Industrial Park public transport stop takes big step toward reality

City, county and transit officials turned gold-tipped shovels Wednesday morning to break ground for a bus hub.

They were joined by a member of the family that formerly owned the property — a family that almost refused to sell it to the city.

The bus hub has been planned for the Benicia Industrial Park for more than two years, and has been a topic of discussion for many more. It will be a collaborative effort of Benicia, Solano County Transit Authority and area transit providers, including SolTrans, which operates the buses in Benicia and Vallejo.

Much of the money for the bus hub — $1.25 million — is coming from Regional Measure 2 (bridge toll) funds, though the city is putting up $276,000 for the project.

“It takes a town to make a project work,” Mayor Elizabeth Patterson said Wednesday before she and others picked up shovels to heft soil into the air during the ceremonial groundbreaking.

Once completed — a date that will depend on whether the Bay Area gets long-anticipated El Niño rainstorms — the paved site will give commuters a place to park so they can ride buses making stops there or join van pools. Motorists whose passengers are transit users will have a “kiss-and-ride” spot for dropping off those riders.

In addition, the project will smooth the curve at the adjacent intersection of Industrial Way and Park Road, making it easier to negotiate for the Industrial Park’s trucks.

Scott Rovanpera, Benicia Water Treatment Plant superintendent, said a water leak had been found on the site and is being repaired. That encouraged another addition to the project — a 24-inch ductile iron water pipeline that will run parallel to an existing 27-inch concrete water line.

The larger line was considered state-of-the-art because of its strength when it was promoted in the 1960s, Rovanpera said, but its composition doesn’t handle earthquakes well.

In July 2010, Benicia experienced an interruption that could have been much worse had city employees not employed creative water rerouting so southern parts of the city could maintain service, Rovanpera said.

The new pipeline, which will be installed before the bus hub is paved, should be a redundant line that would ensure water delivery to many of the city’s customers, he said.

Local dignitaries — including City Manager Brad Kilger, Dixon Mayor Jack Batchelor, aides to members of the Solano County Board of Supervisors, Solano Transportation Authority Executive Director Daryl Halls and SolTrans Executive Director Mona Babauta — joined Patterson and Public Works Director Graham Wadsworth in addressing those who attended the groundbreaking.

Members of the Barragan family were part of the celebration, too.

The family has owned the 1-acre site and operated a Mexican food vending truck there since 1994.

While Benicia employees had long hoped to build a bus hub on the site, even before the current plans were initiated, a staff error put the project’s future in question. While city employees notified multiple other individuals and agencies about a Council vote on the project scheduled for Dec. 3, 2013, they failed to inform the Barragans about the meeting.

Hector Barragan told the Council that night his family no longer was willing to sell and had not authorized any preparatory work on their land.

His family and city employees subsequently met in extensive negotiations that led to a new city code governing food trucks as well as the family’s agreement to sell the site.

But that won’t be the end of the Barragans’ popular food truck. During construction of the new bus hub, the family’s truck will be parked diagonally across the street, in a parking lot at 665 Industrial Way. When the hub opens, the truck will return to its old site.

The hub will be all new, with 46 paved parking paces, a restroom, two bus shelters and other amenities. Patterson praised it as a way to encourage travel by bus, which she said is more flexible than trying to get a BART station in Benicia.

“This is a cost-effective alternative to one person-one car,” the mayor said. “It’s also a beautification project, and new employees are demanding that.” In addition, the bus hub will give commuters a choice in the way they travel to and from work, she said.

“Benicia should be complimented,” Halls said, because many areas aren’t as transit-friendly.

He said not only would Route 40 buses arrive at the hub in the morning and evening, before the year is through they’ll be stopping at the site in the middle of the day.

He said the hub will give Benicians and others the chance to travel to BART, which connects them to East Bay and South Bay cities as well as to San Francisco itself.

As the Solano County Transportation Authority expands, Halls said, people can get on buses at the hub and travel to Sacramento, the University of California-Davis and other areas.

“You have the opportunity to take this starting point and do something with it,” he said.