BART Eyes $16M Parking Lot At New Antioch Station To Meet High Demand
ANTIOCH (CBS SF) – So many riders are driving to Antioch's new BART station that the station's parking lots cannot meet the demand.
BART officials said the station has been a tremendous success and noted that daily ridership has far exceeded their original forecasts.
On Friday, BART officials announced that they have identified full funding for a proposed $16.4 million parking lot that will be able to accommodate more than 800 new parking spaces, nearly doubling the parking capacity at the station.
The new BART station, which opened in May, has extended BART's yellow line further east from the Pittsburg/Bay Point station. Prior to opening, the station's daily ridership was expected to be 2,270, but it is currently at 3,050 daily riders, according to BART officials.
The proposed lot is on a piece of BART land located just east of the existing parking lots.
BART director Joel Keller, who represents East Contra Costa County said in a statement Friday, "We've made it a priority to ensure that every rider has access to the new service which takes drivers off the congested Highway 4 corridor."
Funding sources for the proposed parking lot project include BART, Contra Costa Transportation Authority, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and the East Contra Costa Regional Fee and Financing Authority.
BART officials said they plan to bring the project to the BART Board of Directors in late 2018 and that if everything goes as planned, the new parking lot could be open in the fall of 2020.
Until then, riders can also consider utilizing the new BART station's shared use bicycle lockers, which cost 5 cents or less per hour, compared to the daily fee for car parking, which is $3.
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