Published Thursday, November 15, 2001, in the Livermore Independent

Haggerty Sees Pact As Help To Get tBART

By Ron McNicoll

A tentative agreement between BART and Santa Clara Valley
Transportation Authority to provide future San Jose rail service does
not include a sought-after buy-in fee that would have pegged millions
of dollars to develop BART in the valley.

However, the deal initialed last week created a situation in which
valley BART got a boost anyway, Supervisor Scott Haggerty said
Tuesday. Haggerty and Livermore Mayor Cathie Brown had pushed hard to
get a cash buy-in from Santa Clara. When San Mateo County bought into
BART a few years ago for the San Francisco Airport extension, the
county paid a cash fee up front. The money helped pay for the BART
extension to the Pleasanton/Dublin station.

This time around, there is no up-front cash payment that could
directly assist the valley. There is an agreement to pay $111 million
to make up a funding shortfall for building the Warm Springs
extension in Fremont, said Haggerty. Warm Springs is a link between
current BART service on the Fremont line and the future Santa Clara
destinations.

What the pact does for the Livermore extension is to spell out
clearly that Livermore BART extension will be a goal of the
Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC). MTC channels federal
and state funding to Bay Area transportation projects. Therefore,
although there is no specific buy-in money to help the Valley, the
pact comes up with a solution through other means, said Haggerty.

Asked about getting a start on a Valley BART project, Haggerty cited
money already available to BART. There is $10 million available in
sales tax revenue, $16 million in transportation funding, $7 million
in rail funding and $47 million from a Livermore fee charged to
developers for traffic impact.

That $80 million could give a start on building the tBART (t for Tri-
Valley) train that Mayor Cathie Brown has been advocating, said
Haggerty. The train would have full-size cars. It would be shorter
and run on regular train tracks; it would have a diesel engine
instead of the electric third rail.

KAMENA MIGHT NOT SUPPORT tBART

But whether tBART is the way to go is also at issue, especially now
that Livermore will have a new mayor beginning Nov. 26. Brown backed
tBART, because it would be transporting passengers to
Pleasanton/Dublin BART in three to five years. Haggerty endorses
tBART, too.

Brown also felt that in the long run, Livermore could have the full
BART rail, too, though it may take many more years. Haggerty is
skeptical about how soon Livermore would get a BART rail, once tBART
is in place, since it would apparently meet community needs,
especially helping the downtown with its revitalization. It would
also get San Joaquin commuters out of their cars sooner, cutting
smog, because they wouldn't be driving all the way to the
Pleasanton/Dublin station.

Marshall Kamena, who replaces Brown in the mayor's chair Nov. 26,
says he would rather hold out for full BART. Once you use up 60
percent of the funds that would otherwise go to a permanent BART
rail, it's useless to ever expect to get BART, Kamena told the
Independent on Tuesday.

Full-fledged BART is what Livermore has been waiting, he said.
However, if Supervisor Haggerty has some new ideas, I'm certainly
open to them, Kamena stated. Haggerty said he is planning a meeting
with Kamena, and hopes to get him on board in support of tBART.

Kamena's estimates that tBART will cost 60 percent of a permanent
BART rail alternative puts the focus on how varied cost estimates are
on the topic. Kamena said he talked to a planner at BART who said
tBART is a system costing $500 million to $600 million, including
acquiring right of way along Stanley Boulevard. Those figures are
about 60 percent of the $800 million to $1 billion estimate for a
full BART rail system..

Haggerty said that BART has no concrete estimate about what tBART
would cost. "It's a moving target," he said. Exact cost estimates
won't be available until a study is published Dec. 3.