The Valley Link Rail commuter train project through Livermore is not making progress, and may never be built.
We periodically check the pulse of the proposed Valley Link commuter train. In short, things are looking dire.
- The JPA committee still meets every couple of months, as they have been doing since 2015.
- The lawsuit is still ongoing, and it could squash the administration budget.
- They have not made any progress on the substantial funding gap for many years.
- The informational websites are looking abandoned – still claiming that construction could begin in 2025.
The final dagger may be the absence of federal funding, upon which the feasibility has always relied. California cannot count on any new federal funds for transit projects until at least 2030. Unfair, but reality nonetheless. By the time it might be politically possible to request funds, who can say in what condition the federal debt will be, and the added scrutiny under which it is dispersed? By that time, will it be considered standard operating procedure to withhold California funding?
Isabel Developments
The failure of Valley Link is not the worst part of the problem though. That honor goes to the thousands of new residents that will soon be living in the new developments going in near Costco. The entire justification for the original zoning intent was based on the existence of a real BART station within walking distance. When that didn’t happen in 2015, the “almost BART” Valley Link was proposed. After that was taking too long, the Council made the truly awful decision to rezone the area for building without any requirement for transit.
Today, thousands of homeowners are being courted to buy these homes with the promise of the future Valley Link transit station. Read it for yourself in Harridge Development Group’s information sheet for the Isabel Crossing development. When the traffic problems created by the development become a problem, residents will be angry and the developers will be long gone.
Southfront Station
The trouble isn’t confined to Isabel/580 either. The other concerning area is Southfront road – the other proposed Livermore station, where a general plan update is suggesting future high density development. Here’s a recent reference to the “Midtown Focus Area” (often called “Midtown” even though it’s not near downtown) in the context of the City of Livermore General Plan update:
“The Midtown focus area includes the site for a future Valley Link station, and the vision for this focus area is a transit-oriented, complete neighborhood with a mix of housing, jobs, and services.”
and …
“… the Planning Commission recommends … identifying the Midtown Area designation on the General Plan land use map and preparing a specific plan to address Valley Link access, housing unit targets, and neighborhood circulation and services.”
No clear path forward
Valley Link is dream project in search of viability. Some projects, even those planned with the best intentions, just fail. Valley Link appears to be headed toward collapse. We made a similar conclusion about BART to Livermore, years before officials would admit the truth. We are equally as skeptical now, as we were then.