CONTRACT TO BUILD FREMONT CENTRAL PARK SUBWAY PROJECT

Today’s Board action authorizes the General Manager to award a
$136

million contract for the Fremont Central Park Subway portion of the

extension project to Shimmick Construction Co., Inc./Skanska USA Civil
West

California District Inc. Joint Venture (”Shimmick/Skanska”).

This contract will construct the trackway embankment south of
Walnut

Avenue and the BART subway from just north of Stevenson Boulevard,
through

Fremont Central Park, including a portion of Lake Elizabeth, and beneath

the Union Pacific Rail Road freight track to just north of Paseo Padre

Parkway. The contract includes construction of two ventilation
structures

and relocation of a number of amenities within Fremont Central Park,

including the dog park, basketball courts, and related parking.

Construction is anticipated to begin this summer and last for
approximately

three and a half years.

A second contract is expected to be a design-build contract where
the

contractor will complete the remaining parts of the project including
the

trackway, systems, tie-in at Fremont Station, and the new Warm Springs

Station.

The City of Fremont is well underway with another key component of
the extension: an overpass that would carry BART trains above Paseo
Padre Parkway. You can see video of this construction at
www.bart.gov/barttv.
BART hopes to have the Warm Springs Extension in service by June 2014.
The

Warm Springs Extension would be a fundamental step in the Valley

Transportation Authority’s BART extension to the South Bay.

BART clearly didn’t run the release by Fremont folks. The first sentence reads:

“BART is moving forward on a major phase of the Warm Springs Extension project that will ultimately bring BART closer to Silicon Valley.”

Fremont likes to think of itself as part of Silicon Valley.

About $300 million of the money for the Warm Springs extension is contingent on the VTA having a committed funding plan to build BART to Santa Clara County. Measure B would have provided funds to operate the future service, but the VTA apparently still has funds from a previous tax measure to build and operate a shorter route that might not make it all the way through San Jose.

The VTA President and San Jose mayor have said publicly that the county should go ahead with the Santa Clara extension, even if the money won’t be there to bring BART all the way into the heart of San Jose.

Then again, some of them said my dishwashing method wastes water and that one shouldn’t bother flushing the toilet after one pees. Maybe they’re just natural born haters.

For more on a potential sales tax to fund the BART extension, click here.

The proposal is part of a strategic plan that the MTC is scheduled to vote on next month.

The time frame for restoring the $91 million to Dumbarton Rail is 2019 – 2027. Makes you think Dumbarton Rail is a long way off, if it happens at all.

The cash transfer would make for some happy Fremont officials. They don’t support Dumbarton Rail, which would link the Union City Bart Station with the Redwood City Caltrain Station.

Loyal Tri-City Beat readers might remember Rob as the angry guy whose lone venomous post about a bogus BART parking ticket triggered an avalanche of anti-BART rants.

But Rob is more than just a hater. He’s our best investigator, most seasoned reporter and sharpest editorial writer. He’s also our resident beer guzzler, chain smoker and card shark.

Rob has shared major awards for a series about mortgage lenders discriminating against minorities, and coverage of the Rodney Blach trial. Later this month, we’ll print a four-part series that is mostly his work.

Rob came to The Argus eight years ago after a distinguished tenure as a Wal-Mart sales associate and several years living off the dole in his native Ireland.

Starting Wednesday, he returns to his roots — mooching off other people’s tax dollars.

Rob was one of about 100 MediaNews-East Bay (our parent company) employees who took a buyout last week as our newsroom continues to shrink.

He’ll collect unemployment, freelance a little and eventually head over to Prague to work on a documentary film. He says it’ll be about Eastern Europe 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but word on the street is that it’s really a first-person piece on how former Communist bloc countries have kept beer prices under $1 a pint.

We might have to start a liver transplant fund for him.

In case anyone cared, Rob never did pay that parking ticket. BART backed down in the face of Rob’s irrefutable evidence and exasperated sighs. It was a big pain in the butt, but in the end, it was worth it. We hope that’s how Rob will come to look back on his time at The Argus.

Hey, Rob! Take care, buddy. We’ll miss you.

As a former BART Board Member who’s efforts was for BART to be concerned with our environment, cost, effectiveness and social equity. With BART’s Warm Springs Extension, I have been concerned in that it is located in an area that presently has little existing development of any magnitude and that two thousand parking spaces will be built to generate its ridership.

From an environmental standpoint and cost, this will not foster Smart Growth, reduce Greenhouse Gas of any magnitude, or
encourage Transit Oriented Development, which BART should endeavor to do.

I was encouraged that The Alameda County Transportation Improvement Authority had established a policy for BART Warm Springs Extension on the use of Measure B funds. The policy was ACTIA will grant Measure B funds to this project until San Jose BART Extension (SJX) project funding was assured. Presently VTA has encountered long and drawn out financial problems for the construction and operation of SJX and this project is still not an assured project.

The WSX project alone is costing $747 million, which was the estimate back in 2003. This is about $100 million over the original estimate of around year 2000. Since then I am sure the cost has risen even more in the last few years because it has been reported that cost of construction materials has greatly escalated and has increased contract costs 30+%.

WSX as a stand-alone project, is a very costly and ineffective project because its estimated ridership is only 7,000 trips per day after 20 years costing $747 million! This ridership may increase several times more if VTA manages to build its $4.7 billion SJX extension (again this cost needs revision), making WSX a more viable project.

I followed the directions on the sign: 1) Park in any numbered stall in the Daily Parking area of the lot. 2) Remember your stall number. 3) Go to the Parking Validation/AddFare machine inside the station and enter your stall number. 4) Pay the fee using cash or a BART blue ticket. 5) Retrieve your receipt.

Apparently, they forgot to note the all-important No. 6: “None of the above matters if a BART cop decides to come along and make stuff up.”

The officer cleverly managed to observe my vehicle in the parking stall at 11:10 a.m., a neat trick since it was sitting in the newsroom parking lot at the time. I didn’t actually arrive at BART until 11:35, at which point I spent five minutes driving around in circles looking for a spot (a blog for another time), finally finding one closer to Mission Peak than the BART station.

 I paid the $1 fee at 11:46 a.m., 13 minutes before Officer Make Believe wrote his ticket. Oh, and I have a receipt with a time stamp.

Doesn’t matter. According to the hapless troll who answered the phone at the citation processing center, I can either cough up the $25 or write them a letter explaining why they should believe my, you know, provable truth, over Officer Wrong A Lot’s word. Want to guess what side they’ll come down on?

Bet I’m not alone. Anyone else out there got a BART horror story?