LivermoreBART.org

Quoting from the Livermore Independent newspaper:

The Livermore City Council voted unanimously to recommend that a BART extension to Livermore go underground through the downtown and at grade to Vasco Road.

If funding could not be obtained for a downtown station, the council’s vote included the recommendation to extend BART to Vasco Road. A Vasco station would be near the national laboratories and the area where Livermore anticipates that a large number of jobs will be generated at the i-Hub. The state has designated Livermore as an i-Hub, a center for innovation.

The final decision on a BART extension alignment will be made by the BART board. The decision is expected to made in June.

You can read the full article here.

Here’s a link to the video of the Livermore City Council meeting on 4/26/2010. It is about 4hrs long mostly citizen comments. The council vote and discussion starts at 3hrs 14 minutes and goes for about 30 minutes.

We congratulate the Livermore City Council on this bold, forward-looking decision. We thank the Planning Commission and City Engineers for their hard work on this matter. We request the City of Livermore and other agencies to put forth detailed plans to address the concerns of the citizens adversely impacted by these stations in the years ahead. Good luck to the City of Livermore in crossing the next hurdles and getting funding for the BART stations it so deserves.

The Livermore City Council will be voting on a preferred alignment for BART at their regular meeting this coming Monday, April 26.  The meeting starts at 7 pm and will be held at the council chambers, 3575 Pacific Avenue.

Supporters of a downtown BART (a relatively small but vocal group)have been packing the previous meetings.  Unless the city council starts to hear more from the many Livermore residents who disagree with a downtown alignment, there is a high probability that the council will vote to endorse an alignment that runs underground below Portola and Junction Avenues, with stations downtown and at Vasco Road.  This alignment will require the acquisition and potential condemnation of close to 200 parcels, including from 84 to 104 residences.  City staff and the planning commission are recommending this alignment.

We feel strongly that a downtown BART station would be bad for both the downtown and our chance of ever getting BART.  With its massive price tag of nearly four billion dollars, the downtown alignment is significantly more expensive than the two-station freeway option (about an additional 2/3 of a billion dollars.)  It also seems that downtown proponents are in denial about the traffic and parking impacts of a downtown BART station.  To get a picture of the parking requirement, imagine the Dublin BART parking structure and surrounding ground-level parking in downtown Livermore.  We support a single station at Isabel/I580 (1.1 billion dollars) as an acceptable and fundable alternative.  BART already owns the station site at this location.

We believe most Livermore residents do not want to see BART downtown.  The breakdown of EIR comments from those who expressed a preference showed that more than three times as many people supported the freeway alternative as compared to downtown supporters (241 vs. 73), and most of them were very strongly opposed to a downtown station.  We see no reason not to believe that this is representative of the community.

The most effective way to influence the council is to attend Monday’s council meeting and express your views.  If you are unable to make the meeting we urge you to e-mail city council members prior to the meeting.  You can access these addresses at the council website – www.ci.livermore.ca.us.

Please join us and speak out for the only affordable solution for Livermore.  If you would like more information feel free to call either of us.

Valerie Raymond – 447-4027
Linda Jeffery-Sailors – 449-7274

1. We would not have to take 81 family homes of Livermore residents by eminent domain.*
2. We would save the cost of moving numerous businesses along the “downtown” route.
3. We would avoid 4 to 6 years of disruptive construction work on our city streets.
4. A freeway route would keep more out-of-town traffic on the freeway and off 1ST and Vasco.
5. The freeway route will attract the most BART riders.
6. BART already owns the land for a station at Isabel
7. BART already owns the land for a station at Greenville
8. I580 needs some relief from congestion that BART can provide.
9. $110 million has already been set aside to purchase right-of-way taken by the I580 carpool lane.
10. The freeway route has a good cost to benefit ratio and is fundable.

It is important to note that the 12 mile Hayward to Dublin/Pleasanton extension was built for half a billion dollars.  The downtown route will cost just under $4 billion (in today’s dollars) for only 11 miles.  The downtown route is not likely to get funded and we will lose BART to Livermore if that route is selected.

The argument that the freeway stations have environmental issues does not show the true picture.  Most of stated environmental issues are self imposed ordinances by the city of Livermore……..the Scenic Corridor Ordinance, the Airport District boundaries, and the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB).  A small adjustment to the UGB would give us the room needed for our freeway stations.  I think the voters would approve these minor changes to gain two BART stations and save 81 family homes!

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*Comparative Summary of Key Environmental Considerations, pg 14 of city staff report.

Linda Jeffery Sailors
841 Chaucer Way
Livermore, CA 94551

(The City Council will be having a public hearing on this issue on April 26 @ 7 pm. )

Grassroots Issues has a video interview with local resident Valerie Raymond regarding the options for the Livermore BART route. Valerie shows and explains to host Barbara Hickman the nine BART route options as presented at a recent workshop in Livermore. She includes pros and cons of each route and justifies her own preference.

Its great to hear that there’s some progress on Livermore BART. Information about the published draft EIR and public workshops is on available on the official BART to Livermore website. Please attend as many as you can and voice your opinion. This is your chance to influence where the Livermore BART station will be located. We are now on Facebook and Twitter. Click on the links to the left to join us on these social networking sites to discuss the draft EIR and all other matters related to Livermore BART. The Facebook page has a calendar for the upcoming public events related to Livermore BART.

Three workshops have been scheduled to take public input on a BART extension to Livermore. In addition, public hearings will be held to take comments on the programmatic environmental impact report.

The workshops will be held Nov. 12, Dec. 10 and Jan. 21, 2010. All are from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. They will be held at the Shrine Event Center, 170 Lindbergh Ave., Livermore.

The draft EIR for the Livermore BART extension will be released at a meeting of the Tri-Valley Rail Policy Group at 1 p.m. Nov. 6 at the Livermore library. There will also be a scoping presentation about the Tri-Valley link to the state high speed rail project at the meeting.

The first BART public EIR hearing is set for Nov. 18 at 2 p.m. at the City Council Chambers, 3575 Pacific Ave., Livermore. A second hearing will be held at 6 p.m. on Dec. 2 at the Robert Livermore Community Center, 4444 East Avenue, Livermore.

The City of Livermore has been working with BART to study the possible future extension of BART into Livermore.

It is good to see some progress on the EIR (Environmental Impact Report) for BART to Livermore. A scoping meeting for the EIR is scheduled for this coming wednesday (June 18, 2008) from 6pm to 9pm at the Robert Livermore Community Center in the Larkspur room. A company hired by BART has setup a website for this purpose (barttolivermore.org). The full text of the meeting announcement is here. We encourage you to attend this meeting and comment.

To ensure that your comments are in the public record please send them before July 19, 2008. You can email them to info@barttolivermore.org
You may also fax comments to: 510-464-7673 or mail them to:

Mr. Malcolm Quint,
The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District,
300 Lakeside Drive, 16th floor,
Oakland, CA, 94612

Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty has a proposal titled BART to Livermore and the I-580 Corridor Plan. Please share your thoughts on this.

Quote from 12/21/2006 issue of The Independent:

“A rule-of-thumb estimate on BART cost has been approximately $100 million per mile. Just bringing it to Livermore would cost about $1 billion, BART officials say.”

Letter from former BART director Robert Allen in the same issue of The Independent:
“BART trackway costs about $12 million/mile at grade in a freeway median or along the former railroad grade. That includes ballasted double track, traction power, train control, ductwork, and fencing/barriers. This figure is based on 2001 figures
escalated to 2006.

People who should know better are throwing out the figure of $100 million/mile, citing the cost of BART to SFO. That line was put in subway (over my strong objection) instead of at grade along SP’s abandoned San Bruno branch. As a result, it cost close to $500 million more than it should have. Subways are fabulously costly, and normally warranted only in a patronage-rich city core.”

What do you think?

I’ve been thinking of setting up an online discussion forum for Livermore BART so that everyone can chat amongst themselves.  Is this something that would be welcome?  If so, please reply to this post and let me know.

Matt

We have been paying for BART for 44 years and Livermore still has no station. Recently, the city of San Jose received 11 million dollars from Sacramento to add to their BART fund and they are not even in the BART district. Does that sound right? I think not! Read more »