Finger Pointing Extending Delay at the West Dublin BART Station
Back in August 2009, BART officials pushed out the grand opening of the West Dublin BART Station in Dublin, CA, from early 2010 to early 2011. The reason for this latest delay was attributed to “defective welds on the walkway that will be crossing over I-580.” The implication was that the subcontractor was to blame for the delay; however, BART, Caltrans, and the subcontractor have all been pointing fingers at one another. BART asserted that the subcontractor did not build to the specifications, the subcontractor claimed that the wrong specifications were given by BART, and Caltrans felt tremendous heat from politicians eager to complete the West Dublin BART Station. Meanwhile, BART continued to investigate what went wrong and has slowed construction to a snail’s pace.
This investigation could be seen either as a temper tantrum by BART officials or as a lack of confidence on the part of the BART officials in the building specifications they provided the subcontractor. BART’s recent settlement with the contractors for $6M could be an indication that BART has completed its investigation and construction is ready to resume. This settlement and a litany of prior delays have added an additional $20M to the West Dublin BART Station project budget and brought the total cost to $100M. Sadly, Alameda County residents will be paying for BART’s gross mismanagement and irresponsible planning for many years to come.
Many residents are fed up with the excuses and just want to see a safe walkway built so that the West Dublin BART Station and its parking garage can open as soon as possible. Dublin Mayor Tim Sbranti met with BART’s General Manager a few weeks ago to understand their concerns and to see what it will take to get construction restarted at the station. The viability of the Downtown Dublin Specific Plan is contingent on the construction of the West Dublin BART Station. Because of this dependency, the City of Dublin is working diligently to mediate amongst all the agencies to help remove any roadblock that could be hampering progress at the West Dublin BART Station.
Despite the recent construction delays, BART officials maintain that the West Dublin BART Station is still on target to open by early 2011.
1:52 AM on February 7th, 2010
I really hope that this historic BART station opens one day. That is totally unacceptable and very unprofessional. An extra $20M is insane. Caltrain or Bart should pay for that and not the poor residents of Alameda county. It is just a small freakin walkway.
10:43 AM on February 7th, 2010
The damage is already done to all Alameda Residents. I hope that Bart should put their act together to improve management from top to bottom to be a more efficient and reliable organization. As we all know, most Bart employees are compensated extremely well with tremendous amount of pay came from the overtime. Take an example, a muni operator base salary is 75K + plus Overtime. It makes up to about 130K. That is extremely way above par compared to other main train system in the world. Regardless, I do not mind that all Bart Employees get well paid, if we are getting the services and a effective organization. All we may get is to have announced potential strikes scaring all poor Bay Area workers who hardly stay afloat in the recession, delay on upgrade on Bart Systems, a huge deficit on their budget. The rising Bart ridership with the help from the gas price and toll fee does not seem to help Bart to close the deficit gap. There must be something wrong about the cost structure. Another example, a friend of mine is Bart Employees whose family’s members of four can all take Bart without cost. Is that too generous to have to pay all Bart employees family member for free trip. I would not mind they pay half or a little less. I believe that the management system will need to be extremely overhauled to make all bart employee accountable to their roles.
10:51 AM on February 7th, 2010
Here is the support for my comments above.
There is also a list of highest pay employee’s list laying out the overtime and the base salary. I am shocked when I saw the data.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/06/BAJ317F7FM.DTL
2:22 PM on February 7th, 2010
You are right. BART is a good snapshot to show that the current American government system is broken. It is every bit like the federal government and California state government. They never seem to be able to get their acts together.
10:06 PM on February 7th, 2010
Why haven’t our elected officials (e.g., Mayor, County Supervisors, BART Directors) working to change the culture at BART from complancency to kick butt high performance project execution. I get the sense that additional employees aren’t needed to get BART projects back on line. We just need BART employees to start working smarter and harder like folks in the private sector. Maybe privatization of BART and MUNI is the solution to the impending collapse of the rail transportation complex.
8:55 AM on February 8th, 2010
I worked extensively with the decision makers at BART as part of my previous job. You will never encounter such stubborn, anal, resistant, counter-productive people in your life. It’s not that they are lazy, they are just Hell bent on preventing any progress from being made on anything. They are way overstaffed in that office (I’ve been there and have seen it first hand), and it’s a miracle anything at all gets done with those people.
MUNI is very old school, while Caltrain is more reasonable. Golden Gate Transit makes everything far more complex than it should be. VTA is much easier to do business with. AC Transit are highly obnoxious and arrogant.
I’ve worked with all the major transit operators in town, and each works in its own unique way. By far, BART was the most difficult.
9:30 AM on February 8th, 2010
Privatization of BART is a very viable approach. Take an example in Hong Kong. The MTR was privatized and listed in the Stock exchange Market sometime like 10 years ago. The company has been operating very profitably by not only with the increasing satisfaction of passenger but also the mixed used transit development adjacent to the station. The transit development can also generate enough rental income to finance any major renovation for all stations. BART should really be shamed on how behind they are compared to other train system in the world which it 20 and 30 year younger than them. It is hard to believe that we are 30 miles from silicon valley, the power house of technology, but our train system are 40 years old and frequent mechanical problems are proned to happen causing delay. I remember that at a point, a BART employee handed out flyer against the managment plan of purchasing new train and called them ‘People Mover.’ for the reason of wasting people. Maybe the design of the new train will need to be refined. The fact is new trains will eliminate a lot of techicians to closer monitor and work overtime to fix our 40 yr old trains. That is the resistance came from. Is that a possiblity that our Governor can step in fixing this mess or some how consolidate the Transit System in California to reposition for the recovery.
2:14 PM on February 7th, 2010
I don’t think there should be a BART station there period. I already get nervous walking in the mall parking lot by myself.