Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority has taken another step forward in securing funds for its planned expansion of BART into Downtown San Jose and Santa Clara. The State of California awarded $375 million to the Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority on Tuesday.
With the amount granted, the state’s Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program (TIRCP) has increased its funding for the project to $1.12 billion. VTA is seeking federal funds to cover about half the estimated cost of the project, but it needs to come up with the other half from other sources. The new state award pushes the agency closer to meeting its goal for non-federal funds.
VTA originally pursued federal funding under a program that would have capped the national government’s commitment at 25% of the extension’s cost. But with the estimated price of the BART expansion ballooning to $9.3 billion, VTA last year switched direction and reapplied for funding under a different program that had a higher potential cap on what the federal government could contribute. In December, the Federal Transit Administration, an agency led by former VTA CEO Nuria I. Fernandez, informed the VTA that it could seek more federal funding under the different program. As part of that VTA will be eligible for up to 50% of the cost of extending BART from its current stop at Berryessa/North San Jose into Downtown and then out to Santa Clara.
The estimated price tag of the BART extension has risen repeatedly over the years. VTA came up with its latest estimate in early November. That figure was up from an anticipated cost of $9.1 billion in 2021 and a $6.9 billion estimate VTA made months earlier than that. Despite the rising costs, VTA in November it would not seek additional funds from local taxpayers for the project. Since 2000, county residents have passed three different tax measures to fund and operate the BART extension.
The project will result in the realization of a decades-long dream to connect San Jose and Silicon Valley to the BART system. When the extension is completed, which could take up to a decade, BART will connect the downtowns of all three of the Bay Area’s biggest cities and will connect to or run close by all three of its major airports.
The federal government in December authorized VTA to advance design on the project and begin certain activities, according to VTA officials. Early pre-construction activities are planned to start this spring, and major construction is slated to begin next year.
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BART is a joke. It is anything but rapid transit. Each train stops at every stop. No land was ever obtained for a second express line, such as you see in NYC. It is unreliable, uncomfortable, and expensive to use. It is the only user of the size of track it runs on? Ridership keeps falling, despite increases in Bay Area population. It’s little more than the wet dream of transportation grifters like Rod Diridon, Sr. of San Jose.
why does this article say the Berryessa extension will open in June? it has been open for months.
It opened June 13… of 2020
Why didn’t Bart go to Sacramento instead Antioch Bart shoulda went to Sacramento instead. They would have more peoples traffic using Bart connect to San Francisco and San Jose