This project was a design-build procurement for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) extension project from Fremont to San Jose, consisting of a final design for the guideway and two stations: one at Milpitas and one at Berryessa. The extension included 10 miles of track and two stations with parking lots and links to bus transit systems. This project now benefits an estimate of 30,000 residents within a 0.5-mile walking radius, 260,000 people within a 12-minute bike ride, and 1,007,000 people within a 15-minute vehicular trip.
ENGEO managed the environmental compliance responsibilities for the project on behalf of the design-build group. Responsibilities extended to validating regulatory compliance of all designs including certifying all CSA, Traction Power, MEP, RIDS, and SCADA systems designs for compliance. In addition, ENGEO also provided environmental awareness training to contractors and subcontractors during construction.
ENGEO provided a range of value engineering consulting services with respect to existing soil, groundwater, and building materials. Following a complex right-of-way that extends through numerous developed areas and that parallels an existing rail line, the project generated hundreds of thousands of samples of the excavated soil with potentially toxic and hazard concerns. The right-of-way intersects several groundwater plumes emanating from industrial and commercial sources. Further, several structures were located within the project footprint, many of which had been confirmed to contain lead-based paint and asbestos-containing building materials. ENGEO led the effort to accurately quantify these materials and devise strategies to effectively manage and mitigate the materials to drive overall project cost savings. ENGEO also performed a three-dimensional groundwater model for the two groundwater basins that are intersected by the below-grade portions of the project. The model, required as a mitigation measure of the EIR, evaluated the potential of groundwater mounding, and where mounding was identified in the model, we provided practical and constructible mitigation measures to be implemented during construction.
A key challenge was operating as a compliance liaison between the design-build contractor, BART, VTA, the Cities of Fremont, Milpitas, and San Jose, and negotiating positive outcomes for stakeholders. To make the project move along smoothly, ENGEO implemented and supervised air emissions, dust, hazardous materials, noise and vibration monitoring, and subcontractors. Furthermore, ENGEO coordinated cultural resource investigations and water quality and wetlands permitting (401 and 404) in conjunction with VTA’s Federal and State agency representatives.
