BART Extension Fremont Warm Springs San Jose Diridon Station/Google Transit Village

[lpetrich]

BART: Warm Springs / South Fremont station delayed again

On Dec. 9, BART updated the station project’s website to announce “Passenger service to the Warm Springs/South Fremont Station is expected to begin Winter 2017.”

...
“Any estimate is anybody’s best guess at any given time, and as issues arise, we have to reevaluate where we’re at. We weren’t expecting the 45-year-old cables that we had to be giving us problems. During testing, unexpected things show up, and it’s our job to fix them and then retest again until those issues don’t arise.”

...
“We ended up having to replace our power transmission infrastructure down there on the south part of the Fremont line, and that added time and expense,” he said.

...
As for the new opening date, Huckaby said he couldn’t be more specific than sometime between the new year and March 20.

Watch the progress of the Berryessa and Milpitas BART stations – East Bay Times
showing
Timelapse 2013 - 2016: Berryessa & Milpitas Stations - YouTube

They are now expecting to open this extension in 2018.

[lensovet]

maybe they can just open everything at once lol

[lpetrich]

Digging for San Jose BART begins in two years - Silicon Valley Business Journal

One of the big consequences of last November’s election is that downtown San Jose needs to get ready for an enormous five-year construction project beginning in late in 2018.

According to the article, it should open in 2026. Also, it seems like they will build the whole extension, out to Santa Clara.

Warm Springs Extension News | bart.gov

Where Are We Now? BART is working through Automatic Train Control issues identified with our contractor that is requiring software modifications and additional testing. Upon the conclusion of verification testing, a 3 to 4-week period of final preparations called “Pre-revenue Operations” will begin. Once we reach this final phase and are able to guarantee safe and reliable service, a date for start of passenger service will be announced.

So they fixed those aging power cables.

[The EGE]

And it looks like Silicon Valley will be getting a nicely redesigned bus network as well, with lots of high-frequency services.

[lensovet]

i wonder, under the picture they have this caption:

Passenger service to the Warm Springs / South Fremont Station is expected to begin Winter 2017

does that mean November 2017? If so…looks like they will indeed open all the way to Berryessa at once.

[lpetrich]

BART has been promising an extension. Where is it? - San Francisco Chronicle (January 18, 2017). They have now fixed the train-control problems and they are now in 3 months of testing, meaning that the earliest opening date would be in April.

BARTSiliconValley - YouTube -- its latest video is a time-lapse one of the construction of the Berryessa and Milpitas stations.

[lensovet]

i do wonder how the milpitas segment will fare. construction itself is way ahead of schedule, supposedly, but are they going to hit even more snags as they try to make things operational?

[lpetrich]

Finally, finally, finally, finally, finally!

Warm Springs Station to open March 25 | bart.gov That's a Saturday.

One day before beginning service, BART will host an Opening Celebration. At 10 until noon on Friday March 24, 2017, BART will welcome neighbors, elected leaders and anyone interested in the new station. On the day of the celebration, free shuttles will run from Fremont Station to the new station every 15-20 minutes from 8:45 am to 1 pm.

The station is located at 45193 Warm Springs Blvd.

I concede that about the opening, I will believe it when I see it, but I note that that article has a video clip with some nice views of the station.

BART’s long-awaited Warm Springs extension to open March 25 - SFGate

The extension is the first step toward taking BART into its fourth county, Santa Clara — and it could happen sooner than initially anticipated. A two-station extension to the Berryessa neighborhood of San Jose, being built and paid for by the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, is expected to open by the end of the year, several months ahead of schedule.

Santa Clara County is actually BART's fifth county. Its fourth one is San Mateo County.

[lensovet]

can't wait. this might actually get me to go to berkeley more frequently.

[lpetrich]

BART to Warm Springs: it's finally open. Community celebrates ribbon cutting of Warm Springs, service starts 3/25 | bart.gov

Checking on Schedules | bart.gov, I find these schedules:

• Warm Springs - Daly City: weekdays before 6 pm
• Warm Springs - Richmond: weekdays after 6 pm, weekends, holidays

The service at San Bruno, SFO, and Millbrae is currently

• Millbrae - San Bruno - Richmond: weekdays before 9 pm
• SFO - San Bruno - PBP: weekdays before 9 pm
• Millbrae - SFO - San Bruno - PBP: weekdays after 9 pm, weekends

The page to this pamphlet about the station: Feature Boards5.pub - BART WSX FEATURE BOARDS_Final1.pdf
The artwork's theme is "Sky Cycles", the appearance of the daytime sky over the day.

On the station's roof and canopies is a lot of solar panels, and those panels should supply more than the station's needs during the daytime. The station also has some grass patches called bioswales. These are for filtering out surface runoff water so that a lot of dirt and dripped oil and the like doesn't proceed further.

A proposed Irvington station is still in planning. It will be where Washington Blvd. crosses the BART tracks, and near that street's intersection with Driscoll Rd. / Osgood Rd. (It changes its name at Washington, Blvd.). It will be a side-platform station with the concourse above the tracks. This will be to make a minimum of service disruption while building the station.

Then the extension to Santa Clara County. I haven't found any big news on it recently.

There is a proposed bridge westward from the Warm Springs station over the Union Pacific tracks. This West Access pedestrian and bicycle bridge will be cable-stayed, supported by cables from a tower, like part of the rebuilt eastern part of the Bay Bridge. A plaza will be built around the entrances to the west end of that bridge.

[lpetrich]

BART Warm Springs Opening for Service March 25

UPDATE: As a reminder, there will be no VTA bus service from the Warms Springs BART Station to San Jose . The following VTA bus lines will continue to run from the Fremont BART Station for most of this year: Express Bus Lines 120, 140, 180, or 181.

Once VTA’s BART Silicon Valley Extension (10-miles, two stations) opens for passenger service, VTA’s Express Lines 120, 140, 180, and 181 are slated to be discontinued under VTA’s Transit Redesign Draft Plan (nextnetwork.vta.org) since they will overlap BART service. At that time, BART passengers can access VTA at the Milpitas BART Station in Milpitas or the Berryessa BART Station in San Jose.

• 120 (commute time): Fremont - Mission Blvd. - I-880 - Milpitas - Sunnyvale - Mountain View
• 140 (commute time): Fremont - Mission Blvd. - I-880 - Milpitas - San Jose
• 180: (weekdays): Fremont - Mission Blvd. - I-680 - Great Mall station - (commute time): San Jose
• 181: Fremont - Mission Blvd. - I-680 - (weekends: Great Mall station) - San Jose - Rod Diridon LRT/Caltrain/Amtrak station

I'm disappointed It seems to me that 180 and 181 could be rerouted to Warm Springs without much trouble.

[lpetrich]

BART opens new extension in Warm Springs/South Fremont - YouTube -- Friday, Mar 24 -- not much

First Ever BART Ride from New South Fremont / Warm Springs BART Station - YouTube -- Saturday, Mar 25 -- it was dark, and one couldn't see very much in the first half. But it showed a view through the cab of the tunnel under Lake Elizabeth in Fremont Central Park.

Warm Springs/South Fremont BART Station Finally Opened - YouTube -- some views from inside the station
Bart Train - A Car Rohr #1223 Richmond Orange Line Arriving into Warm Springs - YouTube
Bart Train - A Car Rohr #1254 Richmond Orange Line Departing Warm Springs - YouTube

Daytime views:
BART's Opening Day Trip Into Warm Springs Station - YouTube
BART's Opening Day Trip Out of Warm Springs Station - YouTube

A great sight it is for sore eyes.

[lensovet]

Given that the SV extension is supposed to open later this year, I suspect the disruption from rerouting was deemed too much given that the routes won't even be here in less than a year.

[lpetrich]

Could well be. The 180 and 181 have some stops near the Fremont station.

I also found some more video from BART passengers of the Warm-Springs extension:
BART: Warm Springs/South Fremont - Fremont (First Day of Service!) - YouTube -- all outward and northwestward, no looking inside
BART: Fremont - Warm Springs/South Fremont (First Day of Service!) - YouTube
BART from Fremont to Warm Springs on the first day - YouTube -- a forward view through an A-car cab, the kind that sticks out.

The road overpass about in the middle is for Washington Blvd. Just south of it, there is some slab track, at the right spot for the proposed Irvington station.

[lpetrich]

Bart Warm Springs - YouTube -- nice drone view of the now-open station. You can see a BART train depart northward in it. Also interesting is the kind of crossing of South Grimmer Blvd, just to the north of the station. From west to east, there are four railroad bridges over that flat road. They are: ex-SP (UP now uses it), ex-WP (abandoned), BART southbound, and BART northbound. The other two BART bridges in this extensions are both single double-track ones: Walnut Ave. just south of the Fremont station and Paseo Padre Pkwy. just south of Fremont Central Park. The latter one also only has its ex-SP bridge. The other two roads that cross the tracks cross above them: Washington Blvd. and Auto Mall Pkwy.

Yet another one: Tour of BART's Warm Springs/South Fremont Station - YouTube Good view from its concourse.

For anyone who wants to make track maps, the track has these crossovers, from north to south: facing, Paseo Padre Pkwy bridge, trailing, ..., facing, trailing, S Grimmer Blvd bridge. South of the station there is a facing crossover with a track going north from the crossing-over part and ending at the station. A rather odd sort of storage track. I once made track maps of all of the BART system except for the yards, but that was long ago, and I'd have to redo them.