Article last updated:
   Wednesday, November 07, 2001   3:04 AM MST
   
   Path clear for BART extension
   
   $4 billion expansion to connect San Jose with Fremont by 2010
   
   By Sean HolstegeSTAFF WRITER
   
   BART and Santa Clara County transit officials will announce a landmark
   cost-sharing agreement today that clears the tracks for a $4 billion
   BART extension from Fremont to San Jose.
   
   The deal was struck after months of secret negotiations between BART
   and the Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority and comes one week before
   a final deadline imposed by the regional Metropolitan Transportation
   Commission.
   
   The VTA governing board is scheduled to vote on the deal on Friday,
   followed Tuesday by the BART Board of Directors.
   
   Roy Nakadegawa of Berkeley, one of nine BART directors, has called the
   San Jose extension a boondoggle. Other directors want to ensure it
   doesn't further stress the existing BART system.
   
   The MTC told both sides to ink a deal by Nov. 19, or the BART
   extension, approved by voters in Alameda and Santa Clara counties,
   would be excluded until 2004 from a wish list for federal funding.
   
   Friday, the MTC is set to adopt its 25-year, $82 billion spending
   plan, which it updates every three years. Projects not on MTC's list
   cannot apply for federal money.
   
   Alameda County voters are contributing $50 million from a 1996 sales
   tax measure, while Santa Clara voters agreed last year to spend $2
   billion in sales taxes to connect the Bay Area's largest city with the
   rest of the region.
   
   Last year, California chipped in an extra $725 million in surplus
   funds, leaving the 20-mile, 10-station rail extension in need of an
   estimated $834 million in federal dollars.
   
   Transit officials are likening the agreement to a 1988 regional rail
   accord which ended years of Bay Area squabbling over how to pay for
   BART's extension to San Francisco International Airport. Under that
   arrangement, BART extended 8.5 miles into San Mateo County, a non-BART
   county, and in return San Mateo helped pay for extensions to
   Dublin/Pleasanton and Pittsburg/Bay Point.
   
   In this week's tentative pact, there was no mention of any similar
   "buy-in" arrangement, notably for proposed extensions to Livermore or
   Antioch.
   
   But the deal would accomplish much of what both transit boards
   insisted on when negotiations began last spring.
   
   VTA agreed to pay BART for ongoing operating costs of the new
   extension. Santa Clara also offers to cover the wear and tear on the
   existing 95-mile, 39-station BART network caused by flooding it with
   an extra 39,000 daily passengers at startup. The extension is not
   expected to open before 2010.
   
   VTA will be lead agency to plan, design and environmentally clear the
   work, and has agreed to meet BART specifications. The extension would
   be owned by VTA but operated and maintained by BART. The two agencies
   would form a joint operating board.
   
   VTA also agreed to pay into an account that covered future wear and
   tear on the extension.
   
   Officials on both sides of the county line appeared pleased.
   
   "We're headed down the right track," said BART Director Tom Blalock,
   of Fremont. "I don't see any stumbling blocks."
   
   "The mayor is very pleased that BART and the VTA folks have reached
   agreement and put this forward to the next stage," said David
   Vossbrink, spokesman for San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales.
   
   "To make an effective funding request with Congress it's imperative
   that BART and VTA are on the same page."
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