San Jose BART project needs transparency
For nearly a year now, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority has known that the federal government has serious doubts about the cost estimates and timeline for a planned BART extension through San Jose.
VTA officials dismiss those concerns as worst-case scenarios. Nothing to see here. Move along, please.
That's simply unacceptable. Especially when the federal analysis, which VTA finally released this month, concludes that the transit agency's “highly aggressive” estimates understate the construction time by four years and the cost by $2.2 billion.
The Bay Area has a long history of late and overbudget taxpayer-funded transportation projects. There's now good reason to question whether the 6-mile BART extension from the Berryessa/North San Jose station through downtown to Santa Clara will become the latest example.
The extension is being built by VTA, which will pay maintenance and operating costs to the Bay Area Rapid Transit District to run the trains. The extension was forecast in 2014 to be completed in 2026 at a cost of $4.7 billion. In 2020, VTA adjusted its projections to 2030 and $6.9 billion, respectively.
Then, as Bay Area News Group reporters Maggie Angst and Eliyahu Kamisher reported Friday, the newly released documents show the U.S. Federal Transportation Administration estimated in May 2021 that the project would likely take until 2034 and cost $9.1 billion.
That's eight years beyond the original estimate and nearly double the cost.
A key driver of cost and timetable uncertainty is the authority's decision to use a deep, single-bore tunneling method pioneered in Spain instead of conventional dual bores. It was sold to the public as a way to minimize groundlevel construction that would disrupt downtown traffic and businesses and portrayed as a faster and less-costly alternative, which are reasons we supported it.
But federal officials, while moving ahead with funding for the project, are now challenging VTA's time and cost estimates. Their concerns should be taken seriously — especially because the federal estimates raise questions about whether there's enough money for the project.
The VTA has already gone to voters twice — in 2000 and again in 2016 — with sales tax measures that together will fund about $4 billion of the extension. The federal government has agreed to fund 25% of the total cost, up to $2.3 billion. But if the federal government's cost estimates are right, funding for the project right now is nearly $3 billion short.
When VTA announced the Federal Transportation Administration funding in October, it didn't mention the agency's $9.1 billion cost estimate, nor the 2034 completion forecast.
It was the federal agency's announcement the same day that revealed the cost forecast. And it wasn't until our reporters this month obtained the full federal report through a state Public Records Act request that the new date forecast for completion was learned.
VTA officials dispute the federal cost estimates and time projections. If they feel confident in their forecasts, then they shouldn't be afraid to subject both sets of numbers and time schedules to public scrutiny and seek an independent, outside opinion.
Voters and taxpayers deserve nothing less.