BART's Transbay Tube celebrates 50th anniversary, earthquake retrofit complete
OAKLAND, Calif. - The BART Transbay Tube celebrated its 50th birthday on Monday with a very special announcement about its resilience to mega earthquakes going forward far into the future. The infrastructure, at the half-century mark, is now fully ready for the next 50 years and perhaps the next millennium.
"BART has completed the seismic retrofit of the Transbay Tube," said BART General Manager Robert Powers, who continued, "The Transbay Tube now has a strong steel lining, it has a more powerful and robust pumping system that will protect itself against even stronger earthquakes the type of earthquake that is projected to occur only once in a thousand years."
The half-billion-dollar Transbay retrofit concludes BART’s 20-year, $1.5 billion retrofit of the system. That includes 74 miles of track including bridges and support structures, 34 of 50 of BART’s older stations, and critical infrastructure.
Though hundreds of millions of riders traveled the tube, one of the first to enter it was a then 20-year-old rookie named Ken Meyers who spent his career with BART. "I was 20 and I had no idea what it was," said Meyers.
BART Fleet of the Future (File Photo). Photo: Bay Area Rapid Transit.
Meyers was part of a two-man crew who hosed down the 3.5-mile tunnel and tracks before service began. "I found myself down there alone a lot, and it was dark, and it was dirty, a lot of noises, a lot of echoes, sounds, doors slamming. I didn't know what was going on down there and it was just an experience firsthand," he said.
The pandemic was a massive gut punch to the system from which it is still struggling to recover, in terms of ridership and future taxpayer contributions, if the Bay Area wants to keep the freeways from returning to total gridlock. "The Transbay Tube is BART's number one asset and, I would argue, one of the critical assets in all of the Bay Area," said General Manager Powers.
Whatever the Bay Area turns out to be post-pandemic, you can bet that BART and the Transbay Tube will be a big part of it. "BART has persevered through many difficult times and I think that we're too important to fail." said BART Board President Bevin Dufty.
For a look at BART's Transbay Tube project history, click here.
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