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Oakland–Jack London Square station

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Oakland–Jack London Square station is a train station in Jack London Square (itself named after the author) of Oakland, California, United States. The station is served by Amtrak's Capitol Corridor, Coast Starlight, and San Joaquins trains. It is officially named Oakland–Jack London Square/C. L. Dellums Station after C. L. Dellums, co-founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; a statue of Dellums stands outside the station.

Oakland–Jack London Square
Jack London Square station with a Capitol Corridor train in 2020
General information
Other namesOakland–Jack London Square/C. L. Dellums Station
Location245 2nd Street
Oakland, California
United States
Coordinates37°47′37″N 122°16′17″W / 37.79361°N 122.27139°W / 37.79361; -122.27139
Owned byPort of Oakland
Line(s)UP Niles Subdivision[1]
Platforms1 side platform, 1 island platform
Tracks3
Connections
Construction
Parking500 short term, 500 long term[4]
Bicycle facilitiesYes
AccessibleYes
Other information
Station codeAmtrak: OKJ
History
OpenedMay 22, 1995
Passengers
FY 2023199,354[5] (Amtrak)
Services
Preceding station Amtrak Following station
Oakland Coliseum
toward San Jose
 Capitol Corridor Emeryville
toward Auburn
San Jose
toward Los Angeles
 Coast Starlight Emeryville
toward Seattle
Terminus San Joaquins Emeryville
toward Bakersfield
Former services
Preceding station Amtrak Following station
Terminus California Zephyr
(1995–1997)
 Emeryville
toward Chicago
At Oakland–1st Street station
Preceding station Southern Pacific Railroad Following station
Oakland Pier
Terminus
 Oakland – San Jose
(ended 1960)
 Fruitvale
toward San Jose
Location
Map

Station design

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Interior of the station in 2018

The station is located in the southeastern part of the Jack London Square district of Oakland, California.[2] The two-track Union Pacific Railroad Niles Subdivision runs approximately northwest–southwest along Embarcadero West through Jack London Square, with a siding splitting off from the north main track (Main 2) through the station area. A 1,530-foot (470 m) side platform serves the siding; a 1,000-foot (300 m) island platform is located between the siding and north main track. The south main track (Main 1) is freight-only.[1] The station is fully accessible.[6][7]

The glass-faced station building, owned by the Port of Oakland, is located on the north side of the tracks in the block bounded by Embarcadero West, 2nd Street, Alice Street, and Jackson Street.[7][2] It was designed by Oakland architect Eli Naor.[8] The northwest half of the 16,000-square-foot (1,500 m2) building is a 5,000-square-foot (460 m2) waiting room; the remaining portion has two floors of offices and baggage space.[8][9][6] The 40-foot (12 m)-high waiting room has a ceiling of crossed steel vaults from which five 8-foot (2.4 m)-diameter chandeliers hang.[8][9][6] Two wooden benches from 16th Street station originally sat among modern seating in the waiting room.[8][10]: 42  An 8+1⁄2-foot (2.6 m)-diameter clock is on the northwest facade of the building.[9]

A footbridge with elevators at east end crosses the tracks and Embarcadero West adjacent to the station building. The main span is 140 feet (43 m) long, with the deck 35 feet (11 m) above track level. The steel members of the bridge are larger than structurally needed for aesthetic reasons.[6] A parking garage with 500 short-term and 500 long-term spaces is located west of the station building.[10]: 41 [4] A second footbridge over the tracks and road connects the garage to several buildings.[11] A statue of C. L. Dellums, for whom the station is officially named, stands in the plaza between the station building and garage.[12]

Amtrak Thruway buses to/from San Francisco connect at Emeryville, which is closer to the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. However, Oakland is the northern end of Thruway route 17, which connects to the Pacific Surfliner at Santa Barbara.[3] The station does not have direct connections to other regional transit; it is about 2,400 feet (730 m) east of the Oakland Ferry Terminal served by the San Francisco Bay Ferry and 2,200 feet (670 m) southwest of Lake Merritt station served by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART).[2][13] AC Transit local bus route 12 directly serves the station on 2nd Street; other routes stop further away on Broadway and at Lake Merritt station.[2]

History

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Postcard view of the Southern Pacific station at 1st and Broadway

The Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) had a downtown Oakland station on the north side of 1st Street between Franklin Street and Broadway.[14][10]: 7  By midcentury, it was only used for Oakland–San Jose shuttle trains, which were discontinued in 1960.[10]: 7  The SP's main Oakland station was 16th Street station, which Amtrak continued to use after taking over intercity passenger service in 1971.[7]

Planning

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By the late 1980s, officials planned to replace the aging 16th Street station with a new station in the Jack London Square area, which was undergoing redevelopment.[15][16][17]: 17  In March 1989, the Port of Oakland won a $3.1 million state grant to fund part of the cost of a new station.[18] 16th Street station was severely damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake; an adjacent building was repurposed as a temporary station.[19] In 1990, Jack London Square was among the proposed station sites for the Capitols service.[20]

By late 1991, environmental work for the Jack London Square station was underway; proposed costs had quadrupled to $16 million from the $4 million projected in 1988.[21] Capitols service began in December 1991, with 16th Street as the Oakland station.[22] By August 1992, the Port planned to open a temporary platform at Jack London Square by July 1993, as Caltrans had ordered Amtrak to vacate 16th Street station by then to accommodate replacement of the Cypress Street Viaduct. The new station was then expected to fully open in August 1994.[23]

In 1992, the adjacent city of Emeryville advanced plans for a new station of its own, intended to support redevelopment in the city. Emeryville officials advertised it as an interim replacement for 16th Street station, and that it would only seen limited service after the Jack London Square station opened. However, Port of Oakland saw Emeryville station as a threat to the expected economic benefits of the Jack London Square station.[24][25] Groundbreaking for the Jack London Square station was held on October 28, 1992 – one day after a "lease signing" ceremony in Emeryville.[26]

Construction

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In December 1992, the Port abandoned plans for the temporary platform in order to speed construction of the permanent station, with the aim of having it open by December 1993.[27] However, this was delayed by unexpectedly high costs for track work at the station.[28] Demolition of a former newspaper warehouse to make way for the new station began in January 1993.[29] Plans up to that point called for a 20,000-square-foot (1,900 m2), two-story station building with a clock tower.[30] In February 1993, the design was changed to a 15,000-square-foot (1,400 m2), one-story station that would cost $13.5 million.[31] Emeryville station ultimately opened on August 13, 1993.[32][33]

In October 1993, bids for the station building came in $1.2 million higher than expected; the Port made cosmetic changes to reduce the cost and rebid the project.[28] The Port awarded a $6.24 million contraction contract for the station building in February 1994 and leased the station to Amtrak for 66 years for $1.[28][34] At that time, the Port also announced that the station would be named after C. L. Dellums, a longtime Oakland resident and the co-founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.[28] Construction began in March 1994.[35]

By July 1994, the project was expected to cost $14.5 million – $9 million for the station and $5.5 million for track work – and be complete by the end of the year.[36] 16th Street station closed in August 1994, at which time Emeryville became Amtrak's only Oakland-area station.[37] The main span of the footbridge was installed on the night of November 5–6, 1994.[10]: 41 [6] The curved beams for the footbridge had to be fabricated in Arkansas, as no closer manufacturer was capable of the work.[6] Heavy winter rains in 1994–1995 delayed the station's opening by an additional three months.[8] The nearly-complete station was formally dedicated in honor of Dellums on May 12, 1995. The final project cost was $16 million.[38]

Service changes and development

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Oakland–Jack London Square station opened on May 22, 1995.[10]: 33 [39] Initial service consisted of the daily round trips of the California Zephyr and Coast Starlight plus the three daily round trips of the Capitols.[8][40] The San Joaquins were not initially extended to Oakland because of refusals by the SP. Any trains terminating at Oakland had to reverse to the West Oakland rail yard (where a wye allowed trains to be turned) on street running tracks along Embarcadero West. Capitols trains had cab cars allowing bidirectional running (and most Capitols trains ran through Oakland rather than terminating), but San Joaquins and California Zephyr trains did not.[8] (The new California Cars, which included cab cars, were not introduced on the San Joaquins until later in 1995.[9][41]) SP allowed the Zephyr to be extended to Oakland because it would make the reverse move at less-crowded times.[8]

Service to the station increased on April 14, 1996: a fourth Capitols round trip was added, and two of the four daily San Joaquins round trips were extended from Emeryville to Oakland.[42][43][44]: 225  The remaining two San Joaquins round trips were extended to Oakland on November 10, 1996.[45] The California Zephyr was cut back to Emeryville on October 27, 1997 – both to avoid the reverse move, and because the addition of mail and express cars earlier that year had made the train too long for the station's platform.[10]: 43 [46][47] A statue of Dellums was added in the plaza next to the station in December 1999.[12]

The station has been an anchor for additional redevelopment in Jack London Square.[10]: 41  Short-term parking was originally in a surface lot northwest of the station building, while long-term parking was across the tracks.[8] A residential development replaced the long-term lot in 2001.[17]: 23  In June 2004, the city approved a nine-building development in the Jack London Square district. It included a parking garage replacing the short-term packing lot, with a footbridge across the tracks connecting it to a public market.[48][49] Construction on the garage and market began in October 2007.[11][17]: 21  The garage opened on August 14, 2010; the public market was never opened due to the Great Recession and its building saw other uses.[17]: 21 [10]: 41 

Additional Capitols service were added from 1998 to 2006, reaching a peak of 16 weekday round trips; the service was renamed Capitol Corridor in 2001.[44]: 230  A fifth San Joaquins round trip was added on June 20, 2016.[50]: 15  A 2014 vision plan for the Capitol Corridor proposed several possible new alignments for passenger trains to avoid the street running through Jack London Square. These included a tunnel on the existing alignment, a tunnel under 5th Street, and a deep-bore tunnel under downtown Oakland.[51] A 2016 implementation plan proposed a tunnel under 2nd Street with a new underground station at Broadway.[52] A proposed second San Francisco–Oakland rail tunnel, Link21, may be built either as a BART extension or as mainline regional rail. An underground Jack London Square station was proposed on most of the Link21 concepts released in 2023.[53]

References

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  1. ^ a b SMA Rail Consulting (April 2016). "California Passenger Rail Network Schematics" (PDF). California Department of Transportation. p. 4.
  2. ^ a b c d e "Transit Routes: Lake Merritt". Metropolitan Transportation Commission. August 22, 2023.
  3. ^ a b "Pacific Surfliner Timetable" (PDF). March 25, 2024.
  4. ^ a b "2023 Business Plan Update" (PDF). San Joaquin Joint Powers Authority. p. 66.
  5. ^ "Amtrak Fact Sheet, Fiscal Year 2023: State of California" (PDF). Amtrak. March 2024. Retrieved June 26, 2024.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Goodson, Mary Williams; Wilson, Sam (August 1997). "Oakland's Amtrak Station" (PDF). Modern Steel Construction. American Institute of Steel Construction.
  7. ^ a b c "Oakland, CA - Jack London Square Station (OKJ)". Great American Stations. Amtrak.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Stone-Norman, Lisa (May 8, 1995). "Amtrak's future linked to station". Oakland Tribune. pp. A-1, A-9 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ a b c d Vasquez, Daniel; Evangelista, Benny (March 4, 1995). "Clock is ticking for troubled Capitols commuter train line". Oakland Tribune. pp. A-1, A-10 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i Vurek, Matthew Gerald (2016). Images of Modern America: California’s Capitol Corridor. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 9781467124171.
  11. ^ a b Brevetti, Francine (October 23, 2007). "Oakland's Jack London Market moves closer to reality". Oakland Tribune. pp. 1, 4 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ a b "Dellums statue dedicated". The Napa Valley Register. December 7, 1999. p. 2 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ The Jack London BART Feasibility Study (PDF). San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District. December 2004. p. 5.
  14. ^ Hegemann, Werner (1915). "Report on a City plan for the Municipal Railways of Oakland & Berkeley". Municipal governments of Oakland and Berkeley. p. 60 – via Google Books.
  15. ^ Gibbs, Walt (May 8, 1988). "Travelers flock to Amtrak as highways clog up". The San Francisco Examiner. pp. B1, B4 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. ^ Grabowicz, Paul (February 26, 1989). "Ferrying new life to city waterfront". Oakland Tribune. pp. 1, 4 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ^ a b c d Schwarzer, Mitchell (Winter 2014). "A Tale of Two Waterfronts: Oakland's Jack London Square Competes with San Francisco". California History. 91 (4): 6–30. doi:10.1525/ch.2014.91.4.6. JSTOR 10.1525/ch.2014.91.4.6.
  18. ^ Zimmerman, Kathy (March 24, 1989). "Jack London Square – Amtrak plan wins grant". Oakland Tribune. p. B1 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. ^ Snyder, Bill (November 8, 1989). "Many historic buildings repairable – but at great cost". Oakland Tribune. pp. C-1, C-2 – via Newspapers.com.
  20. ^ Evangelista, Benny (September 24, 1990). "Commute train service back on track". Oakland Tribune. pp. A-6, A-8 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. ^ Evangelista, Benny (November 17, 1991). "On Track". Oakland Tribune. pp. A-1, A-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. ^ Gibbs, Walt. "Train service to Sacramento begins". Oakland Tribune. p. A-10 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. ^ Evangelista, Benny (August 3, 1992). "BART'S big 20th". Oakland Tribune. p. 3 – via Newspapers.com.
  24. ^ Mahoney, Brett (September 25, 1992). "Amtrak station OKd for Emeryville stop". Oakland Tribune. p. 10 – via Newspapers.com.
  25. ^ Evangelista, Benny (October 5, 1992). "Dueling agendas". Oakland Tribune. p. 3 – via Newspapers.com.
  26. ^ Evangelista, Benny (October 28, 1992). "Emeryville bullish on its Amtrak station plan". Oakland Tribune. pp. A-3, A-4 – via Newspapers.com.
  27. ^ Evangelista, Benny (December 3, 1992). "Jack London depot on fast track". Oakland Tribune. p. C-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  28. ^ a b c d Evangelista, Benny (February 2, 1994). "Oakland firm lands contract for train depot". Oakland Tribune. pp. C-1, C-2 – via Newspapers.com.
  29. ^ Evangelista, Benny (January 20, 1993). "Crew begins clearing way for Amtrak station". Oakland Tribune. p. D-9 – via Newspapers.com.
  30. ^ Evangelista, Benny (October 29, 1992). "Oakland sees new train station in '93". Oakland Tribune. p. A-3, A-6 – via Newspapers.com.
  31. ^ Evangelista, Benny (February 4, 1993). "Plans are grand for Oakland railway station". Oakland Tribune. p. D-8 – via Newspapers.com.
  32. ^ "Amtrak opens new station in Emeryville". San Francisco Examiner. August 10, 1993. p. A6 – via Newspapers.com.
  33. ^ Maybury, Joel (August 14, 1993). "Emeryville can now say 'all aboard'". Oakland Tribune. p. 7 – via Newspapers.com.
  34. ^ "Port Ordinance No. 3194". 1994 Ordinances (PDF). Port of Oakland. 1994. pp. 177–179.
  35. ^ Maybury, Joel (March 24, 1994). "Funds OK'd for Jack London Amtrak". Oakland Tribune. pp. A-11, A-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  36. ^ Delson, Sam (July 7, 1994). "Jack London station grant on track". Oakland Tribune. p. 11 – via Newspapers.com.
  37. ^ Maybury, Joel (November 15, 1994). "Amtrak expected to arrive in London Square in April". Oakland Tribune. p. 11 – via Newspapers.com.
  38. ^ Stone-Norman, Lisa (May 13, 1993). "Railroad porters recall Dellums at dedication". Oakland Tribune. p. A-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  39. ^ "Oakland Amtrak". The San Francisco Examiner. May 22, 1995. p. 5 – via Newspapers.com.
  40. ^ National Timetable: Revised Edition. Amtrak. June 11, 1995. pp. 34, 38, 39.
  41. ^ Cabanatuan, Michael (June 23, 1995). "Sleek train debuts". Modesto Bee. pp. B-1, B-2 – via Newspapers.com.
  42. ^ Bell, Ted (April 11, 1996). "Fourth daily train to Oakland starting". The Sacramento Bee. p. 16 – via Newspapers.com.
  43. ^ Abramson, Ronna (May 22, 1996). "Oakland Amtrak station off to slow roll". Oakland Tribune. p. 9 – via Newspapers.com.
  44. ^ a b Warner, David C.; Goldberg, Bruce (2021). Fifty Years of Amtrak Trains: A Comprehensive Survey of Amtrak Routes: 1971–2021. Bucklin, Missouri: White River Productions. ISBN 978-1-932804-70-6.
  45. ^ "Amtrak has a new Oakland destination". The Hanford Sentinel. November 5, 1996. p. 5 – via Newspapers.com.
  46. ^ Palmer, Jonna (November 19, 1997). "Zephyr train ends service". Oakland Tribune. pp. E-1, E-2 – via Newspapers.com.
  47. ^ Sanders, Craig (2006). Amtrak in the Heartland. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. p. 153. ISBN 978-0-253-34705-3.
  48. ^ Environmental Science Associates (February 11, 2004). Jack London Square Redevelopment Project: Final Environmental Impact Report (PDF). City of Oakland Community and Economic Development Agency. pp. II-3, VII.J-2.
  49. ^ Rosynsky, Paul T. (June 17, 2004). "Square set for $300M makeover". Oakland Tribune. pp. 1, 11 – via Newspapers.com.
  50. ^ "2018 Business Plan Update" (PDF). San Joaquin Joint Powers Authority. 2018. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 11, 2018.
  51. ^ "Capitol Corridor 2014 Vision Plan Update: Final Report" (PDF). Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority. November 19, 2014. pp. 25–27.
  52. ^ "Capitol Corridor Vision Implementation Plan" (PDF). Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority. November 2016. pp. 22, 23.
  53. ^ "Concepts". Link21 Program. 2023. Retrieved April 4, 2024.
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