Walnut Creek station is an elevated
Bay Area Rapid Transit
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 on of rapid transit lines, including a spur line in eastern Contra Costa County which uses ...
(BART)
station in
Walnut Creek, California
Walnut Creek is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States, located in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, about east of the city of Oakland. With a total population of 70,127 per the 2020 census, Walnut Creek ser ...
, served by the . The station is located north of downtown Walnut Creek, adjacent to
Interstate 680 and near the Ygnacio Valley Road and California Boulevard arterial roads.
History
![South garage at Walnut Creek station, November 2019](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/South_garage_at_Walnut_Creek_station%2C_November_2019.JPG)
Walnut Creek station opened on May 21, 1973 as part of an extension from
MacArthur to
Concord
Concord may refer to:
Meaning "agreement"
* Pact or treaty, frequently between nations (indicating a condition of harmony)
* Harmony, in music
* Agreement (linguistics), a change in the form of a word depending on grammatical features of other ...
.
Due to Walnut Creek's high ridership and large catchment area, BART proposed in 2004 that the station be the center of a
transit-oriented development
In urban planning, transit-oriented development (TOD) is a type of urban development that maximizes the amount of residential, business and leisure space within walking distance of public transport. It promotes a symbiotic relationship between ...
scheme which includes 440 residential units, of office space, of retail space, and 1,373 parking spaces.
A parking lot on the west side of the station closed on February 3, 2018. A 900-space parking garage was constructed in its place, which allowed other parking lots to be closed for the new development. The new garage, which includes a three-lane bus plaza, opened on March 29, 2019.
Station layout
Walnut Creek station has two
side platforms
A side platform (also known as a marginal platform or a single-face platform) is a platform positioned to the side of one or more railway tracks or guideways at a railway station, tram stop, or transitway. A station having dual side platforms ...
with two tracks. Access to the tracks is provided by a staircase, escalator, and elevator from the mezzanine, which houses nine faregates.
Sustained patronage at the station has caused it to become overcrowded; BART is planning on building a second entrance, including new faregates and platform access to relieve possible emergency hazards.
The elevators to the platforms are outside of the
paid area
In rail transport, the paid area is a dedicated "inner" zone in a railway station or metro station, accessible via turnstiles or other barriers, to get into which, visitors or passengers require a valid ticket, checked smartcard or a pass. A sys ...
. BART plans to add a dedicated faregate for each elevator in 2022.
Bus connections
Pleasant Hill/Contra Costa Centre is a transfer point for a number of
County Connection
The County Connection (officially, the Central Contra Costa Transit Authority, CCCTA) is a Concord-based public transit agency operating fixed-route bus and ADA paratransit (County Connection LINK) service in and around central Contra Costa County ...
local and express routes:
*Weekday: 1, 4, 5, 9, 14, 21, 93X, 95X, 96X, 98X
*Weekend: 311, 321
The station is also served by the
SolTrans
SolTrans, officially Solano County Transit, is a Joint Powers Authority that provides public transportation service to the southern Solano County cities of Vallejo and Benicia. SolTrans was established in 2011 and is the result of a merger bet ...
Solano Express
SolanoExpress is a public transit network of regional express buses connecting Solano County, California to Contra Costa County (across the Carquinez Strait) and the Sacramento Valley. It is managed by the Solano Transportation Authority and ope ...
Yellow Line.
All buses stop in the busway inside the south garage.
References
External links
BART - Walnut Creek
{{Bay Area Rail Stations
Bay Area Rapid Transit stations in Contra Costa County, California
Stations on the Yellow Line (BART)
Walnut Creek, California
Railway stations in the United States opened in 1973