San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
BART stations’ lofty ambitions fall short
Milpitas and Berryessa planned as centerpieces of new transit villages, but don’t quite connect
Transit stations rarely are “just” buildings. They’re intended to send a larger message, reflecting civic and policy priorities beyond the quest for convenient travel.
This dynamic plays out in the two new BART stations that debuted this month on the south end of the system in Milpitas and north San Jose, a 10mile extension from the Warm Springs/ South Fremont Station that opened in 2017. Each is designed to announce that you have arrived at the threshold of a beckoning future — though the reality of what currently exists is a far cry from what boosters hope will flourish.
Milpitas is the grander of the two stations, the centerpiece of a 437acre “transit area” plan as well as the single BART stop in this oncesuburban city of 80,000. The Berryessa Station is one of four stops planned for San Jose, though construction of the $6.8 billion final extension won’t begin before 2022.
In each case, the goal of rapid transit is accompanied by transportation options that go beyond automobiles to include buses and bicycles. Berryessa has a spacious sheltered bike storage room near the fare gates as well as several bus bays. The Milpitas BART Station is accompanied by a full “bus transit center,” plus an overhead walkway to a light rail station
operated by Valley Transportation Authority.
Viewed in this context, as a node in a larger network, Berryessa fits particularly well.
The island where buses pull up and depart is an easy 30 steps from the station gates. The bike path is wide enough to be a narrow street. The plaza outside the main entrance is flanked by an attractive bioswale complete with explanatory signs. There’s even a wellmarked link to a trail that follows Penitencia Creek to Alum Rock Park.
Architecturally, though, the station has an awkward air.
Perfunctory in some spots, clumsy in others.
You see the latter in the round bollards outside the gates that look like they were purchased at the last minute. As for clumsy, the canopy above the platform is supported by lozengegreen columns supposedly modeled on tree branches by the design team of FMG Architects and AVA. I’ll take their word for it.
The architecture of the Milpitas Station aims higher. It also gets most of the way there.
The scale of ambitions is signaled by the entrance, a gently arched throughway with a silvery skin of steel panels like you’d see on an upscale car dealership. Fare gates line the passage beneath a broad circular skylight.
The train platforms are below, and they are a relaxing surprise — illuminated in part by two smaller skylights and open at either end. This allows for natural air circulation, as though it had been designed for our age of concerns about COVID19 and any virus that might threaten in the future.
Another nice touch? The station’s artwork is integrated into the building design by VBN Architects and AVA. Platform columns are softened by ceramic tiles that artist Amy Trachtenberg patterned on traditional
Ikat weaving patterns, but with computer circuitry embedded in some as a nod to Silicon Valley. The walls above the two entrances to the throughway hold translucent, multicolored glass work by B.J. Katz and Chris Klein that add illuminated warmth to the openair passage.
The drawback to the passage, and the station itself as an experience, is that it has no natural connection to anything around it. There’s a 1,200car parking garage to the east and that plateau of bus bays to the west, then the asphalt expanses of Great Mall Parkway and Montague Expressway.
If you’re arriving or departing on foot, in other words, BART’s celebratory station feels like an island unto itself. Which is odd, because it is conceived as the hub of something greater.
Under the district plan approved in 2008 and updated in 2011, this former light industrial area is intended to hold upward of 7,100 residential units and 1.5 million square feet of commercial space. Equally important, it’s intended to become “an attractive and livable neighborhood that takes advantage of public investment in light rail and BART.”
In terms of acreage, this translates to the largest of the “transit villages” that in recent