Gov. Davis, ex-S.J. mayor got BART on track
Area officials are excited about opening on June 13
The long-awaited and often delayed BART extension from Fremont to San Jose is about to take off, but two of the key players were not on stage Tuesday to formally announce the June 13 opening of the Berryessa station.
While hundreds had critical roles in developing the 10mile, $2.3 billIon extensions, two of the key figures are out of the limelight — former Gov. Gray Davis and ex-San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales. They, along with Carl Guardino, CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, pulled off what many deemed impossible: getting state officials and Santa Clara County voters to approve the many millions needed to build the second-biggest public works project in the Bay Area since rebuilding the Bay Bridge.
Despite all the enthusiasm for BART in the 1990s, something was lacking — cash.
Davis changed that, approving $760 million in state funds for BART in 2000. This was the first time any money had been earmarked for the work, and despite the state’s budget difficulties over the past decade, every governor has kept the cash flowing.
Davis called Silicon Valley ground zero as the most dynamic region in the state.
“Silicon Valley moves at warp speed,” he said. “We had to invest in those portions of our economy with the most upside potential, and clearly info-tech, biotech and cleantech have all done remarkably well. When government can chime in and help provide infrastructure, then you have a home run.”
But another four-bagger came from Gonzales, who began talking about a train link from the East Bay to San Jose as a county supervisor in the 1990s, when the dot-com boom brought freeway traffic to a halt. When he gave his mayoral state of the city speech in 1999, he never mentioned extending BART, but that is what many listeners thought he meant.
“That speech seemed to
have lit a fire under everyone for BART,” he recalled.
With money pledged by Davis, a sense of urgency grew to come up with local funds. Gonzales turned to the board of supervisors to place a tax on the ballot that would need a simple majority. But he couldn’t get the votes to put a tax plan before voters.
Gonzales didn’t fold. He turned to the VTA, which as a special district needed a tax that had to win by a two-thirds vote. Voters passed a 30-year half-cent sales tax by a 70.4% margin in 2000.
“It’s one of my proudest achievements,” Gonzales said.
But in 2004, the Federal Transit Administration gave BART to San Jose a “not recommended” rating, which blocked the VTA’s goal of landing $900 million in federal funds.
The FTA dinged the plan because it lacked money to run the trains; the 2000 tax measure was for construction only. The federal agency also said the subway under downtown San Jose was too expensive.
The VTA shortened the line to Berryessa, shaving more than $3 billion in costs.
The effort in 2008 to pass a one-eighth-cent sales tax to further fund BART seemed like skiing up the steepest Tahoe slope. Every poll said it would fail to get a two-thirds majority.
“Working 16-hour days al- most every day and expecting similar commitments from others is difficult when internally the people around you think all that emotional and physical investment is still going to lead to a defeat,” Guardino said.
Election night came, and it was too close to call. It would take four weeks before thousands of absentee and provisional ballots were counted.
Ever so slowly, the yes vote crept higher. It won by 66.78 percent, just a hair over the 66.67 percent margin needed. More than 600,000 votes were cast, and the measure won by about 2,250 votes.
The FTA put BART on its recommended list and approved $900 million in federal funds.
The opening of the Berryessa and Milipitas stations comes at a time when BART ridership is way down as COVID-19 fears have reduced service and scared riders leery of getting on transit with strangers. At Tuesday’s news conference, VTA workers disinfected the speaker podiums constantly and all wore face masks. The future isn’t clear.
How many people will park their vehicles and hop aboard BART? Perhaps not many until a vaccine is widely available and those lost jobs return. When Supervisor Cindy Chavez announced the opening of the two long-awaited transit stations, a BART train rumbled through her backdrop of the soon-toopen Berryessa station, interrupting the audio bite.
“Yay,” said Chavez, president of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors and chair of the VTA. “I love to hear that.”