BART San Jose plans should remain, but revision “should be on the table”

San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan is leaving little room open for any changes to the region’s largest-ever transportation proposal, despite a call last week by his predecessor, a longtime champion of the project, for the Valley Transportation Authority to scale back an entire leg of the six-mile extension because of exploding costs and delays.

On Friday, former Mayor Sam Liccardo said a portion of the $12.2 billion project — Diridon Station to Santa Clara Station — should be struck from the proposal and potentially completed at another time, pointing out that Caltrain already offers services between them.

But Mahan pushed back on the idea in an interview, saying any significant changes would put much-needed federal funding in limbo and throw a major wrench into key parts of the proposal — including the fact that a tunnel boring machine is slated to start digging the extension’s 4.6-mile underground path near Santa Clara next year. He did say he would be open to revisions coming from VTA staff, though it would have to show significant cost and timeline savings.

“There is no alternative design at this point,” said Mahan. “To do that would risk delay and potentially more expense and put the full funding agreement from the federal government at risk. So I would say at this point, in practice, given where we are, it’s a long shot, but everything should be on the table.”

He offered a list of requirements that VTA staff would need to present for him to change his mind, including a new location for the boring machine to start and a difference of “billions of dollars” in cost savings.

In a response on Friday to Liccardo’s revision, VTA said they would move forward with the current plans, citing the fact that it has the agency’s Board of Directors’ approval and that voters have supported multiple sales tax measures to fund the project locally.

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