Every day, an estimated 105,000 commuters rise early to courageous one of many worst commutes in California: the Altamont Cross. About 4:30 a.m., rivers of vehicles and vehicles move slowly westbound on Interstates 580 and 205 earlier than merging into an enormous sea of site visitors for the climb over the mountain grade.
On common, commuters spend about 70 minutes in bumper-to-bumper site visitors on their method from Tracy and different communities in San Joaquin County to jobs within the Bay Space. On unhealthy days, it could actually taketwo to 3 hours. The night commute is simply as unhealthy, or worse.
However there’s a viable resolution to this each day ordeal: Valley Hyperlink, a zero-emission hydrogen-powered practice system that will join tens of hundreds of commuters every day from the Central Valley to the Dublin-Pleasanton BART station.
But, though Valley Hyperlink would assist ease site visitors all through a lot of the area and bolster BART, it’s usually ignored.
Main transit companies equivalent to BART and Muni are dealing with tough monetary issues, and their efforts to safe further funding seize probably the most consideration. However Valley Hyperlink has the potential to be a lifeline to these transit companies which might be struggling to regain riders put up pandemic.
As a result of Valley Hyperlink would join on to the Dublin-Pleasanton BART station, it might enhance BART each day ridership by a projected 30,000 each day riders by 2040. That may be a 20% enhance over BART’s present ridership.
Valley Hyperlink would additionally successfully function the Livermore BART extension that the residents of that metropolis paid for in taxes and ought to have obtained.
Valley Hyperlink can be cheaper than an precise BART extension, and it wouldn’t value BART a dime, though it might ship tens of hundreds of recent paying prospects to BART every day.
The deliberate preliminary stage of Valley Hyperlink would join the Dublin-Pleasanton BART station to Livermore after which over the Altamont Cross to Mountain Home in San Joaquin County. Ultimately, the rail line would connect with the 300,000-plus residents of Stockton.
Throughout peak commute hours, Valley Hyperlink trains would run each quarter-hour every method — 45 minutes throughout noncommute hours.
For the reason that Legislature established the Valley Hyperlink transit company in 2017, plans for the rail line have accomplished state environmental evaluation, and the federal environmental evaluation is predicted to be completed this spring.
However to rise up and operating, Valley Hyperlink wants extra state and regional funding, particularly contemplating the Trump administration’s antagonism towards environmentally pleasant tasks.
A number of of my colleagues within the Legislature this yr are pushing for $2 billion in state funding to shore up Bay Space public transit.
There are additionally efforts underway to hunt further transportation funds from California’s cap-and-trade program, plus there may be discuss of a potential 2026 regional tax measure for transit.
I help such efforts. Mass transit stays one of the vital instruments we’ve to fight local weather change. And these new funding efforts ought to embrace Valley Hyperlink — at minimal to assist construct the primary a part of the rail line from Dublin-Pleasanton to Livermore to hook up with the ACE Prepare.
Valley Hyperlink is a commonsense regional transit mission that will not solely profit the Bay Space as an entire, but in addition assist commuters on the Altamont Cross.
State Sen. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, is chair of the Senate Income and Taxation Committee.
Initially Printed: March 12, 2025 at 5:30 AM PDT
