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A forum for Alameda County Board of Supervisors District 1 candidates will be held on Jan. 23 at the Little Theater at Granada High School, 400 Wall St. in Livermore. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. with opening statements to begin at 7 p.m.
The candidates forum, hosted by the Pleasanton Weekly, Livermore Chamber of Commerce and Livermore Indivisible, is free and open to the public.
Four people with a variety of elected office experience are competing for retiring Supervisor Scott Haggerty’s District 1 seat: Fremont City Councilman Vinnie Bacon, Dublin Mayor David Haubert, Dublin Vice Mayor Melissa Hernandez and State Sen. Bob Wieckowski of Fremont.
The District 1 seat represents the cities of Livermore and Dublin, most of Fremont and unincorporated communities in eastern Alameda County, including Sunol.
Audience members will be allowed to submit questions on index cards during the event and a few will be selected. Questions for consideration can be emailed to gchannell@pleasantonweekly.com.
Will all 4 candidates be participating? I intend to go to at least one, but want to make sure I will get to hear from them all. I have heard that one may be missing from this particular forum. Thank you.
I plan to ask this question:
“Until Valley Link rail opens, how would you improve Livermore access to BART?”
Background: As District 1 Supervisor you will have a vote on both the LAVTA (Livermore-Amador Valley Transit Authority which runs Wheels buses) and Valley Link (the new agency planning rail along I-580 starting in 2026) Boards.
BART acquired some 50 acres at Isabel and I-580 about 1986. AB 758 transferred BART’s BART to Livermore project and funding to the new agency (Valley Link) in 2018 after the BART Board failed to approve the final EIR (Environmental Improvement Report) for BART to Livermore by June 30, 2018.
Until Caltrans installed the HOV (toll) lanes about 2016, the I-580 median was vacant. When BART’s earlier Program EIR called for costly tunneling with the first station at Junction Avenue Middle School, over 8400 Livermore voters signed an initiative petition to amend Livermore’s General Plan. They sought BART in the freeway median, initially to Isabel, and ultimately to Greenville where it could connect with ACE.
Once their petition qualified for the 2011 municipal ballot, the City Council agreed. Planning shifted from downtown to the revised route. BART agreed; hence the revised EIR.
Parking at BART’s East Dublin-Pleasanton end-of-line station is grossly over-loaded and inadequate.
ACTA (Alameda County Transportation Authority) included improvements in its recent report on transit and parking in the Tri-Valley. Among them was enlarging BART’s park-ride facility at the planned Isabel station site. DKS, their engineering consultant, rough estimated the cost to enlarge it on the vacant BART-owned land to 500 parking spaces at $3,256,000.
Wheels 10-R (via Stanley) and 30-R (via LPC) Rapid routes are circuitous. A new 3-bus route on I-580 could link with every BART train in or out; it would save the Livermore BART round trip rider about 40 minutes per day (three hours per week).
For the years until Valley Link opens, parking at Isabel and a freeway express bus route could provide Livermore and Central Valley patrons a nearly seamless transit trip into BARTland. They would open up badly-needed spaces at the station.