Silicon Valley transit officials are moving forward with plans to dig a single tunnel and close their BART extension funding woes. The strategy is steeped with risk.
After a fallout with the main contractor and scathing rebukes from BART officials, the VTA board of directors voted 8-1-3 to lock in on a new set of design, construction and delivery choices to help close a $700 million funding gap and trigger the full release of federal dollars promised for the extension. Board member and Santa Clara Councilmember Suds Jain — who expressed a lack of confidence in the plan — voted no. Santa Clara County Supervisor Sylvia Arenas voiced similar criticisms, but left the meeting alongside Mayor Matt Mahan before the vote. San Jose City Councilmember Rosemary Kamei was absent.
“While this doesn’t quite get us there, this gives us the best chance of moving closer to (the full federal funding) and moving the project forward,” David Cohen, a VTA board member and San Jose councilmember, said before the vote.
The plan rejects side-by-side train tunnels, as well as concurrent tunneling from opposite directions, in favor of lower costs. It’s unclear whether all federal dollars will come through, by the time VTA starts to dig a 5-mile tunnel through Santa Clara and San Jose in 2029. The biggest uncertainty, meanwhile, lies in the tunnel boring machine itself. After VTA struggled to agree on construction terms and parted ways with main builder Kiewit-Shea-Traylor, risk of falling behind now rests solely on VTA.
An independent panel of outside transit agencies has warned the machine’s underperformance could derail the project, which aims to run trains by 2037. The newly-approved plan bumps the machine’s progress from 29 feet to 35 feet per day and six days a week instead of five. But only a handful of contractors worldwide have the skill to handle the tunnel borer — 53 feet in diameter — that will dig through a difficult mix of urban rock and soil. Other threats may come from outdated cost estimates, according to the independent panel.
VTA argues the plan carries much less risk than other proposed design plans. The agency added it’s avoiding the trouble associated with concurrent tunneling that uses two boring machines. The agency said this alternative would have required a disruptive cut-and-cover excavation in the heart of San Jose.
It comes at a trying juncture for a public transit agency spread thin. Earlier this year, BART pushed back on another VTA cost-saving measure, which proposed to downsize construction at the Newhall Maintenance Yard. Early work on the project has already begun there.
In a letter made public in August, BART representatives said VTA failed to key them in on the reduced yard development, as well as the plan for a single-bore method, where only one large tunnel is dug. Last year, BART also raised safety concerns about the single-bore method.
At the time, VTA officials said they were working to address the concerns raised in Edwards’ letter.
Board Chair and Campbell Mayor Sergio Lopez said it was time to act and avoid expensive delays.
“Adding additional time and uncertainty at this point will add costs, not decrease them,” Lopez said.
While most board members supported the project, several echoed longstanding concerns about transparency and budget.
“VTA has made some very rookie mistakes with this project,” Jain said before the vote. “I now firmly believe this project should have been handled by a dedicated Joint Powers Authority rather than by VTA.”
Jain said VTA is spread too thin and lacks enough in-house staff to stay on top of the work.
“As a board member I have often felt I was being rushed into decisions under the threat that every month of delay would cost $30 million to $40 million, which is how we ended up ordering the 53-foot tunnel boring machine — which has now been sitting in storage for at least 18 months at a hefty cost to VTA,” he said. “I have felt I was being discouraged from criticizing the project so as not to spook the (Federal Transit Administration) and jeopardize our funding.”
Other board members pushed back on the transparency rebukes.
“I appreciate all the briefings we had from you (Tom Maguire, VTA’s chief megaprojects officer),” board member and San Jose Councilmember Pam Foley said. “We get briefings, I would say, more than monthly.”
Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X.