In May, following requests from the BART board and San Jose City Council the VTA board agreed to move forward with two parallel review processes to investigate opportunities to improve the project, looking the potential for:
Entrances on both sides of the street – important for passenger access and safetyBetter, easier passenger access to station platformsBetter underground station experienceBetter transfers at Diridon Station to Caltrain and other transit servicesBetter support for dense development around and above the stationOpportunities to reduce project cost through construction methods
Now, VTA starting to show the results of the exploration, showing some significant opportunities for improvement.
Friday August 26 is a joint meeting of the BART and VTA boards at 10am (see the agenda here). The zoom link is here.
Saturday August 27 is a community meeting hosted by VTA from 10am to 2pm, outside the VTA downtown San Jose customer service Center, 55-A West Santa Clara Street in San Jose. The community meeting will likely ask for feedback on design choices for station design and station access, which were previewed at a Community Working Group meeting earlier in August.
If you are interested in how the BART-San Jose project will be easy to access for riders and help create an urban, pedestrian-friendly city, now is a good time to engage – comment at joint BART/VTA meeting, and come to the community meeting on Saturday if you can.
This is a picture of one potential station design. This circular design takes up space that could be used for transit oriented development with offices, homes, retail. A square or rectangular design could allow a multi-story building on the site.
The station refinements will come to the VTA board for review in September.
