While San Jose remains committed to better connecting residents to Mineta International Airport and the greater Bay Area, changes in ridership, travel patterns and technology have led to calls for a deeper analysis on whether a futuristic-like project that would shuttle travelers between the airport to Diridon Station is the right investment.
The City Council has asked for a more extensive study — financed without new public funds — to determine the demand for service and where riders want to travel before committing more significant financial resources, especially with the city already cash-strapped.
“There’s no question in my mind the project hinges on understanding long-term airport growth needs and securing external funding as the city of San Jose cannot and should not allocate additional funding at this time,” said District 6 Councilmember Michael Mulcahy, who represents the area encompassing the airport. “Our goal is to ensure the SJC to Diridon connector can be competitive in a rapidly evolving technological landscape while supporting SJC’s economic benefits to the region.”
The move comes despite an initial feasibility report that provided a bright outlook for the project.
The project is a more modern transit system consisting of small, autonomous vehicles that could seat up to four passengers operating on its own designated pathway, shielding it from regular road congestion and traffic. It would be built through a public-private partnership that aims to create a safer, more reliable and cost-friendly means to connect the city’s major transportation hubs that sit nearly three-and-a-half miles away from one another.
The base proposal would connect Diridon Station and Terminal B at the airport, while the project could also offer an intra-airport extension that would provide access to Terminal A and the long-term parking lot.
Department of Transportation Director John Ristow said initial estimates placed a price tag of $489 million to $592 million on the base project. A larger project could be in the range of $707 million to $821 million, with the majority of construction costs being funded by public funds, Ristow said.
He estimated private investment would cover 10% or less of the costs.
Despite the high price tag, the connector project has a substantially lower cost-per-mile construction cost than other major projects currently underway in the Bay Area.
While the city selected San Jose Connection Partners, a consortium led by Plenary Americas that includes Glydways, Webcor/Obayashi, HNTB and ACI, in 2023 to help study and potentially develop a system, support for the project goes back for decades.
When Santa Clara County voters passed Measure A in 2000, which established a 30-year half-cent sales tax to help fund transit projects, the connector project was one of several included that received favorable polling.
“Our company is excited about this project because of its strong fundamentals, connecting two major transportation facilities, and we believe in the long-term growth of San Jose and the South Bay region, and that’s going to increase utilization of both those facilities and the need for connection between them,” said Eliot Jamison, Senior Vice President of Plenary Group.
Business leaders have also continued to support the project and touted its economic benefits, in addition to the belief that it will make San Jose an innovative leader in transit solutions.
“The business community sees this as a vital infrastructure investment that will enhance both regional mobility and economic competitiveness for numerous benefits this project will have for San Jose and our region,” Silicon Valley Leadership Group Vice President Dan Kostenbauder said. “It offers a modern, autonomous electric transit solution that will improve connectivity between SJC and Diridon. It’s a public-private partnership that brings private investment into our public transit system, which is smart and fiscally responsible.”
Shelley Doran, a Webcor Builders and Obayashi representative, estimated the project could generate 200,000 hours per year of union labor.
Although San Jose has flirted with building a connector for decades, officials acknowledged that the current conditions are not quite the same to even a few years ago when the city first sent out a request for proposals.
“A lot of things have changed since we started this analysis, from the growth trajectory of the airport to where we were with Downtown West planning,” Mayor Matt Mahan said.
A memo authored by Mahan, Mulcahy, Vice Mayor Pam Foley and Councilmembers David Cohen and Rosemary Kamei cited the airport’s wobbly performance, declining sales tax revenue, high office vacancies and other major transportation projects as factors for the city to consider. They also noted the advances in autonomous vehicle technology, which could creep more into San Jose in the not-so-distant future as Waymo expands.
And while San Jose will move forward with a more scaled-down study, city officials have asked to finance it through grant funds or investments from its private sector partners.
The study has $3.7 million available in previously allocated funds from the city, Measure A dollars and federal grants that can help shave off some of the costs, but San Jose does not want the VTA to shoulder any additional burdens with the BART extension project and restoration of bus services a priority.
“I think we’re at a moment where it’s prudent to get more information but to do it in a way that is extremely rigorous, data-driven and limits the impacts on our already strained budgets,” Mahan said.