Put Riders First: a case study of Megaproject Design Review
On Thursday May 5, the VTA board made a decision to do an independent peer review of options to improve rider experience and urban design, working with BART and the City of San Jose. This blog post imagines what Bay Area megaprojects would be like if rider experience and urban design was prioritized as a matter of course.
The uphill path to design review
The VTA board made its decision after city leaders and advocates realized that the initial decision made back in 2018 had serious limits, with entrances on only one side of the street in core urban areas - awkward transfers and passenger flows, and limits to the density of development at the downtown locations where the city wants greatest density.
The initial decision to select a design option with a single bore deep tunnel, a choice that avoided digging up the street, was made with a goal of protecting downtown businesses from the impacts of construction.
The May 5 decision for a independent peer review of the design was based on a recommendation by the Mayor and colleagues on San Jose City Council and VTA board Chappie Jones Raul Peralez, responding to calls from the City of San Jose and the BART, after months of advocacy from riders and from regional think tank SPUR, news of repeated increases in the projected cost of the project, and a series of investigative articles in the local press disclosing information about the cost increases and the design deficiencies. Even the downtown business association, who were the main champions of the 2018 decision, came to realize the shortcomings of the project as designed, supporting the City Council’s call for improvements, and supporting the project reviews in public comments.
The opportunities for improvement
The improvements being considered include better connections at Diridon Station, entrances at both sides of Santa Clara Street in downtown San Jose, direct platform access, and ability to support for very high density transit oriented development at the city’s core.
The review will consider options to improve the design while continuing to use a single bore deep tunnel, and also options looking at a twin-bore tunnel design that was environmentally reviewed but not chosen by the VTA board in 2018.
The review will involve working with the City of San Jose and BART.
The decision for the review was made at the same time as VTA approved the first stage of the major construction contracts for BART Silicon Valley Phase 2.
A process that put riders first
Seamless Bay Area supports a capital project design process that puts riders first. And that would prioritize planning the transit and the city together, from the beginning.
Right now, the region is engaged in a network management business case study exploring the best way for the region to plan, deliver, and operate a public transportation system that is convenient for riders. The planning and delivery of megaprojects is part of what the study is grappling with.
Regions that do a good job of planning transit have a network management function that either directly leads, or sets standards for the design of major stations like San Jose BART downtown and major hubs like Diridon. Such standards prioritize transfers, rider access, and the ability to grow the city around these major stations.
The experience of BART to San Jose is one example of how the region’s fragmentation and the management of megaprojects elevating local needs among the project goals gets in the way of good transit outcomes. The design that was chosen prioritized the valid needs of downtown merchants to avoid disruption. And also, there are plausible alternatives that can protect businesses while prioritizing the outcomes for transit riders and for the places shaped by transit.
In this case, the needs of riders and growing the city were not given the same level of consideration from the start. This must change.
Stage gate process
As new information came to light, advocacy and investigative journalism did eventually result in a decision to evaluate the direction of the project. But it shouldn’t take an uphill effort to consider a project’s direction, using the most up-to-date information, at key milestones.
Conventional wisdom in our area has been that in order to get big projects done, it is important for project leaders to put their heads down and charge forward, given that change can result in delays and cost increases. Logical analysis of potential project weaknesses can be perceived as opposition. In truth, sometimes opponents seek to kill a project through many tiny delays purported to make the project more perfect, and leadership is needed to move past perfectionism to get things done.
But persistence that is based on a flawed project direction can result in even higher costs and longer time frames. For example, Caltrain changed course in 2018 on a “Positive Train Control” system after spending five years and over $200 million on a technology platform that proved to be a dead end. And Caltrain changed course a second time on a different automated speed check signaling project that was needed for electrification, this time more rapidly, shifting in 2021 from a decision made in 2019. Sometimes a change in direction actually saves money.
Regions with robust megaproject planning and delivery systems have what are called “stage gate reviews” - regularly expected moments in a project life cycle where up-to-date information is considered at key milestones. Rather than framing a project’s trajectory as a political contest between supporters and opponents, this method recognizes that big complex projects have big unknowns and big risks, and the step of assessment is structured as a normal part of the process. At each stage gate, the new information is compared against the project goals to ensure that changes to the design based on new information continue to deliver the original benefits of the project.
Megaproject collaboration
The recommendation for the BART Silicon Valley project review calls for VTA as the project sponsor to work closely with BART as the agency that will operate the system and serve the passengers, and the City of San Jose that is responsible for the buildings and public space.
In a world that started with network management, collaboration between multiple agencies and jurisdictions will continue to be necessary. And, the goals of the project for riders and for the city’s urban design and land use would be used to guide ongoing collaboration, including ongoing learning to guide changes and details.
An illustrative example from Toronto on how to balance riders needs with stakeholders in the local community is the case of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT. During the project design phase there was a disagreement in design between the City of Toronto, which wanted a surface light rail alignment and more stations to meet its urban design objectives, and Metrolinx, the project sponsor, who was committed to a mostly underground alignment that would allow for much faster transit travel time, greater transit reliability, greater ridership, and seamless intermodal transfers with other rail lines.
Given that the primary project objective was increasing transit use by reducing travel time and promoting reliability, the decision of which alignment to choose was compared against the original project objectives, and the underground alignment was pursued. At the same time; however, Metrolinx, the network manager for Toronto transit, had policies in place to promote quality urban design; its adopted Mobility Hub Guidelines meant that quality pedestrian, cycling, and landscape improvements accompanied the project. Metrolinx worked closely with the City of Toronto to improve its underground alignment to balance both urban design objectives with the transportation project needs for fast travel times and seamless connections.
Summary
We are glad to see the BART Silicon Valley project review move forward, and look forward to the project being completed, but it shouldn’t have to be this hard. In the region’s progress toward network management, we want to make sure that megaproject planning is included, that this planning includes standards for things like rider access, transfers and TOD. And we want to see stage gate review be normalized, to help structure the inevitably challenging process of assimilating new information into decisions as a project moves forward.