Jun 27, 2008

Derail bid to fund BART at local project's expense

Editorial

Regional transportation agency staff should rethink a recommendation to divert $91 million from a Dumbarton rail corridor project into the costly, questionable scheme to extend BART into the South Bay.

The latest price tag for connecting BART through San Jose and into Santa Clara is $6 billion, an expense that the region cannot seem to cover. The project has languished for years while South Bay leaders searched for ways to save it.

The latest idea is to complete the 16-mile project in stages, presumably until the effort founders.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission staff suggests that $91 million budgeted for Dumbarton could be used to extend BART's terminus in Fremont another five miles into the city's Warm Springs district. This money would be repaid at some future date - we hope.

Palo Alto City Council Member Yoriko Kishimoto rightly said that the Warm Springs plan is, by itself, a "bridge to nowhere." The project still falls well short of the link to downtown San Jose that presumably makes it feasible.

That missing piece includes no less than 4.5 miles of subway construction under San Jose. Don't expect that anytime soon.

Admittedly, the Dumbarton rail corridor project faces its own challenges.

The proposal to run trains over the Bay between the Peninsula and the East Bay has doubled in cost to $600 million. Meanwhile, residents in Menlo Park are raising concerns about possible train noise, and the Santa Clara County civil grand jury has raised valid questions about the Dumbarton project.

However, a previous grand jury has already blasted the BART project, as well. What will the region gain by shifting money from a project short of funding to another that may be completely unworkable?

Regional transportation officials should not be siphoning away money from the Dumbarton project or any others to BART until they can devise a viable plan for a South Bay BART presence.