At VTA’s board meeting tomorrow, the board is expected to weigh in on decisions about the Diridon and downtown stations.
The design of the BART Diridon entrance will play a key role in making transfers among transit services easier or more difficult for generations to come. Two options were discussed at VTA’s board workshop: a North option at Santa Clara Street across from SAP Center, and a South option about 200 feet south of Santa Clara street.
Unfortunately, the staff report notes that the South option would be made less feasible by developments that are moving forward in the station area.
With Diridon Station’s current layout, the North option situates the BART platforms a long walk from connecting services and their passenger passageways and walkways. The light rail platforms, for example, are a 1,600 foot walking distance from the BART platforms, not counting vertical changes with the ramps and escalators. This is a poor design for an intermodal station that expects to see more transfers in 2040 than transit trips today. To achieve the mode split envisioned in the San Jose General Plan, transfers much more seamless.
Fortunately for this issue, we have heard that the High Speed Rail approach to Diridon has been delayed, and with the extra time, the High Speed Rail Authority, Caltrain, VTA/BART, and the City of San Jose are working on bigger ideas to potentially redesign the station passenger flows and rail operations in order to do a better job of accommodating the many transit services and transfers.
We would strongly encourage VTA and all the agencies to work together on a station design that minimizes transfer time and improves that passenger experience. Feel free to share your thoughts with board.secretary@vta.org.
As for the other two decisions, the Downtown station location, and tunnel construction:
* VTA staff is recommending a West alternative for the Downtown station, which is closer to more destinations and would likely get more ridership. SPUR also recommends this option.
* VTA and BART are deferring the decision about how to construct the downtown section, using a single or twin-bore tunnel. Downtown businesses are very concerned about the twin-bore approach which would have greater construction disruption in the downtown area. But the single bore method raises questions about operations and cost. The agencies will go through a peer review process for several months before looking to make the decision.
The light rail segment that burrows under the mainline tracks passes tantalizingly close to the proposed BART tracks – it sure seems (from a non-engineering standpoint) that moving the light rail stop underground there would enable a vastly more direct transfer. (To transfer from light rail to Caltrain/Amtrak/ACE last time I was there, I had to go through the ped tunnel all the way to the main station building to check track assignments anyway, so moving the LR platforms might enhance these transfers too.) Surely it’s not that simple….
1,600 feet from the VTA LRT Diridon station to the BART “north” alternative station entrance is about comparable to the walking distance from the San Fernando LRT station. This means it will be faster for people going to or coming from points east of Diridon on LRT should use the San Fernando station instead.