The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) on August 20 received $39 million from California’s Traffic Congestion Relief Program (TCRP) to finish work on VTA’s BART Silicon Valley (BSV). This sixth and final allocation brings the total amount of TCRP funding received for BSV to $649 million. With this latest installment, the California Transportation Commission (CTC), who is responsible for overseeing state-funded transportation programs, will have allocated a total of $768 million to BSV.
The extension was identified as one of 53 projects statewide eligible to receive TCRP funds in 2000, when legislation passed creating the program. The funds to date have generally been applied to the environmental, design and construction activities that are either complete or underway, including trench and bridge construction to separate the BART system from major roadways and construction of stations. The new $39 million will help fund construction of the Milpitas and Berryessa BART station campuses and towards design and construction of the parking structures at the two stations.
The BART Silicon Valley project is an overall 16-mile, six-station extension of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system beginning at the future Warm Springs Station in Fremont and runningalongside the Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR), extending south into Santa Clara County, with stations in Milpitas, San Jose and Santa Clara. The alignment will travel at-grade, above-grade, and below-grade (in trenched segments and in a subway through downtown San Jose).
The project includes six stations, a new BART maintenance and storage facility in the city of Santa Clara, and the purchase of rail cars needed to operate the extension once it is built.
The extension project is planned for two phases. The $2.3 billion 1st phase, which is currently under-construction, is known as the Berryessa Extension. This 10-mile, two-station extension runs from Fremont, through Milpitas, into the Berryessa district of north San Jose. Two new BART stations will be constructed as part of the Berryessa Extension; the Milpitas BART Station located between Montague Expressway and Capitol Avenue in the City of Milpitas and the Berryessa BART Station located between Berryessa Road and Mabury Road in the City of San Jose.
The first phase construction is being led by the Skanska-Shimmick-Herzog Joint Venture, which was awarded a contract in 2011 to complete the design and construction of the line, track, systems and stations. It is expected to be operating in early 2018.
The planned six-mile second phase of the project is expected to cost more than $6 billion and be serviceable by 2035. It is currently in design and environmental testing.
