Is it me, or did the blueprints for the Warm Springs BART station get flipped 180 degrees?
Take a look at the photosimulation for how the station is supposed to look, and note the weird, useless pedestrian bridge jutting out into the parking lot (click image to enlarge).
Warm Springs Station
And here is a reverse-angle view:
Bridges aren’t exactly cheap, and this one appears to be functionally useless.
But flip it around the other way, and suddenly it becomes quite useful. It would provide backdoor access to the station, getting bikes and peds across the freight tracks. Maybe even facilitating real Transit-oriented-development in the vacant lots behind the station.
Warm Springs Station Area
The above satellite photo shows the Warm Springs Station Area. And yes, this area is a very desolate location for a 3rd rail subway. The station is to be located to the east (right side) of the tracks. The only way for a pedestrian or cyclist to access areas west of the station would be to take a detour via Grimmer Road. But rather than bridge that gap, BART is instead building a bridge-to-nowhere in a parking lot.
It’s a mystery to me why this bridge would exist. but http://www.bart.gov/docs/wsx/wsconcept.pdf at least shows a “future pedestrian bridge” on the other side too.
That bridge looks like a (expensive) way to extend the station environment towards the street and the TOD that Fremont wants on the east side of Warm Springs boulevard. Of course, they could do something radical like actually build TOD right next to the station instead of wasteful surface parking. Why oh why are they building another stupid bus loop, too? Rhe buses (4 per hour) that travel on Warm Springs Boulevard should just stop on the road so riders who are traveling beyond the BART station aren’t delayed by needlessly circling through the station. Passengers could use that fancy bridge to access the station, too.
And they say California High-Speed Rail is a boondoggle. I think BART is a much bigger white elephant.