San Jose BART extension will be further delayed and cost more

The long-awaited San Jose BART extension is facing more delays and an increased budget, transit officials announced on Wednesday.

The project will now cost $12.2 billion and be completed in 2036.

The six-mile extension will run from the Berryessa Transit Center in north San Jose, looping through the downtown core and up towards Santa Clara, collectively adding four stations to its portfolio and creating a ring of rail service around the region.

It’s not the first time that the megaproject, decades in the making, has faced delays and budget increases. Last year, federal officials determined in an independent analysis that the extension project could be pushed out to 2034 and cost $9.1 billion — double the transit agency’s original projections. The federal government’s study centered around a tunneling method that would cut a 48-foot-wide path through a 4.7-mile stretch of San Jose, calling the timeline for the process “overly ambitious”.

Since 2000, residents have approved three separate sales tax measures to help cover the project’s costs, and the federal government announced in 2021 that it would also step in with additional funding.