Each day, an estimated 105,000 commuters rise early to brave one of the worst commutes in California: the Altamont Pass. About 4:30 a.m., rivers of cars and trucks flow slowly westbound on Interstates 580 and 205 before merging into a massive sea of traffic for the climb over the mountain grade.
On average, commuters spend about 70 minutes in bumper-to-bumper traffic on their way from Tracy and other communities in San Joaquin County to jobs in the Bay Area. On bad days, it can taketwo to three hours. The evening commute is just as bad, or worse.
But there’s a viable solution to this daily ordeal: Valley Link, a zero-emission hydrogen-powered train system that would connect tens of thousands of commuters each day from the Central Valley to the Dublin-Pleasanton BART station.
Yet, even though Valley Link would help ease traffic throughout much of the region and bolster BART, it is often overlooked.
Major transit agencies such as BART and Muni are facing difficult financial problems, and their efforts to secure additional funding grab the most attention. But Valley Link has the potential to be a lifeline to those transit agencies that are struggling to regain riders post pandemic.
Because Valley Link would connect directly to the Dublin-Pleasanton BART station, it could boost BART daily ridership by a projected 30,000 daily riders by 2040. That would be a 20% boost over BART’s current ridership.
Valley Link would also effectively serve as the Livermore BART extension that the residents of that city paid for in taxes and should have received.
Valley Link would be cheaper than an actual BART extension, and it wouldn’t cost BART a dime, even though it would deliver tens of thousands of new paying customers to BART each day.
The planned initial stage of Valley Link would connect the Dublin-Pleasanton BART station to Livermore and then over the Altamont Pass to Mountain House in San Joaquin County. Eventually, the rail line would connect to the 300,000-plus residents of Stockton.
During peak commute hours, Valley Link trains would run every 15 minutes each way — 45 minutes during noncommute hours.
Since the Legislature established the Valley Link transit agency in 2017, plans for the rail line have completed state environmental review, and the federal environmental review is expected to be finished this spring.
But to get up and running, Valley Link needs more state and regional funding, especially considering the Trump administration’s antagonism toward environmentally friendly projects.
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Several of my colleagues in the Legislature this year are pushing for $2 billion in state funding to shore up Bay Area public transit.
There are also efforts underway to seek additional transportation funds from California’s cap-and-trade program, plus there is talk of a possible 2026 regional tax measure for transit.
I support such efforts. Mass transit remains one of the most important tools we have to combat climate change. And these new funding efforts should include Valley Link — at minimum to help build the first part of the rail line from Dublin-Pleasanton to Livermore to connect to the ACE Train.
Valley Link is a commonsense regional transit project that would not only benefit the Bay Area as a whole, but also help commuters on the Altamont Pass.
State Sen. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, is chair of the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee.
