to preserve its natural beauty and curb worsening air quality, it must grow in a way that reduces dependence on the personal automobile. Likewise, maintaining our position as a competitive region at the forefront of the state and the nation means getting more people off congested freeways and onto transit, in order to recoup millions of hours of productivity lost each year to traffic congestion. To get people out of their cars, we will need to invest in high-quality, cost-effective transit throughout the region. But the best strategy is to maximize space for new jobs in existing urban centers, rather than in far-flung office parks. So, in particular, we must dramatically improve and expand transit options in the dense urban core, which our former RTP largely neglected. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission is proud to unveil a new plan that corrects this deficiency in a bold and revolutionary way.”*

The plan is indeed bold; and, surprisingly, the plan now strongly disfavors some projects that it previously appeared to support, including the controversial BART extension to San Jose.

“The Metropolitan Transportation Commission has carried out further study of many projects that were part of the old RTP. We have come to believe that some extraordinarily expensive projects were buoyed by optimistic ridership models. We are especially concerned about the BART extension to San Jose. It has never been clear when all the money to build this entire extension would become available. The date has been repeatedly postponed, and while we wait, more pressing improvements around the region are put on hold. We will cooperate with VTA and the Joint Powers Board to develop an alternate plan for the South Bay that can be built quickly and at a reasonable cost. The plan will include a high-quality rail link between Fremont and San Jose, as well as Dumbarton Rail. We believe that although a new BART subway in San Jose might cost as much money to build as a new subway in San Francisco, the latter would be far more well-used than the former, and thus would take more cars off the road. Extensions into deep suburbia can only take us so far. The Commission must do its part to ensure that regional dollars are well-spent,” Heminger added.*

MTC then described its plan to reinvest in the urban core. Noting that in the long-term, the increasingly pinched capacity of BART’s current Transbay Tube will be insufficient to accommodate demand in the Bay Area’s busiest transit corridor, MTC has placed a second tube as the centerpiece of its plan. The new four-track tube would accommodate BART, high-speed rail, and conventional gauge commuter rail service, directly connecting San Francisco to the Bay Area’s other commuter rail systems. Commissioner Spering noted that in the long-term, the Capitol Corridor will add new trackage, electrify, and provide more robust service. Once electrified, trains from Sacramento will be routed directly to 1st and Mission via the additional tube. “The route would not be part of the state’s high-speed rail network,” explained spokesman Randy Rentschler, ” but the Capitol Corridor routing from Sacramento is more direct than HSR’s Pacheco Pass alignment, so we expect that the service will be quite popular.”*

MTC spokesman John Goodwin then elaborated on the North Bay’s SMART train: “As SMART service becomes more popular, we will study electrification and a two-phase extension. The first phase would extend service across the Richmond-San Rafael span to Richmond Station, where SMART would connect to BART and Amtrak. The second extension, if the ridership demand exists, would extend service along the Capitol Corridor, where SMART would also use the Transbay Tube, connecting the North Bay to high-speed rail and the Financial District. This would finally achieve the long-delayed dream of connecting San Francisco and the North Bay via rail.”*

The MTC report* included draft maps for the East Bay (link) and San Francisco (link).

“A second tube will not only increase core capacity, it will dramatically improve the effectiveness of our regional rail network. It will bring in trains from Sacramento; it will furnish a direct connection between the Peninsula and the East Bay; and it will bring Oakland into the state’s high speed rail network,” added Heminger. “But it will also require billions of dollars that are not currently available. Engineering and piecing together the necessary funding will be time-consuming, so MTC has put planning for a second tube at the top of the list of regional priorities.”* Goodwin continued, explaining that the new tube presents the opportunity to build a second San Francisco BART line with track connections to the existing subway. “The new line will expand BART’s coverage to include South of Market, Van Ness, and the Richmond District. Stations will be built in Alameda and at Jack London Square, and a fourth track will be constructed in downtown Oakland. MTC also plans to fund infill stations along existing BART lines. The infill stations, combined with the new San Francisco line, will double the number of BART stations in the urban core, making it much easier for transit-dependent riders to use BART as a true metro system.”* The accompanying MTC report* included two maps, one of the East Bay, and another of San Francisco.

Commissioner Bates had the final word, explaining that MTC planned to increase its investment in AC Transit and the inner East Bay. One goal is to create a more robust and dependable transbay bus system by increasing frequency, and by dedicating one lane in each direction on the Bay Bridge for exclusive use by buses. The dedicated lane makes sense in both the short-term and the long-term — adding capacity, removing cars off city streets, and reducing the parking crunch at BART stations by furnishing more East Bay neighborhoods with direct transit access to San Francisco. In addition to providing funds to augment transbay bus service, MTC expressed interest in creating a network of high-quality routes that would provide reliable local service. “Ultimately, we’d like to make transit a more attractive option in Oakland and Berkeley by improving the quality of service on major corridors. We want reliable service, with vehicles coming every 5-10 minutes on major routes. We also want fixed guideway transit to spur increased density on these corridors,” said Bates. “That means maximizing dedicated right of way for transit, and building rapid bus and streetcar lines that will attract new riders. And it means investing more money than we have previously in the urban core.”*

* None of these people actually said any of these things, nor was there a report — April Fools.