BART stations may not open until 2019
Milpitas and Berryessa locations had been planned to debut in June
SAN JOSE >> Commuters hoping to speed past highway gridlock with the opening of the South Bay’s first BART stations at Milpitas and Berryessa will have to wait a little longer: The projected opening date is slipping into 2019, according to transit officials.
Delays in testing, breakdowns in communication and a lack of personnel are stalling the longawaited opening of the two stations, said Dennis
Ratcliffe, a deputy director overseeing BART’s extension into Silicon Valley for the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Agency (VTA).
VTA officials boasted last year that they were ahead of schedule and planned to open the two stations in December 2017, but testing delays pushed that date back to the originally planned June 2018 opening. Then, earlier this year, VTA officials said they needed a little more time before handing off the new stations and trackway to BART for testing. They’re now saying the opening looks closer to January or even March next year.
It all depends on how long it takes BART to complete its phase of the testing and how much time the two agencies can recover by overlapping some work that had been planned in phases, Ratcliffe said. The VTA had expected to transfer its facilities to BART April 1 but is now projecting it won’t be able to hand over the reins until the end of June. And BART needs six to eight months of testing before the station doors open, he said.
“Every effort will be made by VTA and BART staff to achieve passenger service by the end of this year,” Ratcliffe said.
The delays are frustrating some, including Lam Diep, a VTA board member and San Jose city councilmember whose district includes the Berryessa station. Although he expected some delays, DIep is anxious to see the stations open as soon as possible so he and his constituents can begin taking advantage of the service.
“I want it to happen sooner rather than later,” Diep said. “However, safety is our primary concern, and it’s better to work out
any issues during testing.”
When the Santa Clara County stations do open, it will mark the first time BART has crossed a new county line since 1973.
A number of factors have contributed to the delays, Ratcliffe said, not the least of which is the challenge of integrating BART’s aging infrastructure with modern technology. It look longer than expected for VTA staff to install its closed circuit television system, station security cameras and public address system at the stations, all of which need to be tied into BART’s communications network.
Then, Ratcliffe said there was a breakdown in communication between a contractor and BART staff, resulting in a backlog of train control testing results with discrepancies that needed to be resolved. Efforts to work through those discrepancies are complicated by the fact that BART still is making changes to its train control system at the Warm Springs station, all of which must be incorporated into the Milpitas and Berryessa stations, he said.
At the same time, the experts at BART who are needed to resolve issues with the Milpitas and Berryessa stations are busy focusing on making changes at the Warm Springs station so it can continue to operate.
“There’s a competition of resources there,” Ratcliffe said, adding it’s also been difficult to find outside consultants since the pool of experts nationwide is relatively small, and there are certain tasks only BART staff can perform. “We’re struggling to get the project across the finish line.”
Representatives from BART did not respond to questions about testing or scheduling the opening of the two new stations. The project is still within budget, Ratcliffe said.