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The BART station at 28th street is not negotiable!

SOB: Son of a Bos'n Posted on by  

Information has surfaced recently that VTA no longer plans to build the 28th street BART station behind the Five Wounds Church near 101.  They are proposing to phase in the construction of the downtown stations, with the eastern most station being located “somewhere” near 23rd street!

Scroll down to Scenario B on page 17.
The new VTA proposal completely ignores all existing city and community planning efforts and completely redefines the land use prospects for the eastern portion of District 3.  Two key components of the City’s Envision 2040 General Plan will be severely impacted by these changes. The Five Wounds Urban Village Plan, which was the first Urban Village approved under the Envision 2040 General Plan, and the Five Wounds Trail.

The Five Wounds Urban Village Plan

The Five Wounds Urban Village Plan began with the Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace Neighborhood Improvement Plan, which was completed in 2002 under the Strong Neighborhoods Initiative (SNI).  One of the central components to the plan was the inclusion BART station at the San Jose Steel site off of 28th street, which was fully explored in the Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace BART Station Area Community Concept Plan of 2010.

 A copy of the  Five Wounds Urban Village Plan can be found on the San Jose City web site at:
A copy of the Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace BART Station Area Community Concept Plan can be found on the San Jose City web site at:
A copy of the Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace Neighborhood Improvement Plan can be found on the San Jose State University site at:
http://www.sjsu.edu/urbanplanning/docs/FWBTNeighborhood_ImprovementPlanAmendment.pdf

The Five Wounds Trail

The Five Wounds Trail runs from the junction of Coyote Creek and Story Road, under I-280 to the behind the iconic Five Wounds Portuguese National Church on East Santa Clara Street. From there, it proceeds north, crossing the old railway bridge over Hwy 101, connecting the Coyote Creek and future Lower Silver Creek Trails to provide a crucial link in the citywide trail system.

A copy of the plan for the tail can be found on the San Jose City web site at:
The new VTA strategy appears to utilize the old railroad freight bridge to cross highway 101, instead of tunneling under 101, and proceed straight towards the 23rd Street and Santa Clara area for the first downtown BART station, completely blocking the Five Wounds Trail and bypassing the Five Wounds Urban Village.
The impact of these changes are many and troublesome:
  • Access to BART from South & East San Jose via highway 101 will be severely restricted.
  • Parking for the BART stations will be limited, as the 28th street parking garage would be eliminated.
  • The potential for negative impact on the neighborhoods near 23rd Street and Santa Clara is extreme.
  • The loss of the Plaza gateway commercial center behind the Five Wounds Church is a tragedy.
  • This will reduce the value of the Five Wounds Trail, as it removes its connection to BART and its path across 101.
VTA will be hosting a community meeting on November 5th from 6:30-8:00, at a location that is still TBD. The next night, November 6th, this item is supposed to be included on the agenda for the VTA board meeting at 5:30 pm in the Board of Supervisors chamber in the County building.
The neighborhood leaders are very concerned about these unilateral changes to the entire future vision for the East Side community.  The consensus that is currently forming in the community can be summed up quite easily.

        The BART station at 28th street is not negotiable!

Question:
Why did the people in the neighborhoods and the City of San Jose spend so much time in planning, when it appears that anonymous VTA engineers can wipe out years of work without ever consulting anyone at the City of San Jose?

 

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