San Jose officials juggle transit design with city disruption

Silicon Valley transportation leaders are closer than ever to turning San Jose’s doorstep into one of the West Coast’s largest mass transit hubs. They just have to come up with billions to pay for it and get residents on board with the ongoing effects of major construction over the next few decades.

The San Jose City Council in a Friday workshop honed in on two potential designs for the redevelopment of Diridon Station, and aims to make key progress on its design and funding plans between now and Spring of next year. But some councilmembers balanced their excitement with a looming concern about how the project will encroach on surrounding neighborhoods — and whether the city would have to take people’s private property through eminent domain to bring the transit project online.

“If we move forward with the elevated (design concept), we’re going to eminent domain some of those properties along the project (in the Gardner neighborhood),” Councilmember Omar Torres said at the meeting.

City transportation officials said nothing will happen without public input.

“We’re very far from anything like eminent domain but we want to be very clear minded about what the potential effect is,” Deputy Transportation Director Jessica Zenk said at the meeting. “We will do whatever we can to lessen the physical conflict but some of it is going to be a tradeoff we have to talk through, including opinions from the community.”

But funding for the potential $10 billion redesign price tag isn’t guaranteed, and officials will have to find multiple funding streams to get federal officials to help match the project. It was already difficult to secure the $5.1 billion in federal dollars for the Silicon Valley BART extension, which is estimated to cost $12. 7 billion.

“These are critical discussions to have, and I think it’s important for us to stay the course and not let short-term economic issues prevent us from making Diridon the hub that it can be,” Monica Mallon, a public transit advocate and San José Spotlight columnist, told San José Spotlight.

It’s another chapter in the region’s transit debate – weighing today’s costs to taxpayers against tomorrow’s promise of a vastly expanded, European-influenced city center that expects to see as many as 100,000 people moving through Diridon per day.

“We have achieved a 5% design and that is a huge step for us,” Councilmember Dev Davis said at Friday’s meeting. “It’s taken five to six years to get here.”

With the planned BART extension coming into Diridon from the east – and state’s in-the-works high speed rail project coming in from the Central Valley – officials expect 458 trains going in and out of the revamped station every day by 2040. That also includes enhanced Caltrain service.

One potential design for the station – costing between $3 billion and $6 billion – would keep the tracks at their existing street level while carving out the earth from under the historic brick train depot to set it above  a deeper, cobblestone ground level. The more expensive option – costing between $5 billion and $10 billion – would elevate the train tracks above street level and keep the historic depot’s position.

Under both concepts, passengers would walk through the concourse underneath the tracks and would have to go down to a lower level to access the VTA commuter light rail. On their way, they would pass a number of shops and restaurants with dining spaces – an attempt by planners to make the station a destination, not just a pass through.

People could access the concourse through different entrance points from White Street, Santa Clara Street or Cahill Plaza. The main entrance would be through the historic building, and a large public plaza would surround the station, which would also incorporate more glass roofing to make it less dark than it is now.

Both concepts for the train tracks’ position – either elevated or at street level – would have major impacts to the surrounding community, forcing officials to figure out how to move roadways under or over new tracks, what’s known as “grade separation.”

City officials are recommending the creation of a construction authority to oversee the project and dissolve it once the work is completed. They’re also recommending some kind of way to cultivate local funding to win matching federal dollars. The city could expect the project to see anywhere between 20% to 80% of funding from a federal source. But the bigger the project, the less the federal government typically contributes, Zenk said.
The city is looking to create an Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District – similar to the state’s now dissolved redevelopment agencies – which would take a portion of tax revenue from an area within a set boundary and redirect it to the agency overseeing the project. Creating one could take a set of public hearings and require majority support from affected property owners.

“This has got to be a community led process,” Torres said.

Officials hope to refine the two different design concepts – and flesh out costs for both – with public feedback in the next six to nine months. Officials will then come back to the city and other agencies such as Caltrain and VTA with recommendation for one of the designs.

San Jose will then begin the environmental clearance process, which will be a combined state and federal environmental impact document. Officials aim to achieve that – and figure out the project’s governing authority and funding framework – by Spring of 2025.

“This station is going to become the most important transit hub in the South Bay and arguably in Northern California,” Mayor Matt Mahan said at the meeting. “I think we need a station that can really provide a seamless experience.”

Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X, formerly known as Twitter.