Published Wednesday, November 14, 2001, in the Oakland Tribune

BART board approves way to San Jose
MTC will set project 'priority' date

By Sean Holstege
Staff Writer

The fate of a proposed $4 billion BART-to-San Jose plan now rests
with a regional transportation panel, following a 7-2 BART Board vote
Tuesday to enter a landmark agreement with a South Bay transit agency.

Before Bay Area Rapid Transit tracks can extend south of the Alameda
County line, the regional Metropolitan Transportation Commission must
place the San Jose project on its priority list.

That is scheduled to happen when the commission votes on a regional
transit policy on Dec. 19.

BART's action Tuesday follows approval Friday by the Santa Clara
Valley Transportation Authority to team up to build and operate the
20-mile, 10-station extension south from Fremont, due to open no
sooner than 2010.

Controversy surrounding that plan, the first of its kind since 1988,
is certain to swirl over the fate of BART extensions to Livermore and
Antioch.

Residents in both suburbs have been clamoring for BART rails.

The proposed $9 billion regional transit program earmarks enough
money only for a watered-down tBART and eBART proposal, a less
expensive rail service that would use different types of trains.

More troubling to East County residents, the projects depend on
bridge toll money and the hope that hugely expensive seismic retrofit
projects don't face big overruns. Even then, neither eBART or tBART
would be fully-funded.

Tuesday's vote was a first step, and BART Directors called the deal
historic. It marks the first time BART has allowed outsiders to own
its tracks and it caps a 46-year-old promise to unite the Bay Area.

Specifically, the 86-page accord requires the VTA, which operates the
South Bay light rail system, to pay BART $48 million a year for
operations of the new line.

The South Bay agency will also pay its proportional cost of wear and
tear and overhead on the existing 95-mile, 39-station BART network.

The VTA will plan and design the BART extension, all to BART
standards. The extension would be owned by the VTA, but operated and
maintained by BART. The two agencies would form a joint operating
board.

"This extension not only puts two universities on the line, it plugs
us into a major (rail station), it goes to the San Jose Arena and it
plugs us into several light rail lines," said Director Tom Blalock of
Fremont.

Still, two BART Directors dissented. Director Roy Nakadegawa of
Berkeley complained that the entire project was politically-driven
and not subjected to proper scrutiny.

"I'm very skeptical about the financial arrangement that we will be
encumbering not just on us but on VTA," Nakadegawa said, calling
technical reports that support the extension"greatly exaggerated."

A proposal to do that was snubbed on a 7-2 vote because Monday marks
the deadline imposed by the MTC for BART to adopt the agreement.
Failure to act would have dropped the San Jose extension from
consideration for federal funding requests.

Now the MTC must wrestle with the needs of a nine-county region, and
jealousy that BART to San Jose and a light rail extension in San
Francisco would be taking all of the federal funds. Key to that
agreement: no federal funds would go to either project until the BART
extension to San Francisco International Airport is completed. That
is scheduled to happen in December 2002.