The funding will come from FTA’s Capital Investment Grants (CIG) programme.
The $US 2.7bn project includes purchasing 252 metro cars, as well as the installation of Communications Based Train Control (CBTC) to decrease headways. Hitachi Rail STS, United States, was awarded a $US 798m contract in January to install CBTC on the 195km Bart metro network.
Bart will also build a new storage yard at the Hayward Maintenance Complex to accommodate the new cars, and add five substations in San Francisco and the East Bay to handle more frequent, longer trains.
Bart is expected to increase the number of Transbay Tube trains it operates during peak periods from 23 per hour per direction to 30.
In June 2019, FTA advanced the Transbay Corridor Core Capacity Programme to the engineering phase of the CIG programme, and allocated $US 300m towards it.
Moving this project forward does not eliminate Bart’s need for emergency funding to continue operating services and to fill budget shortfalls brought on by Covid-19.
This follows the $US 400m in funding awarded by the FTA under the CIG programme on August 27, for projects in New Jersey, Missouri, Arizona and Indiana.
