VTA pulls back veil on progress of South Bay BART extension

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Just behind PayPal Park in the Newhall neighborhood of San Jose, there are sights and sounds of earth-moving equipment, lots of dust and lots of digging. For VTA and the assembled media on Monday, this was a glimpse of things to come.

"We can finally deliver on the promise of ringing the bay with BART service," said Tom Macquire, the chief megaprojects officer for VTA.

Officials provide a tour of the progress of the Phase 2 BART expansion in Santa Clara County. The final phase will see six miles of track constructed that will extend from the North San Jose Berryessa station to and through Downtown San Jose.

"We're building it backwards. We're going from here at the West Portal construction site underground all the way to Downtown, under Santa Clara Street...and all the way to Berryessa," said Stacey Hendler Ross, a VTA spokeswoman.

There will be four stations, three of which will be underground --at Little Portugal Station, the Downtown San Jose Station and Diridon Station. The Santa Clara Station will be above ground.

"We're going down 133 feet. So, the ground that we're in, you can't just go down that deep. if you've ever built a sandcastle or tunnel, you probably know you can't dig that deep and have it stand up on its own," said Sarah Wilson, the VTA construction director.

The $12.7 billion project was supposed to be completed near the end of this decade but is running far behind schedule and well over budget. Completion isn't expected until the middle or end of the next decade. When that does take place, it will link BART with CalTrain and VTA light rail service at Diridon Station and cut commute times in the South Bay by almost half.

The project is over budgeted, from between several hundred million dollars to a billion dollars. 

VTA officials say they've been able to find cost savings of $400M and save more money through changing the designs. Also, replacing the contractor they hope will all allow them to get to a zero budget.

"It's a challenging task considering the size of the project and the inflation pressures in the market. but there are a couple of big ideas that we think are gonna pay off," said Macguire.

VTA will soon solicit new tunneling bids for the project that's grown in cost $500M in just the past few weeks.

Jesse Gary is a reporter based in the station's South Bay Bureau. Follow him on the Instagram platform, @jessegontv and on Facebook, @JesseKTVU.