Riders hail Warm Springs Station
BART extension to south Fremont opens after years of delay
Saturday was the first full day of service on the BART extension to Warm Springs, but the new station was already proving to be a popular backdrop for selfies, with couples and families taking pictures along the upperlevel railing against green hills draped with fog.
The land around the station is far from densely occupied, surrounded by the Fremont hills, empty fields, warehouses and the Tesla auto plant.
But many of the station’s first riders said they live nearby and were curious to see how the construction had turned out after the long wait, which dragged more than two years past the predicted 2014 opening date.
“He’s really excited,” said Leanne Leung, 31, pointing at her husband, Chin, as they waited on the platform with their twin daughters, who are 16 months old.
“We drive by here every day — we’ve been waiting a long time. It’s nice to see all the cars and people around here,” said Chin, 32.
“It’s nice. His family can visit us more easily now, too,” said Leanne, referring to her husband’s relatives in Berkeley and San Francisco.
“It’s a big deal to have it open. I mean, it’s two years late. They could have done the forecasting a little better,” Chin said.
He added that he heard on the news Saturday morning that the federal budget might jeopardize the fate of the extension to San Jose, but added that personally, “I don’t really care about down south.”
The relative glut of parking at the Warm Springs Station — nearly 2,100 spaces — is a change from the congestion at BART’s Fremont stop, said Judy Huckabay, a Warm Springs resident who was riding the train with her husband.
“There’s no parking at the BART in South Fremont. But my husband and I are BART lovers. We look for things to do that are BART-friendly,” Huckabay said.
The new station’s location, 5.4 miles south of the Fremont stop, is an improvement for her as well.
“This is much more convenient. If I have to drive across Fremont, that’s 7 miles, that can take 40 minutes,” Huckabay said.
Other riders agreed that the station, the farthest south in the BART system, eases the logistical headache of getting around the Bay Area.
“It’s certainly more convenient to come here than to go up to Millbrae, which is what we used to do. We’re from the other side of the bay — Mountain View and Sunnyvale,” said Robert Lawrence, 93, of Mountain View.
“It’s a 40-minute drive to get there, and this was only 20,” added Teena Henshaw, 80.
Some of the delays in the station’s opening were caused by the difficulty of getting the station’s modern technology to work with the existing BART system.
And as shiny and new as the station was on Saturday, it still contained reminders of BART’s standard delays and dysfunction. A banner advertised future closure dates for the Lake Merritt Station, which will be shut down periodically on weekends from April through July for track maintenance work, and the usual advisories piped in over the speakers.
“Track maintenance work has been completed for today,” a female voice intoned, “but there are still residual delays.”