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New Silicon Valley Transit: Airport Connector and Future Expansion
Exploring a faster way to connect Silicon Valley's transportation and employment centers
The City of San José is developing a new approach to transit that can be designed and built faster and at lower cost and offers a better rider experience than traditional transit systems. The first step is a proposed connector between San José Mineta International Airport and Diridon Station in the west end of San José’s Downtown.
We view this project as a first phase. If it is successful, the City intends to grow it into a larger system to carry people across San José and neighboring cities without interruptions from traffic. We are pursuing a public-private partnership (PPP or P3) solution to keep public costs low and encourage innovation.
Timeline
All future dates are preliminary and subject to change:
- July 2019: Request for Information released
- 2021: Development of request for proposal
- May 2022: Request for Proposal release
- October 2022: Proposal submission deadline (updated on August 2)
- February 2023: Notice of preferred proposer issued
- April 7, 2023: Recommendation published for April 18 City Council meeting
- April 18, 2023: City Council approval to move forward with Phase 1 of Pre-Development Agreement
- March 25, 2025: City Council discussion on results of Phase 1 of the Pre-Development Agreement and decision about next steps
Community Engagement
- September 20, 2023; 6 to 7 p.m.: Diridon to Airport Connector Phase 1 Community Meeting
- Presentation slides for the San José Airport Connector Project community meeting
- View our YouTube playlist, which features all Airport Connector meeting recordings
- 11/21/21: Neighbors' Meeting #2
- 11/16/21: Neighbors' Meeting #1
- 10/27/21: RFP Industry Day
Updates
- 4/12/23: Read our blog post about City staff presenting the Airport Connector project to City Council.
- 4/7/23: City Council item with staff recommendation published for April 18 City Council meeting.
- 10/7/22: The proposal due date has been extended to November 8, 2022.
- 8/12/22: The proposal due date has been extended from August 23, 2022 to October 18, 2022, to give prospective respondents more time to complete their submittals.
- 5/10/22: The request for proposals for a project partner is now published. The RFP closes on August 16, 2022.
- 10/14/21: Interested firms were invited to learn about and register for our Request for Proposal Industry Day on October 27.
- 7/15/21: Read our blog post about how we and our partners asked tech firms to provide solutions for an Airport Connector.
- 6/29/21: City Council approves ARUP as a partner to develop the project request for proposals. Learn more by reading our blog post.
Archived Resources
The following resources are archived documents. They will not be updated and may contain outdated information and broken links.
- Final Feasibility Validation Report
- Responses to May 2022 Request for Proposals:
- The Boring Company (.zip file, 12.7 MB)
- San José Airport Connectors (.zip file, 68.4 MB)
- San José Connection Partners (.zip file, 112 MB)
- Predevelopment Agreement documents
- Request for Proposals documents
- Ridership Study on the Diridon to Airport Connector
- June 2022: Pre-Proposal Conference Recording
- June 2022: Pre-Bid Conference Staff Presentation
- December 2021: Advanced Notice on RFP’s Technology Requirements
- Alignment Landholders Discussion Presentation
- 10/27/21: Request for Proposal Industry Day
- Read a staff council memo from August 2020 on the Airport Connector and Stevens Creek Line project
- Read the Mayor and City Council's memo from August 2020, recommending a motion for the project
- Learn about the July 2019 Request for Information and see the responses
- 2017 Automated Guideway Transit Study
PROJECT PROPOSALS
- Plenary Glydways (unsolicited)
- TCE Financial (unsolicited)
