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We've returned to Milpitas Station! This time, we're back to film a walk-through between the VTA and BART sections that comprise the intermodal station, which was requested by our viewers. A brief history lesson below shows us how this unique station layout came to be.
For decades, the site of the present-day Milpitas BART station consisted of light industry, with little to no residences or commercial businesses. In 2000, BART's Silicon Valley Extension was approved, and foreshadowed eventual change in this long-forgotten southern section of Milpitas.
The first change came in 2004, when VTA extended its right rail tracks all the way to Alum Rock, with stops at the Great Mall and Montague. Eight years later, the industry surrounding Montague station was torn down, and construction started on Milpitas BART station.
Plans for the station included easy transfers between Montague station and Milpitas BART, which necessitated a pedestrian bridge over Capitol Ave that would seamlessly connect the two agencies together.
Nearly eight years later, as work had been completed and testing was underway on the BART extension, VTA renamed Montague station to Milpitas (this is not reflected on the platform signs, which tell you that the station is still named Montague) in preparation for the BART station's start of revenue service. That opening day came on June 13, 2020, when BART expanded its service into Santa Clara County for the first time.
The walk from VTA's platform to BART's platform should take you around four minutes (quicker than this video, since we took our time walking through the station). The direct transfer between VTA and BART should bolster each agency's ridership, and is an important connection for the future of rail transit in the South Bay.