Following up on yesterday’s posting on the VTA single-bore proposal, I thought it is useful to share BART’s opinions on the idea. Several of their staff testified at a VTA Board meeting in September (the relevant video section is embedded below).
Needless to say, the BART senior staff were not amused with the proposal. They have decades of experience with underground heavy metro, whereas VTA has no never done such a project. You can sense their exasperation as they go over the blunders in the VTA design. It is not encouraging that VTA Board members asked so many dumb questions.
Their entire testimony is worth watching, but the flaws that really stand out were the following:
- The single-bore design carries $440 million to $1.8 billion of additional risk. There several reasons for this, but the main culprit is market risk. Very few firms are qualified to do such a design, whereas there are many local firms qualified to bid on a conventional twin-bore project. Another risk is that the VTA single-bore design has not progressed beyond the “cocktail-napkin” engineering stage.
- The deep bore stations as spec’ed out by VTA do not conform with California fire code. It is unclear how to work around that constraint. VTA tried to hand-wave around the issue by claiming the standard twin-core stations are also non-compliant (BART staff vehemently disagreed).
- The stacked platforms are too narrow to handle large “event” crowds that are to be expected, such as a concert or Sharks game.
It is clear that if the VTA were to go ahead with their design, it will take longer to complete, have higher cost, and result in a tunnel with serious safety, access, and operational problems. And for what — to shave some months off a road closure!? Geez, what a train-wreck this is turning into.
So who is paying for this, VTA or BART?
It is a VTA project, but you, me, and every other US taxpayer are the ones paying.
I thought adopting designs that have not progressed beyond the “cocktail-napkin” engineering stage was BART’s original sin. Glad to see at least that their staff has seen light.
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