Diesel trains to link Antioch with BART
Some grumble about making a transfer
A BART extension of a different kind will reach deeper into eastern Contra Costa County starting Saturday, delivering relief to commuters sick of slogging along Highway 4 on their way to the Pittsburg-Bay Point Station.
They’ll now be able to board small blue-andwhite trains that look like oversize streetcars, run on biodiesel and operate on standard-gauge railroad tracks without being pulled by a locomotive.
It might be better than no line at all, but there’s still grumbling in eastern Contra Costa about having to transfer from one train to another rather than being able to ride station to station on standard BART trains.
“There are people who believe they were promised something and see what’s being delivered as a breach of that promise,” said Joel Keller, who lives in Brentwood and represents the East County area on the BART Board of Directors.
Keller said he understands the sentiment, but that building the diesel line was cheaper and a quicker way to deliver traffic relief. The extension cost $525 million, compared with an estimated $1 billion it would have cost to build a conventional BART line 10 miles from Pittsburg to Antioch.
BART will dedicate the Antioch Station on
Friday at an 11 a.m. ceremony and will offer free rides between Antioch and Pittsburg/ Bay Point from 1 to 8 p.m.
Regular service will begin at 5:43 a.m. Saturday, when the first scheduled train departs the Antioch Station.
Over the weekend, however, riders traveling the conventional BART line west of Pittsburg will face an obstacle: Track replacement work will halt service between the Pleasant Hill and Walnut Creek stations Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Free bus shuttles will operate between the stations but could add up to 20 minutes to the trip.
The new trains to and from Antioch will travel the extension at speeds up to 75 mph. A new Pittsburg Center Station will open Saturday between Antioch and Pittsburg/Bay Point.
At Pittsburg/Bay Point, riders transferring to and from conventional BART trains will walk across a transfer platform just east of the regular platform. “It is literally 10 steps,” said BART spokeswoman Anna Duckworth.
Riders heading to Antioch will stay on the BART train after it departs Pittsburg/Bay Point to make the switch. Those heading from Pittsburg/ Bay Point will get off the new train and cross the platform.
Passengers shouldn’t have to wait more than two minutes to transfer during commute hours, with gaps of up to eight minutes at off-peak times, Duckworth said. Schedules are available on the BART website, www.bart.gov.
The extension runs along the Highway 4 median. The Pittsburg Center station at Railroad Avenue has a 240space parking lot, and there are 1,000 spaces in the Antioch lot near Hillcrest Avenue.
Each car on the new trains has 104 seats and can hold about 200 people. A trip from Antioch will cost 80 cents more than from Pittsburg/Bay Point, and a Pittsburg Center trip will cost an additional 15 cents.
BART expects to carry 5,600 riders a day on the extension during its first year, and twice that by 2030. Keller hopes they’ll decide it was worth the wait.
“I’ve said for years that once people get on the train and get the opportunity to ride it, they’re going to say, ‘What was all that fuss about?’ ” Keller said.