Overview | |
---|---|
Other name(s) | Caldecott BART Tunnel |
Line | Y Yellow Line |
Location | Alameda County, California |
Coordinates | Oakland portal: 37°51′05″N122°14′17″W / 37.85139°N 122.23806°W Orinda portal: 37°52′29″N122°11′16″W / 37.87472°N 122.18778°W |
System | Bay Area Rapid Transit |
Crosses | Berkeley Hills, Hayward Fault |
Start | Rockridge Station, Oakland |
End | Orinda Station, Orinda |
No. of stations | None |
Operation | |
Work begun | 1965 |
Constructed | drill-and-blast |
Opened | May 21, 1973 |
Owner | San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District |
Operator | San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District |
Character | Rapid transit |
Technical | |
Line length | 3.1 mi (5.0 km) |
No. of tracks | 2 |
Track gauge | 5 ft 6 in (1,676 mm) (Indian gauge) |
Electrified | Third rail, 1000 V DC |
Tunnel clearance | 16.8 feet (5.1 m) [1] |
Grade | 1.2% (2% max) [2] [3] |
The Berkeley Hills Tunnel is a tunnel which carries Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Yellow Line through the Berkeley Hills between Rockridge station and Orinda station.
While the tracks run in the median of California State Route 24 on both sides of the tunnel, the Berkeley Hills Tunnel allows the tracks to take a straighter alignment offset to the north of the Caldecott Tunnel.
The tunnel bores through the Berkeley Hills east of Berkeley and Oakland a distance of 3.1 miles (5.0 km) [3] through a variety of rock strata, most of which are soft and porous. The earthquake-active Hayward Fault bisects the tunnel about 900 feet (270 m) inside the west portal (Oakland side). There are 2 bores, each 17.5 feet (5.3 m) in diameter, [3] spaced 50 feet (15 m) apart. Pedestrian cross-tunnels are spaced every 1,000 feet (300 m) for emergency evacuation in case of fire, etc. There is a ventilation structure at the east portal with roll-down doors that can close off the tunnel end to allow air to be sucked out or blown in.
By 2017, cumulative minor damage from fault creep had significantly reduced the tunnel's cross section, to the point where BART determined it was necessary to plan for repair and mitigation against future creep. [4] The work, which includes excavating the tunnel walls and realigning the tracks, is expected to cost $60 million. [5]
Construction of the tunnel began in early February, 1965. The bores were holed through by March, 1967, and construction completed in July, 1968. [6] The tunnel was opened for revenue service on May 21, 1973, with the Concord line. [7]
Material removed in the construction of the tunnel was used as fill for a concurrent expansion of the Port of Oakland. [8]
On December 4, 2013, a BART train suffered mechanical braking problems and made an emergency stop in the tunnel near Rockridge station. Eleven people were treated for smoke inhalation. [9]
Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area in California. BART serves 50 stations along six routes and 131 miles of track, including a 9-mile (14 km) spur line running to Antioch, which uses diesel multiple unit vehicles, and a 3-mile (4.8 km) automated guideway transit line serving Oakland International Airport. With an average of 164,500 weekday passengers as of the third quarter of 2023 and 41,286,400 annual passengers in 2022, BART is the seventh-busiest heavy rail rapid transit system in the United States.
State Route 24 is a heavily traveled east–west state highway in the U.S. state of California that serves the eastern side of the San Francisco Bay Area. A freeway throughout its entire length, it runs from the Interstate 580/Interstate 980 interchange in Oakland, and through the Caldecott Tunnel under the Berkeley Hills, to the Interstate 680 junction in Walnut Creek. It lies in Alameda County, where it is highly urban, and Contra Costa County, where it passes through wooded hillsides and suburbs. SR 24 is a major connection between the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge/MacArthur Maze complex and the inland cities of the East Bay.
The Caldecott Tunnel is a four-bore highway tunnel through the Berkeley Hills between Oakland and Orinda, California. Its four bores carry California State Route 24. Named after Thomas E. Caldecott, former mayor of Berkeley, it opened in 1937 as a two-bore tunnel. The third bore opened in 1964 and the fourth bore in 2013. Currently, the two oldest bores carry eastbound traffic and the two newest bores carry westbound traffic.
The Hayward Fault Zone is a right-lateral strike-slip geologic fault zone capable of generating destructive earthquakes. The fault was first named in the Lawson Report of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake in recognition of its involvement in the earthquake of 1868. This fault is about 119 km (74 mi) long, situated mainly along the western base of the hills on the east side of San Francisco Bay. It runs through densely populated areas, including Richmond, El Cerrito, Berkeley, Oakland, San Leandro, Castro Valley, Hayward, Union City, Fremont, and San Jose.
The Transbay Tube is an underwater rail tunnel that carries Bay Area Rapid Transit's four transbay lines under San Francisco Bay between the cities of San Francisco and Oakland in California. The tube is 3.6 miles (5.8 km) long, and attaches to twin bored tunnels. The section of rail between the nearest stations totals 6 miles (10 km) in length. The tube has a maximum depth of 135 feet (41 m) below sea level.
Embarcadero station is a combined BART and Muni Metro rapid transit subway station in the Market Street subway in downtown San Francisco. Located under Market Street between Drumm Street and Beale Street near The Embarcadero, it serves the Financial District neighborhood and surrounding areas. The three-level station has a large fare mezzanine level, with separate platform levels for Muni Metro and BART below. Embarcadero station opened in May 1976 – almost two years after service began through the Transbay Tube – as an infill station.
The Orange Line is a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) line in the San Francisco Bay Area that runs between Berryessa/North San José station and Richmond station. It has 21 stations in San Jose, Milpitas, Fremont, Union City, Hayward, San Leandro, Oakland, Berkeley, El Cerrito, and Richmond. It is the only one of the five primary BART services that does not run through the Transbay Tube to San Francisco; however, it shares tracks with the four other primary services in the East Bay.
Rockridge station is a Bay Area Rapid Transit station located in the Rockridge district of Oakland, California. Located in the center median of the elevated State Route 24 west of the Caldecott Tunnel, the station has a single island platform serving two tracks. It is served by the Yellow Line.
Orinda station is a Bay Area Rapid Transit station in Orinda, California. The station has an island platform in the center median of State Route 24. It is served by the Yellow Line. An abstract mural by Win Ng, partially covered by advertisements, is located in the fare lobby.
Richmond station is an Amtrak intercity rail and Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station located in downtown Richmond, California. Richmond is the north terminus of BART service on the Orange Line and Red Line; it is a stop for Amtrak's Capitol Corridor, San Joaquins, and California Zephyr routes. The accessible station has one island platform for the two BART tracks, with a second island platform serving two of the three tracks of the Union Pacific Railroad Martinez Subdivision for Amtrak trains. It is one of two transfer points between BART and Amtrak, along with Oakland Coliseum station.
MacArthur station is a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station in the Temescal District of Oakland, California. It is the largest station in the BART system, being the only one with four platform tracks. Service through MacArthur is timed for cross-platform transfers between the southbound lines that pass through the station. MacArthur station is located in the median of SR 24 just north of its interchange with I-580. The station is perpendicular to 40th Street and MacArthur Boulevard. The surrounding neighborhood is mostly low-density residential, making MacArthur station primarily a commuting hub.
Rockridge is a residential neighborhood and commercial district in Oakland, California. Rockridge is generally defined as the area east of Telegraph Avenue, south of the Berkeley city limits, west of the Oakland hills and north of the intersection of Pleasant Valley Avenue/51st Street and Broadway. Rockridge was listed by Money Magazine in 2002 as one of the "best places to live".
The Berkeley Hills are a range of the Pacific Coast Ranges that overlook the northeast side of the valley that encompasses San Francisco Bay. They were previously called the "Contra Costa Range/Hills", but with the establishment of Berkeley and the University of California, the current usage was applied by geographers and gazetteers.
Temescal Creek is one of the principal watercourses in the city of Oakland, California, United States.
The station complex of Amtrak's Oakland Coliseum station and Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)'s Coliseum station is located in the East Oakland area of Oakland, California, United States. The two stations, located about 600 feet (180 m) apart, are connected to each other and to the Oakland Coliseum/Oakland Arena sports complex with an accessible pedestrian bridge. The BART station is served by the Orange, Green Line, and Blue lines; the Amtrak station is served by the Capitol Corridor service.
Throughout the history of Bay Area Rapid Transit, there have been plans to extend service to other areas.
Bay Area Rapid Transit, widely known by the acronym BART, is the main rail transportation system for the San Francisco Bay Area. It was envisioned as early as 1946 but the construction of the original system began in the 1960s.
Claremont Tunnel, also known as the Claremont Water Tunnel is a utility tunnel in Alameda County, in the U.S. state of California near the historic Claremont Hotel. The tunnel crosses the Hayward Fault and carries water for 800,000 EBMUD customers.
The Oakland Wye is an underground flying wye junction in downtown Oakland, California which serves the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system. Trains can switch between (a) the northbound Richmond or Antioch lines, (b) the westbound San Francisco lines, and (c) the southbound Berryessa or Dublin/Pleasanton lines. The Oakland Wye is the center of the BART system, and is a bottleneck for the whole system because every regularly scheduled BART train passes through it.