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, which would lop off just a little over two miles from the extension, 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.
The issue marks a rare political split between the current and former mayors, both of whom are considered key allies within the city’s pro-business bloc. Mahan’s predecessor provided a key endorsement to him during the 2022 mayoral campaign against labor’s Cindy Chavez. Last week, Mahan offered his endorsement to Liccardo’s congressional run for District 16.
In October, VTA offered their latest cost estimate and a new opening date of 2036 — more than double the original price tag and a decade later than originally anticipated. The news pushed the agency’s board — which includes Mahan — to create an oversight committee investigating the project’s issues. On Thursday, this news organization reported on an assessment of the project by VTA’s auditor general, who discovered instances of misleading communications between the agency and the public regarding the extension.
Decades in the making, the BART extension would create a “ring of transit” around the Bay Area with four new stations, connecting San Jose’s Berryessa stop down through downtown San Jose and up towards Santa Clara’s Caltrain terminal.