Transit, the San Francisco treat: with $10.2 billion in projects on the drawing board, rail transit expansion continues at a rapid pace in the San Francisco region

Railway Age, April, 2002 by William D. Middleton

With work now past the 90% mark, construction crews are nearing the end of a massive project that should have BART trains running into San Francisco International Airport by year-end. The $1.5 billion extension, which represents the largest single Bay Area transit investment since the completion of the original BART system, will add 8.7 miles, four new stations, and an estimated 70,000 daily riders. By bringing rail transit to the nation's fifth busiest airport and establishing new connectivity with bus and Caltrain regional/commuter rail at a new intermodal terminal at Millbrae, BART's new airport extension will fundamentally alter Bay Area travel patterns and transit use.

BART's airport project is the capstone of an investment plan laid out in Resolution 1876, an expansion project adopted in 1988 by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC). Last year, MTC adopted Resolution 3434, which includes $10.2 billion in rail transit expansion and improvement. It's part of the $87.4 billion, 25-year Regional Transportation Plan. Resolution 3434 could add as many as 140 additional route-miles of rail service and expand capacity on the existing network. Almost 75% of the required funding has been identified from existing sales tax revenues or other local sources, with the remainder to come from federal and state sources. Only two projects are based upon federal new-start funding; 80% will be funded from non-federal sources.

Growth for Caltrain

Ten years after the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board assumed responsibility for Caltrain, a $900 million investment in rebuilding, upgrading, and capacity expansion has supported a 50% increase in service levels and an average weekday ridership of 35,000 in 2001--growth of more than 70% since 1992. Infrastructure work has included track, bridge, and signaling improvements, grade separations, and new or improved stations. The locomotive fleet of 20 EMD F40s has been through a mid-life overhaul and three more rebuilt units from Wabtec subsidiary Boise Locomotive have been added. Midlife overhauls for the original 73 gallery cars should be complete by September. The fleet has been augmented by 20 new Alstom gallery cars delivered in 1999 and 14 converted Budd RDC cars acquired from Virginia Railway Express.

Some $932 million is earmarked for a second phase of the express service and a planned electrification that will transform Caltrain into a rapid transit type service. A third, $1.9 billion project provides a new Transbay Terminal intermodal center in downtown San Francisco with a 1.5-mile Caltrain extension. Double-tracking is planned for Union Pacific's San Jose-Gilroy line, where frequency is expected to increase to 20 weekday trains.

Bay Area regional/commuter rail services will see significant expansion. Caltrain is already moving ahead with a $127 million first phase of a "Baby Bullet" express service that will halve travel times between San Francisco and San Jose by 2003. New passing tracks are being added to the double-track line at four locations to permit overtaking moves, while the entire route will get CTC. Six new locomotives have been ordered from Wabtec. They will join 17 Bombardier bilevel cars originally ordered for Washington's Sound Transit. The new cars are likely to enter service when BART's Millbrae intermodal center opens on the airport extension. A cross-platform connection is expected to generate as many as 8,000 new daily Caltrain riders.

Altamont Commuter Express, operated by the San Joaquin Regional Rail Commission, will also get an increase in capacity. The fast-growing service is getting track, station, and parking improvements and will add another roundtrip later this year. Additional stations and expanded service are planned for the Amtrak-operated San Jose-Oakland-Sacramento Capitol Corridor commuter service in Solano and Contra Costa counties. Two entirely new services are planned: a 47-mile extension between San Rafael, Marin County, and Windsor, Sonoma County with a spur south from San Rafael to the Larkspur ferry terminal, and another linking East Bay with Peninsula points over the Dumbarton Bridge.

Expanding light rail

Construction should begin next month for the first of two major Muni Metro light rail extensions. The first will complete a 5.4-mile, 19-stop Third Street line that will extend south from a connection with the existing system at the Fourth and King Caltrain terminal to a southern terminal at the Caltrain Bayshore station. This is expected to open in July 2005. A second phase will add a 1.7-mile Central Subway with four stations that will extend north from Fourth and King to a terminal at Stockton and Clay streets in Chinatown.

Bolstered by sales tax referenda in 1996 and 2000 that provided an assured local funding source for capital and operating costs over the next 35 years, the Santa Clara County Transportation Authority (VTA) continues an aggressive expansion of the Silicon Valley light rail network centered in San Jose.