Some say that a BART station is justified in Santa Clara because of a connection to San Jose Airport. The 2000 Measure A sales tax specified funding for a automated train connection between the airport terminals and Santa Clara station. Also, there’s a bus connection between the airport and Santa Clara station.
The facts are…
- VTA and the City of San Jose initially considered a 3-station system between the Santa Clara Station, the airport, and light rail. Such system, if it were to tunnel under the airport runway, was found to be too costly and would not provide intra-airport transportation.
- In 2012, the City of San Jose studied an above ground system between Santa Clara Station, the airport, and light rail, but decided that the technology for group/personal rapid transit was not matured enough to go forward.
- The surface distance between the terminals and Santa Clara is about the same as between the terminals and San Jose Diridon Station.
- High speed trains will not stop in Santa Clara due to proximity to the Diridon Station.
- The City of San Jose again studied the connection in 2016/2017 and the following are the findings:
- No longer recommends connection with light rail at 1st and with Caltrain/BART at Santa Clara, but with all trains at Diridon for the initial phase.
- Study recommends a group/personal rapid transit type system like the one used in London Heathrow. Such system uses smaller cars with on demand capability, requires a lighter infrastructure compared to full size automated people mover like the one used at SFO or Chicago.
- Tunneling would not be necessary for a PRT connection between the terminals and San Jose Diridon Station.
- The initial system would also provide intra-airport transportation by connecting to remote parking and rental car,
- Direct HSR connection is essential because the airport can provide long term parking and rental car. The study expects a number of HSR passengers to transfer from the train at Diridon to the airport and get a rental car there. Another reason is to allow for HSR-to-air connection from Central Valley cities, where there are far fewer flights available.
- Such system can be expanded to go to Santa Clara Station, San Jose Convention Center, and North San Jose.
- The terminal to Diridon ride would take 7 minutes.
- The initial system would cost less than $400 million, and an expanded system would cost about $830 million.
Train to plane connection (not just BART, but all trains) is best made at Diridon Station, not Santa Clara.
Also by dropping the redundant BART line, it would free up funding not only to build the airport connection from Diridon to SJC, but to expand the system to Santa Clara and north San Jose. The expanded PRT system would essentially do everything that redundant BART line is supposed to do (providing on demand non-stop service between Diridon and Santa Clara).
Possible alignments of the PRT system
Expanded PRT network to Santa Clara and North San Jose.