BART should reject Livermore extension — and go by bus
For the past 40 years, the Bay Area’s solution to regional traffic congestion has been to build one more BART station a few miles farther into the suburbs from the previous terminus. That hasn’t worked. We need a new, modern vision for our regional transportation future. A vision built on a relentless commitment to delivering only the highest-performing projects that will deliver value in an autonomous vehicle future.
That’s why on Thursday the BART board should reject the proposed extension to Livermore that will serve few at immense cost. Instead, our region should invest in a new regional express bus network that would provide fast, frequent and reliable transportation to Livermore and other communities across the East Bay and Central Valley.
The proposed Livermore extension would extend BART tracks 5.5 miles down the I-580 median from the Dublin-Pleasanton station to a new station in the freeway median between farmland and an industrial park. The extension is estimated to cost $1.6 billion, or $290 million per mile. It still has a funding gap of $1 billion, which would likely take more than a decade to fill and require new taxes. And it would probably not open for another 20 years.
BART estimates that by 2040 the extension would be ridden by only 13,400 people on an average weekday. The extension would carry so few riders that BART estimates it would reduce peak hour traffic on I-580 west of the station by only 2.9 percent and would increase traffic congestion coming in from the Central Valley.
Livermore has zoned for about 4,000 new homes and 9,100 new jobs should this extension be built. But about 86 percent of the people living and working in this new development would travel by car, worsening congestion in Livermore and air quality across the Tri-Valley area.
BART is the most glamorous transit option for Livermore. But we should be making transportation investment decisions based on performance, not prestige. Spending billions to run empty BART trains out to Livermore is not the right answer.
The good news is that there is a more cost-effective transportation project on the table that would deliver equivalent travel times for Livermore residents and cost less than one-quarter of the extension proposal. Express buses initially would run from the Dublin-Pleasanton BART station along the recently built I-580 express lanes to downtown Livermore, the Livermore national laboratories, Las Positas College and elsewhere.
The express-bus project could be paid for out of existing funds and require no new taxes. Extension advocates may argue that Livermore has been paying taxes to BART since 1959 and is entitled to a station, but the total Livermore has paid to the BART system over that period (adjusting for inflation) is $436 million — not nearly enough to fund the extension. The express-bus project is fully funded. Construction could start quickly and deliver immediate relief.
These express buses then would form the basis of a regional express-bus network that would reach into communities across the East Bay, South Bay and Central Valley. These modern buses — similar but speedier than the popular Transbay buses or tech shuttles with Wi-Fi and airline-style seating — would quickly and cheaply expand to run on the express lines that are scheduled to be built along I-680, I-880, I-80, and Highway 101. In less than 20 years, this network could be speeding commuters over 550 miles of express lanes, a geographic reach twice that of BART and Caltrain together.
These buses might lack the glamour of commuter rail, but they would deliver rail-like speeds, capacity and comfort on existing infrastructure and are flexible enough to quickly adapt to regional growth.
The choice between laying the foundation of a 550-mile regional express-bus network and dragging an aging BART system another 5.5 miles down I-580 is clear.
Email your BART director at BoardOfDirectors@bart.gov or attend the board meeting in Oakland on Thursday and ask them to be prudent with our money and realistic about planning for the future.
It’s time to reject the extension and start building the express-bus network of the future.