Rob AriasCity of Emeryville officials and staff made their pitch to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) for the addition of an Emeryville BART station at yesterday’s joint agency meeting.
The station would be part of the regions Transit 2050+ vision that will include a second Transbay tube from the East Bay to San Francisco.
An Emeryville station would potentially be part of a new line that would include West Berkeley, Treasure Island, Northern San Francisco (including Pier 39, The Marina & The Presidio), with the future possibility of a connection to transit-adverse Marin County.
Emeryville Community Development Director Chad Smalley, 2025 Mayor David Mourra and new City Manager LaTanya Bellow attempted to jointly persuade the MTC and Link21’s Equity Advisory Council why Emeryville was worthy of consideration for funding a connection on the regional transit system.
“Emeryville is rapidly growing with our population expected to double over the next 20 years,” Smalley provided clicking through 544-page PowerPoint presentation required by the agency. “We have a plan for 3,600 Housing units and the recent plans by Sutter Health to build a 200 bed hospital could bring 1000s of jobs, people and car trips into the city. Our centrally located Transit Center where we propose adding a BART Station is already among the busiest Amtrak stations along the Capitol Corridor route and would be walking distance to this hospital.”
Estimates provided by the Emeryville team indicated that it would remove 10,000 daily vehicle trips into the city and reduce carbon emissions by an average of 30,000 pounds per day.
The MTC Board’s recommendations will be presented to the other 26 official transit agencies operating across the nine counties that constitute the Bay Area.
Board Hears From Public
Following the presentation, the commission opened up the meeting to public comment where supporters and detractors had the opportunity to weigh in. These comments reflected a broad and diverse spectrum of opinions.
“I’m all for this,” commented Sham Ghoul. “But can we remove all the vehicle parking from the station and only include bike parking? I mean, why can’t these sick people just ride their bikes to the hospital?”
“I’m very worried about the gentrification this will cause in Emeryville.”
“I’m very worried about the gentrification this will cause in Emeryville,” noted Ryan Donutwho. “I really think this will push out all the trolls in the city living in subsidized housing.”
“Why the hell would we want a BART Station in our neighborhood?!” said Nada Nimbington who identified themselves as a Marina resident. “Have you seen 16th & Mission? Civic Center? Horrible idea!”
“I’m in favor of this, but instead of referring to this as the Emeryville Station, can we call it Huchiun Station,” said Preston Performington.
“This is a horrible idea,” said Thurston Blathermore. “I live at Watergate and this would be very disruptive to the flounder fish population. “We’ll definitely be weaponizing CEQA to stop this travesty.”
“Nah. I only have to come into the office like once a week now and when I do, I take a Waymo,” said Brock Algrithmison.
Commission Deliberates
Despite what might be considered a logical place to provide a connection based on proximity to jobs and housing density, Emeryville might be considered a long-shot for receiving State and Federal funding for the project based on the criteria established by Transportation Officials.
Similar to California’s High Speed Rail project, funding heavily relies on routes that service pre-determined Priority Populations established by a community poll.
“After conducting our 760-page Equity Impact Report, we have determined that an Emeryville BART station would perpetuate transit privilege,” said Board Chair Sklyer Virtuous. “Historically, Emeryville has already benefited from disproportionate mobility access—Amtrak, AC Transit, Emery Go-Round … until we address mobility justice in BART-starved communities like Orinda or Atherton, we must reject this project.”
“This is waste of money,” said D1 Director Debby Allin. “Just let Elon build an underground loop like he did in Las Vegas, it’ll be done in half the time at half the cost!”
“I believe we should focus our efforts on Oakley instead,” provided D2 President Marc Phony. “Oakley is an underserved community with a higher concentration of poverty than Emeryville therefore we should fund this extension from Antioch and continue inland based on this criteria.”
“We owe it to the prison populations and the formerly incarcerated to prioritize their access to transit.”
“Based on our established priority populations map (detailed above in green), I’m recommending we pursue a route that includes Alcatraz, San Quentin, the Tenderloin neighborhood and Angel Island,” said D8 Director Yanice Ji. “These might not be the densest areas or even the areas that will improve transit for the region, but data is only one small variable and until we address these societal imbalances, we will never achieve transit justice. We owe it to the prison populations and the formerly incarcerated to prioritize their access to transit.”
This meeting is the first of seven commissions that would need to provide a recommendation on the plan in order to move forward including the Environmental Commission, the Bike Commission, the Emotional-Support Animal Commission, the Unhoused Fare-Evader Commission and the Feelings-Based Route Optimization Commission.
“I would love to fund this project,” provided California Governor Gavin Newsom who touched on the subject in his new podcast. “But we’re all in on the California High Speed Rail. The route from Merced to Bakersfield is going to be absolutely transformative to our state!”
Preliminary estimates for the new Transbay tunnel, if approved, are expected to exceed $459 Billion and expected to break ground in 2075.
Not funny. I thought it was legitimate news until the second part of the article.
A BART station near Amtrak would be nice. As a car-free public transit rider, having to take a 20-30 minute Emery Go Round ride to MacArthur Station is annoyingly time consuming. Not to mention the rough neighborhood around the station.
But joke or not, this is never going to happen.
As a carless person, I also eagerly clicked on the article (even though a new BART station doesn’t make sense). I still found the article pretty funny, especially the various quotes.
Happy April Fools, everyone!
This was kind of a rollercoaster — at first I assumed it was a joke but clicked anyway and then it started to sound plausible, and then you pulled the curtain open. So I at least give you props for the lengths you went, especially with the route proposal graphic.
I was totally duped. I forgot it was April Fool’s Day. I opened this article with absolute excitement. It was only until the quote from Sham Ghoul did I realize this was a prank. Good one E’ville Eye! This was a 10/10 joke 🙂
Berkeley is proposing a log flume for commuters from Tilden Park to the Berkeley Amtrak Station. The main issue is the commute is one-way, downhill. Commuters who can’t walk back to Tilden Park at the end of the day can take an Uber.
😂
Funnily enough, for all of the handwringing the planning commission et al does about public transportation, I don’t see them advocating for something like this. It would be a lot more useful to the general public than Rivians, which are strictly for the birds.