New BART Train Station Needed ASAP in Pittsburg, CA

If you live in the East Bay in California, in cities like Antioch, Pittsburg or Brentwood, you have heard plenty of talk about BART planning to build another station for these commuters with the longest trek to the city. That talk is inching much closer to reality. A new BART train station is desperately needed in Pittsburg, California, and construction is scheduled to begin in 2010.

Proposed Station Location

The next BART station to be built is at the intersection of State Route 4 and Railroad Avenue in Pittsburg. According to the City of Pittsburg, consultants have been hired to prepare specific and master plans for the area around the proposed BART station. This is good news because it means the City of Pittsburg is at the stage where they will have to start formally preparing that area for construction and other uses related to the new station.

The Proposed e-BART Project

As currently planned, the new BART station near downtown Pittsburg will be an e-BART station, with trains slightly smaller than the current ones and with different styles and sizes. BART has provided a Youtube video that shows what the station would look like and how it would be used. This new station would be a transfer station that would connect to the current BART station in Bay Point. This station is desperately needed because State Route 4 becomes terribly congested during rush hours.

Timeline

According to BART, construction on this new station is expected to begin in the year 2010 with service available in 2014. Let's hope they can finish before then. People need more commuter options and this means more BART and high-speed rail lines throughout the country.

Obama Transportation Budget

President Obama has talked about significantly expanding the federal budget for transportation projects, specifically high-speed rail projects. New BART stations surely fall under this category. All of us need to make sure that the federal stimulus money goes right to projects like new BART stations.

Keep Commuting

We need to get cars off the road. We need to get our tax money working on public transportation projects so that we become less dependent on oil and gas. The time is now to focus on the environment and that means less money on freeways and more money on train lines and high-speed rail. Make a stand today and take public transportation to work. The more people who ride trains to work, the more money the government spends to build new stations and buy new trains and create new rail lines.

Sources:

eBART video of Proposed Pittsburg station
eBART project description website
City of Pittsburg, California, Planning Department