Officials Break Ground for Next Phase of eBART/State Route 4 Widening

Commuters on Highway 4 through Antioch are watching traffic relief in the making, as it's being built alongside the highway. State Route 4 in Eastern Contra Costa County is being widened from four to eight lanes. Two of those lanes, one in each direction, will be for carpools. But major traffic relief is also coming thanks to eBart, which is also under construction in the median of Highway 4 and will add 10 miles of track from the Pittsburg Bay Point BART station to a new Hillcrest station in Antioch. Groundbreaking for that station took place on Friday, October 5, 2012, bringing closer the day when eBART’s diesel multiple-unit (DMU) trains will transport passengers from the Antioch Station at Hillcrest Avenue and State Route 4 to the Pittsburg/Bay Point BART Station, where passengers can transfer to a BART train. 

DMUs are a new type of high-speed, high-capacity train for BART, although they are widely in use in Europe and elsewhere in the U.S. DMUs are smaller than BART trains, and have comfortable seats, wide windows and level boarding. eBART will allow East County residents to board a train at Hillcrest Avenue and arrive at the Pittsburg/Bay Point BART Station in 10 minutes. eBART trains will be timed to meet BART trains at Pittsburg/Bay Point. The DMU technology was chosen to bring BART-quality rail service to East County at a much lower cost than conventional BART — the $462 million eBART project is 60 percent less expensive than conventional BART.

Together, the highway and BART projects total over a billion dollars in transportation improvements in a joint project between MTC, the California Transportation Commission, the Contra Costa Transportation Authority, the Federal Highway Administration and Caltrans. MTC contributed $283 million in bridge tolls and other funds for eBart, or 60 percent of the cost. But it may have never gotten off the ground if voters had not approved a 25-year extension of a county transportation sales tax in 2004.

— Mark Jones