The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority is counting on a big sum of cash from the federal government to assist complete the $12.75 billion BART extension in San Jose. But if those dollars don't are available, the transit agency doesn't appear to have a backup plan.
For greater than twenty years, transportation officials have planned to construct a rail ring across the Bay Area. In 2020, BART reached its southernmost point, opening stations in Milpitas and the Berryessa neighborhood of San Jose. But now VTA, the agency tasked with expanding BART, has set its sights on the ultimate stage: a six-mile, four-station extension through downtown San Jose to Santa Clara.
The megaproject's costs have exploded over the past decade, rising from $4.4 billion to greater than $12 billion estimated earlier this 12 months. The project has also faced repeated delays, from a gap date of 2026 to 2037.
VTA has already committed funds from state and native sources that may cover just over half of the project cost. But this 12 months the agency will submit a grant application to the Federal Transit Administration asking it to fund the remaining 49.4%, or $6.297 billion.
But what if the VTA doesn't get the cash it needs for the BART extension? General Manager Carolyn Gonot told the Mercury News this week that they will not be engaging in contingency planning right now because their “top priority” is to work with the FTA on a financing plan.
“We understand that we may need to do that, but right now that's not our focus,” she said of making an emergency plan.
It is feasible that the FTA won’t allocate the $6.297 billion for the project, Gonot admits, because other megaprojects received less money than requested, “because (the agency) wants to make sure that they are using what is available to them from the infrastructure program.” can finance as many projects as possible.”
Suds Jain, a Santa Clara city councilor and member of the VTA board, believes that “it's entirely possible that the government won't even give us 45%.” If that happens, he feels that “the staff hasn't given us any real options in case of an emergency,” equivalent to closing considered one of the 4 stations.
“This BART project is eating up all the transit money,” Jain said, pointing to 2 major VTA funding sources getting used to construct the project.
Just last week, the FTA pledged $3.4 billion for the Transbay Downtown Rail Extension Project, which is able to extend Caltrain from Fourth and King Street Station to the Salesforce Transit Center in downtown San Francisco. Project planners had also asked the federal government to cover 49.4 percent, or $4.077 billion, of the fee – but ultimately they only received 41 percent of what they asked for.
“I don't know if we can get to 41%,” Gonot said when asked about Transbay funding. “We're working with the Federal Transit Administration to see what we might be able to get to, but I'm not thinking about 41%.”
Gonot was unable to say what the minimum amount required by the FTA would need to be to make sure the viability of the project. He said the federal government was still within the “review phase of our financial plan.”
Gonot's comments come several weeks after San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan pressed VTA officials at a recent committee meeting about whether or not they were “planning and preparing scenarios so we can quickly adapt” if full funding doesn’t flow.
Mahan told The Mercury News that VTA officials “need to do a financial analysis to understand from a contingency planning perspective where the money is going to come from to fill the gap and at what point, if the VTA is unable to fill that gap, we need to talk about the overall design of the system.”
“I just want to make sure that when we get the numbers from the federal government, we are either in a position to move forward with the current blueprint immediately, or we have a selection of alternatives that are ready to go and we don't need another six months of analysis to get to that point,” he said.
While Gonot was unable to comment on various projections, VTA CFO Greg Richardson said on the May 9 meeting that they “had the group come up with different scenarios with different percentages, the impacts, the This would have an impact on the financing element, and the impact it would have on the project cost if it reached a certain level.”
Cindy Chavez, Santa Clara County councilwoman and chairwoman of the VTA board, said one of the reasons for the extension's high cost is because the federal government asked her to increase the estimated cost after its own assessment of the project. Tom Maguire, VTA's megaproject delivery chief, said at a board meeting in April that the agency had $2.7 billion in emergency funding.
“That means we're almost actually going to have the option to remain inside that budget. That's why I suggest we actually encourage the federal government to take a position,” Chavez said.
The agency recently increased the amount of money it receives from 2000's Measure A – a 30-year, half-cent sales tax on a range of capital improvement projects and operations – and 2016's Measure B, another 30-year sales tax. annual sales tax of half a cent would be used to improve local transport, motorways and expressways. VTA officials have said they would likely dip further into Measure A coffers if necessary because Measure B funding has already been exhausted.
Gonot could not say which projects funded by Measure A would be affected by this case.
Jain isn't the only board member raising alarm about the VTA's lack of an emergency plan. San Jose City Councilwoman Dev Davis said she “has not yet seen enough detail to be sure that we have adequate emergency plans in place.”
The councilor said that while she believes the board should have seen these details already, she is not blaming Maguire, but rather placing the blame on the previous project management.
“I feel it's appropriate for the general public to be concerned concerning the status of such a big project and the transparency of the project,” Davis said. “The board and management at the moment are united and pushing in the identical direction to enhance transparency and be sure that now we have not only an appropriate level of control on this project, but an appropriate level of control. Going forward, the general public can expect far more than they’ve received from previous project leaders on these fronts.”
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