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Phase I Funding
The total cost of the BART Silicon Valley Berryessa Extension is estimated at approximately $2.3 billion. Funding for this project is through multiple revenue streams including: the 2000 Measure A, half-cent sales tax and other local sources contribute 51%, the State of California and its Traffic Congestion Relief Program (TCRP) 10%, and federal grants including the New Starts program provides the remaining 39% of the funding.Phase II Funding
The total cost of the BART Silicon Valley Phase II Extension is estimated at approximately $4.7 billion. Funding for this project is planned through multiple revenue streams including: the 2000 Measure A, half-cent sales tax at $1.0 billion, the State of California and its Traffic Congestion Relief Program (TCRP) at $160 million, federal grants including the New Starts program at approximately $1.1 billion, and the funding source for the remaining $2.43 billion to be identified.
Local Funding
2000 Measure A
On August 9, 2000, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) Board of Directors voted to place a 30-year half-cent transit sales tax on the November 7, 2000 General Election ballot, allowing Santa Clara County voters the opportunity to vote on transportation improvements in the county including construction of a BART Extension from Alameda County to Santa Clara County.
Measure A was approved by 70.3 percent of the voters and collection of the tax began in April 2006 to help fund design and construction of the BART Silicon Valley project.
2008 Measure B: Operation and Maintenance Funding
On November 4, 2008, an additional Santa Clara County ballot measure supporting the BART extension passed, receiving 66.78% of the vote, exceeding the two-thirds super majority. The 30-year eighth-cent Measure B sales tax will generate dedicated revenue to fulfill VTA's obligation to BART for the operation, maintenance, and future capital reserve of the extension VTA constructs.
Measure B stipulated that collection of the eighth-cent sales tax begin when federal and state funds were secured. Federal funds were considered secured and matched at the time VTA received a $900 million Full Funding Grant Agreement in March 2012. Collection of the eighth-cent sales tax started on July 1, 2012.
State Funding
Traffic Congestion Relief Program (TCRP)
In August 2014, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) received the sixth and final allocation from the State of California’s Traffic Congestion Relief Program (TCRP) for VTA’s BART Silicon Valley (BSV). The $39 million brings the total amount of TCRP funding received for BSV to $649 million. The California Transportation Commission (CTC), who is responsible for overseeing state-funded transportation programs, has allocated a total of $768 million to BSV.
VTA’s BART Silicon Valley was identified as one of 53 projects statewide eligible to receive TCRP funds in 2000, when legislation passed creating the program.
Early TCRP allocations funded project engineering and environmental clearance activities. The final allocation will help fund construction of the Milpitas and Berryessa BART station campuses and towards design and construction of the parking structures at the two stations.
Federal Funding
New Starts Program
The Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) New Starts program is the federal government's primary discretionary financial resource for supporting locally planned, constructed, implemented, and operated major transit projects. This program funds new commuter rail, light rail, heavy rail, and bus rapid transit projects, streetcars, and ferries, as well as extensions to existing transit systems in every area of the country.
Local support required: New Starts projects, like all transportation investments in metropolitan areas, must emerge from a regional, multi-modal, transportation-planning process. In the San Francisco Bay Area, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) is the metropolitan planning organization (MPO) that oversees transportation planning for the nine Bay Area counties. MTC has included the BART Silicon Valley Extension in the 2040 Regional Transportation Plan.
How projects are evaluated: New Starts projects undergo evaluation by the FTA throughout the entire project development process. Based on this evaluation, the FTA makes decisions about moving projects forward, from preliminary engineering to final design, and to the execution of a Full Funding Grant Agreement (FFGA) to annual funding recommendations to Congress. The FFGA is the multi-year contractual agreement between the FTA and VTA that formally defines the project scope, cost and schedule, and establishes the terms of federal financial assistance.
Phase I of the project (Berryessa Extension) was given an overall project rating of medium in the FTA New Starts Annual Report for Federal Fiscal Year (FFY) 2011, which was released February 15, 2011. VTA requested $900 million in federal New Starts funding, and the medium rating helped to positively position the project to qualify and compete for that funding. In January 2012, VTA was notified by the FTA that the agency's $900 million grant request for the Phase I project received all of the necessary administrative approvals.
In March 2012, a Full Funding Grant Agreement (FFGA) with the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) was executed, allowing the commencement of construction of the Berryessa Extension, with a formal project groundbreaking ceremony for the BART Silicon Valley Berryessa Extension kicking off project construction on April 12, 2012.
VTA is planning to submit an application to enter into New Starts for Phase II at the end of the first quarter of 2016, once VTA’s Board defines the final project.
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