Letter of Support

RE: Support for a BART and Regional Rail Infill Station in Oakland’s San Antonio District

To the Oakland City Council, Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, the BART Board of Directors, the Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority Board of Directors, CA State Assemblymember Mia Bonta (AD-18), CA State Senator Nancy Skinner (SD-9), US Congresswoman Barbara Lee (CA-12), US Senators Alex Padilla and Laphonza Butler, and Governor Gavin Newsom:
We, the undersigned businesses, organizations and community leaders are writing to urge the City of Oakland, San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART), and Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority (CCJPA) to incorporate a BART and regional rail infill station in Oakland’s San Antonio District into the Land Use and Transportation Element of the City of Oakland’s General Plan, the BART and the CCJPA’s Link21 Program, and all other relevant planning processes, respectively.

We are also calling on you as our local, state, and federal representatives to support all relevant funding opportunities for this project - most urgently, the identification and allocation of funds for a feasibility study. Should a feasibility study demonstrate clear benefits, urge you to support funding for successive steps to make the project a reality, including a station area plan, an environmental review process, all the way through to the engineering and construction of the station.
The construction of a BART and regional rail infill station in Oakland’s San Antonio District is long overdue. The distance between Lake Merritt and Fruitvale BART Stations (2.7 miles) is over twice that of the average distance between all other urban BART stations (1.1 miles) in the Bay Area. This is despite the fact that the San Antonio District is one of the densest zip codes in the East Bay, despite the fact that a major new 3,700-home development with no access to public transit is currently under construction less than 1/4-mile from the proposed station, and despite the fact that the neighborhood is home to a variety of local and regional destinations, including the Oakland waterfront, Brooklyn Basin, San Antonio Park, and Highland Hospital.

The absence of an existing station limits access to regional transit options for the San Antonio District’s 40,000 residents, effectively cutting us off from community, jobs, services, and other regional amenities and destinations. An infill station would connect our community with the rest of the Bay Area, increasing regional access and significantly improving our quality of life while simultaneously reducing inequality and carbon emissions.
In addition to the need for BART and regional rail access for the neighborhood’s dense and growing population, a San Antonio BART and regional rail infill station is also an essential transportation equity project for the region. Oakland’s San Antonio neighborhood has among the highest poverty rates and percentages of non-white residents in the Bay Area. It is classified as:

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• An equity priority community by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission

• A disadvantaged community by the California Environmental Protection Agency

• A pollution burdened community by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment

• An equitable transportation community by the US Department of Transportation

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A San Antonio BART and regional rail infill station would provide an important new transportation option for the neighborhood’s underserved and transit-dependent populations, which currently watch BART and Amtrak trains pass through the neighborhood dozens of times a day without stopping to pick up or drop off passengers.

On top of meeting a dense, growing, and historically underserved community’s daily transportation needs, a BART and regional rail infill station will serve as a catalyst for transformational neighborhood change centered in the existing community. A new neighborhood-serving rail station - when coupled with a thoughtful and comprehensive station area plan and improved local bus, bicycle, and pedestrian connections - will help address key issues critical to the local community, including personal safety, economic vitality, air quality, and access to parks and open space. Such a plan could help establish a green connection between the waterfront and the residential neighborhood on the other side of the freeway, support existing and struggling small businesses, build new homes and parks for both current and future neighbors, and promote wealth-building for residents throughout the community.

Building a BART and regional rail infill station in Oakland’s San Antonio District aligns with numerous adopted plans and policies at the regional and state level, including MTC’s Transit-Oriented Communities policy, which seeks to ensure that “Local planning and zoning will enable new development built within one half-mile of existing or planned fixed-guideway transit stops or stations to be built at sufficiently high densities to support transit ridership and increase the proportion of trips taken by transit”; the state’s Climate Action Plan for Transportation Infrastructure (CAPTI), with a goal of “Building toward an integrated, statewide rail and transit network, consistent with the California State Rail Plan, to provide seamless, affordable multimodal travel options for all”; and the state’s California Transportation Plan 2040, which approaches the “State’s future mobility needs in a manner that is economically, equitably, and environmentally responsible, and supports the overall vision of a low carbon and sustainable transportation system that enhances the quality of life... [of] the people who live, work, and visit California.”

We urge you as City of Oakland, BART, CCJPA, State of California, and federal officials to take immediate action by incorporating this essential community-supported infrastructure project into your relevant transportation plans and funding requests. Let us work together to ensure that Oakland pursues equitable growth, sustainable infrastructure, and improved quality of life for its residents at every opportunity.

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