Title
Discuss Link21: New Regional Rail/Transbay Rail Crossing Project Update (Discussion Item)
Body
Background
The City of Alameda supports a BART station in Alameda as part of Link21 - the new regional rail and transbay rail crossing project between San Francisco and Oakland. In 2013, Mayor Marie Gilmore formally requested BART to consider BART to Alameda and to include Alameda in its planning efforts. As part of the City's Transportation Choices Plan outreach effort in 2015, the City conducted a statistically significant public opinion survey to gauge attitudes, and two-thirds of respondents (65 percent) strongly support (47 percent) or support somewhat (18 percent) a BART station in Alameda. Consequently, the Transportation Choices Plan (2018) included "BART to Alameda" as one of the long-term projects.
Link21 is sponsored by the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) and the Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority (Capitol Corridor) to transform the passenger rail network serving the 21-county Northern California Megaregion, which includes the greater San Francisco Bay Area, the Monterey Bay area, the Sacramento area, and the Northern San Joaquin Valley. At the core of Link21 is a new transbay rail crossing project between Oakland and San Francisco. In addition to the new transbay rail crossing, Link21 will include other projects to improve the reliability, frequency, capacity and hours of service for Northern California's rail network.
Discussion
At the Transportation Commission meeting, the Link21 staff/consultant team will provide an update on the project, which is the first annual update as requested by the Transportation Commission in July 2020 (Exhibit 1). Link21 is at the beginning exploratory phase of the project doing a market analysis, a business case framework and a comprehensive outreach. The project milestones include finalizing a project concept and alignment, environmental clearance, design and then construction. C...
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