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After years of delays, BART officials and other community leaders Friday celebrated the opening of the new Warm Springs station in southern Fremont, which brings the transit agency one step closer to San Jose.
Service on the 5.4-mile extension to Warm Springs station, which is located at 45193 Warm Springs Blvd., began on Saturday morning but a station-opening ceremony was held Friday.
BART board director Tom Blalock, who represents the Fremont area, said he’s been hoping that a Warm Springs station would be built since 1972, when the transit agency began passenger service and he was an engineer for the city of Fremont.
Blalock said an environmental impact report for the station had been approved by the time he was elected to the BART board in 1994 but the project was delayed by funding problems, lawsuits and other issues.
Construction on the station finally began in 2009 and was scheduled to be completed in 2014, but the opening of the station was delayed because there were software troubles connecting the new station to the automated control system.
Even with all the delays, the project came in at more than $100 million under the original $890 million budget.
The new station includes 2,082 parking spaces, 42 electronic car-changing stations and intermodal connectors to Alameda-Contra Costa Transit and Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority buses, according to BART.
BART officials estimate that between 6,000 and 7,000 passengers will board the new station on weekdays, with ridership building over time.
When the workweek begins on Monday BART will run 10-car trains between Fremont and Daly City each weekday morning during commute hours.
The Warm Springs extension paves the way for BART to Silicon Valley, a 10-mile Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority extension to Milpitas and the Berryessa neighborhood in east San Jose that’s under construction and is expected to open for service later this year.
Blalock said the Warm Springs station will serve about 100,000 people in the southern part of Fremont.
Blalock said the land surrounding the station is being transformed into the Fremont Innovation District, a plan to bring to the area more than 20,000 jobs and 4,000 housing units.
The idea is that the innovation district will ease traffic on nearby interstates 680 and 880 and give commuters an alternative to driving, Blalock said.
Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty, who’s vice chair of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, said the opening of the Warm Springs station is “a great day” because it will help ease traffic congestion in the growing area.
The new station’s primary entry plaza is linked to pedestrian walkways and bike lanes. BART officials said the station offers bike lockers and racks on the round level and bike channels in stairway, which makes it easier for bicyclists to carry their bikes up and down.
BART officials also said solar panels installed on the roof of the station and on several parking canopies will produce more than enough energy to meet the station’s daytime parking needs.
The transit agency also said it has installed bioswales that naturally filter silt and pollutants in surface run-off water before it enters the Bay watershed.
— Jeff Shuttleworth, Bay City News Service
