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Extension May Link San Francisco-Area Transit With San Joaquin County, Calif.

Posted on: Monday, 25 July 2005, 21:00 CDT

Jul. 23--BART is making its way closer to San Joaquin County with plans to run trains farther east, creating the possibility of linking San Joaquin County commuter trains to the Bay Area transit system.

The proposed 23-mile Bay Area Rapid Transit extension would start in Pittsburgh and run through east Contra Costa County all the way to Byron and Discovery Bay, just nine miles north of the Mountain House community.

Transportation officials say the proposed BART extension, which was in the beginning stages of environmental reviews this week, would help link San Joaquin County commuters to the Bay Area. And it may be possible for a popular San Joaquin County-based commuter train to link with a new BART line.

The county's Altamont Commuter Express train is looking to expand its service. Linking its passenger trains to a nearby BART station would be ideal for commuters going into the Bay Area, said Brian Schmidt, ACE's rail program manager.

ACE operates three daily round-trip commuter trains between Stockton and San Jose, with stops in Lathrop, Tracy, Livermore, Pleasanton, Fremont and Santa Clara.

"That's one thing we are looking at," Schmidt said. "It could be a really good connection for people -- the Highway 4 corridor is horrible."

A BART station nearby would cut Wanda Smith's commute significantly.

Smith, a Mountain House resident, spends up to 40 minutes fighting traffic on Interstate 580 as she makes her way to the Pleasanton BART station every day.

"People in Stockton and Tracy would definitely use it if it came down as far as Byron. It would take a lot of pressure off 580," said Smith, who commutes to San Francisco. "Anything would be better than going over the Altamont."

Nearly 30,000 commuters head over the Altamont Pass daily. About 11,000 vehicles travel on Highway 4 daily during peak traffic hours, with as many as 1,000 commuters coming from San Joaquin County, according to Contra Costa County officials.

As the highways get more congested, there is a need to provide other transportation alternatives for commuters, BART officials said.

"The more the area grows, the greater the need for traffic relief for Highway 4," said Jim Allison, a BART spokesman. "It keeps getting worse and worse."

The Contra Costa County extension is projected to attract as many as 10,000 riders daily by 2030. About 500 of those riders will likely come from surrounding areas, including San Joaquin County, Smith said.

The agency needs about 14,000 riders to justify construction, said Ellen Smith, project manager for eBART -- the name of the proposed extension.

Cities that will benefit from the extended rail system will have to provide easy access to the trains to help encourage ridership, Smith said.

If the $400 million project is approved, trains would be in service by 2010, Smith said.

"There is only one route in and out from there into the Bay Area. There are very few parallel routes," Smith said. "We want to offer a strong connection with the BART system through that corridor."

Transit officials have talked about bringing the rail system into Tracy but dropped the idea when initial cost estimates exceeded $1 billion, said Andrew Chesley, deputy executive director of the San Joaquin Council of Governments, the regional transportation planning agency.

Chesley said that San Joaquin County does not want to buy into a rail system that has yet to connect into parts of the Tri-Valley as promised decades ago.

"People are already paying into the sales tax for BART service, and they still don't have solid plans to get out to those locations," Chesley said.

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Source: The Record

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