Agency wavers on BART bore outlook
The timetable for when San Jose's $12.2 billion BART extension will start excavating dirt with its “worm-like” tunnel boring machine — widely reported as next year during its purchase in the fall — now doesn't appear to be so clear cut.
Just two months ago, the Valley Transportation Authority celebrated its $76 million German boring machine purchase, a moment of forward momentum for a project struggling with delays and major cost increases, with a news release that said “tunnel work will begin in 2025.”
Multiple news outlets, including this one, interpreted that to mean the machine would begin digging the tunnels for the BART project in 2025 — and reported it as such, with no objection from VTA.
When questioned further about the start date, however, agency spokesperson Patrice Smith said the language in the news release didn't mean the device would start carving into the ground next year.
She wrote that tunneling — an adjective that is also used in multiple instances on the project's website with a 2025 date attached to it — means “all aspects of site preparation,” including building the structure that will launch the machine.
The actual date when the boring device will start digging “depends on negotiations” with the project's contractor, Kiewit Shea Traylor, conversations that will be finalized this spring, Smith said.
Critics of the BART project were not happy with the way the agency represented the apparent start date.
“This is extraordinarily misleading,” said Jim Schmidt, a retired transportation engineer and member of the Bay Area Transportation Working Group, a volunteer organization that has opposed aspects of the BART project's design. “It's very unfortunate.”
Current plans call for the boring machine to start digging near Santa Clara, creating a 4.6-mile subterranean tunnel that will move east toward San Jose's downtown before looping toward the city's existing Berryessa station.
The revelation about the start date comes after a spate of recent criticisms about the 6-mile BART extension, which intends to connect San Jose's downtown toward the Peninsula, creating a “ring of transit” across the Bay Area.
In October, VTA reported an updated cost for the project: More than double its original projections and with a start date of 2036, a decade later than originally expected. The news sparked VTA's board of directors to create a watchdog committee that will investigate issues facing the extension.