Antioch Amtrak Station to be Decommissioned for Oakley Station

On Friday, during a nearly 3-hour contentious discussion, the San Joaquin County Joint Powers Authority agreed to decommission the Antioch AMTRAK Station and move it to City of Oakley.

In a 6-1 vote, the Board supported arguments made by Contra Costa County Board of Supervisor Diane Burgis who urged the board to support the staff decision to focus on a regional approach to transportation. Antioch Mayor Thorpe argued the city of Antioch was blindsided by the move and called it “unfair” while at one point saying the City of Concord has more crime than Antioch.

Thorpe said he was unaware this was occurring, their most senior member on the council Monica Wilson was unaware and Supervisor Federal Glover was unaware while requesting this decision be postponed. He even admitted to advocating for the Oakley station up until two weeks ago when he realized the Oakley station was coming at the expense of Antioch.

Staff responded at one point in the meeting saying they had been in contact with city manager Con Johnson for around a year that this was occurring after former city manager Ron Bernal agreed to the decommissioning several years ago.

With the approval, the San Joaquin joint Powers Authority, with AMTRAK, will no longer serve the Antioch station upon the completion and activation of the Oakley station, estimated in Q3 2024.

Staff presented the reasoning for the decommission of the Antioch AMTRAK station for a variety of challenges while noting the previous city manager, Ron Bernal, did green-light the decommission of the station—including spending more than $433k on the demolition on the passenger shelter due to an unhoused individual living on top of the station.

“That was just one of the situations that led the previous city manager to approve to demolish the shelter and decommission the stop,” stated staff who noted they have spent money several times to replace a sign which keeps getting damaged.

Per the Staff Report, There have been several issues at the Antioch-Pittsburg Passenger Stop which staff has determined justifies decommissioning this passenger stop for the San Joaquins. Below is a list of the larger issues reported and is not an all-inclusive list:

• In September 2019, due to safety concerns with the unhoused population, the passenger shelter was demolished after a homeless individual was found residing on the roof.
• Due to the unhoused population challenges, the previous Antioch City Manager approved the decommissioning of the stop.
• In December 2022, unhoused individuals were camped inside the ADA shelter; Amtrak staff requested they vacate. When staff returned later, the homeless individuals had stolen the wheelchair lift (valued at $11,000). Until the wheelchair lift is replaced, passengers who use a wheelchair must board in either Martinez or Stockton.
• Amtrak onboard staff have been assaulted by passengers boarding in Antioch.
• To reduce fare evasion, the Antioch – Pittsburg stop uses the streetcar method, with only one door opened per train for boarding and deboarding passengers

 

Staff also cited crime data which included 69 calls for service between January 2021 to December 2022 at the Antioch Amtrak Station—including employees assaulted noting this is the only stop on the entire AMTRAK corridor where one door is open and shut at a time to prevent fare evasion and assault on conductors.  The also sited an $11k in damages to ADA wheelchair access, if someone requires this they would have to travel to City of Martinez or City of Stockton to board AMTRAK.

Board Members asked why couldn’t they keep both Antioch and Oakley stations, which staff replied it was due to BNSF rules on distance between stations–approximently just 6 miles apart.

One board member stated over 8-years of discussion with council members and stakeholders, there are people who say don’t go to the Antioch station so the choices are go to Martinez or Stockton—which leaves eastern Contra Costa County without a station if they choose not solve this. She called for a safe boarding and landing spot which improves the overall system calling it a serious situation that has escalated to a pretty serious point.

Supervisor Burgis stated Mayor Thorpe with his mayors hat (see commentary below) which made a lot of good points, but she was representing regional transportation while helping get Mayor Thorpe onto the Contra Costa Transportation Authority and serve on Tri Delta Transit—we both have hats that are regional but he is speaking on behalf of the City of Antioch.

Burgis explained that in 2018 an eBART station opened in Antioch on the Oakley border with 1,000 parking spots full, they had to add an additional 800 parking spaces. She said there really isn’t parking for the Antioch AMTRAK station.

“At a regional level, I think this works (Oakley Station), we have the eBART, we have the rail and Brentwood has some projects to extend the eBART all the way out there,” stated Burgis. “On a regional level, this makes sense because of the parking and Mayor Thorpe mentioned the ferry service..  one of the big challenges they were talking about was parking.”

Burgis said she was interested in helping Antioch develop parking for ferry service and if technology allows train stations to be closer together, maybe they could recommission the Antioch station in the future—she also cited the Antioch Police Department staffing levels as part of the issue downtown at the station.

Burgis also addressed the complaint of commuting to Oakley from Bay Point or Concord where she informed the board it was a counter commute making it easier for folks in East County.

“Based on what staff has told me about the challenges, how much has been invested, there has been investment by this organization to build and take down, when we want to talk about regional transportation, I think that a station that has parking, is ready to go, I think that make sense, I will be supporting this,” said Burgis.

Merced County Supervisor Rodrigo Espinosa questioned why they would decommission a station in a city of 120k for a city of 45k people and did it make sense for people to travel 10-miles. He suggested they give this decision more time, possibly to tour the area.

Burgis shot back saying if you point a finger at a station, they have folks going to the station from Bethel Island, Discovery Bay, Rio Vista, Tracy, the Oakley location is more convenient  to get to as they are trying to take vehicles off the road.

“Its actually more convenient and you takes more cars off the road,” stated Burgis. “I am sure we will be serving Antioch, but you will also be serving my District which is 230k people and a lot of unincorporated areas.”

Mayor Nancy Young of Tracy, called it a difficult decision but they had to look at this regionally. She stated safety is an important issue. She was sympathetic to Antioch being “blindsided” and stated in the future when this board takes up major decisions such as decommissioning a station, to provide outreach to local cities.

After some more discussion by the board over distance and safety, Burgis stated they should be looking at this from a regional level.

“I would think this body is interested in more people on the train,” said Burgis. “I believe we see parking and more access, we are going to get more people on the train… if the goal is to get more people on the train, then this provides an opportunity for more people to get to the train get on the train and use the train.”

Board Member Jose Rodriguez, City of Madera, asked about the effort to bring in city officials in Antioch regarding the decommissioning of the station citing it was news to some in Antioch.

Staff said they have had discussions with City Manager Con Johnson for about a year.

Director Doug Verboon, Supervisor Kings County, stated he remembered hearing from Oakley years ago but never about closing the Antioch Amtrak station. He shared he would like to see it with his own eyes and although its only 6-miles, after seeing it, this could make more sense.

At this point in the meeting, the board appeared to be learning towards postponing the decision to get more feedback from local officials and the community regarding the closure of the Antioch station.

The Board then asked about BART Stations and if they were in both Antioch and Oakley.

Supervisor Burgis replied the eBART station was located in Antioch on the Antioch/Oakley border but its closer to Highway 4 than downtown Antioch.

“There is a lot of people coming from Brentwood, Oakley, Discovery Bay, Rio Vista, Tracy, different people who are coming in to take rail,” stated Burgis. “I also want to point out there is a lot of people in our area including Antioch, which is a large portion is in my District,  who is going over the hill to Livermore to get on the ACE Train… rail is definitely something local folks use, as a regional, they use it to get around the Bay Area.”

Staff then highlighted they were a partner with AMTRAK who said they may not do the Antioch station anymore because of safety concerns.

“I want to point out while this may be new to Mayor Thorpe, its been something that has been worked on for 10 plus years with Antioch, with Oakley, with Contra Costa County being represented and being aware this was going forward,” explained Burgis who noted this could create a confidence issue with future agencies that this board could change their mind after cities make investments on improving an area for future stations.

During Public Comments, Mayor Lamar Thorpe offered comments.

“I get the agenda item in terms of crime. What you are forgetting is you are describing this as just Antioch, its an East County issue. As if moving it to a different city is going to eliminate the problems. That is the same with the BART station, its not my problems, it’s the regions problems,” stated Thorpe. “You are blaming us, the city of Antioch, for a regional problem. That is not right, that is not fair and historically we link people of color for these problems and then shift the responsibility somewhere else.”

Thorpe called Antioch the fastest growing city in the Bay Area and people are choosing to come here and live here. He accepted responsibility in the failure to response to safety and work with partners but stated the city of Antioch would be more than happy to do what this board liked to keep the station and create a safe environment.

“Of course I look at this as a regional issue, everybody likes to pile on us from a regional perspective and not accept their own responsibility, we have sufficient parking,” stated Thorpe. “I invite all of you to come to downtown Antioch so that you can see the parking while further away there is an entire parking lot a few steps away, and a block away there is city hall. We have sufficient parking… including private security including Antioch Amtrak”

He stated no one has ever brought the AMTRAK station to the city or requested funding for certain items.

“That is not right, it is not fair,” stated Thorpe who said the previous mayor Sean Wright hightailed it to Idaho and may have had a conversation with then Oakley Mayor Kevin Romick about shutting down the station but never brought it to the rest of the council. “This is breaking news to me, this is breaking news to our most senior person on our city council Monica Wilson who has been on the council for 12-years. This is breaking news to our Supervisor Federal Glover who has been involved in politics for decades. He represents this area.”

Thorpe continued by saying the idea is to get cars off the road and into public transportation which should be the goal. That they should not be thinking about parking lots, but more on-demand services to get people rides to where they needed to go.

“This is very unfair because we have not been brought into the discussion,” said Thorpe. “You have seen the financial commitments we have made in millions of dollars, why would we not want to make financial contributions to build up our AMTRAK station. I don’t know when this conversation started in 2014, or how many years ago, but it didn’t involve Antioch.”

Thorpe also highlighted he had been supporting the Oakley station but didn’t realize it was at the expense of Antioch because they had planned around the AMTRAK station, including transit oriented housing.

Kevin Romick agreed with Thorpe that East Contra Costa County was one of the fastest growing regions in the Bay Area, but being left out of the discussion today was the City of Brentwood.

“We keep talking about Antioch, Antioch, Antioch, and Antioch needs a station. Antioch has 120k people, Pittsburg has 75,000 people, Brentwood is getting close to 75,000 people. Oakley is the smallest at 45,000 with potential growth of up to 70,000. So there is a lot more going on here than just Antioch,” stated Romick. “For most of Antioch, the growth is south of the Highway 4 in southeast Antioch which is closer to Highway 4, for most of those people the closest station is the Oakley station. The Antioch is more difficult to get to.”

Romick invited the board out to visit the two locations, surrounding areas, and make a decision but was confident Oakley provides a better opportunity to increase ridership.

The conversation then returned to the Board.

Burgis brought the topic back to a regional approach while highlighting the growth in East Contra Costa County.

Staff reminded the Board that members did previously tour the Oakley area and made the decision which highlighted a path had been taken and would then be reversed to preserve  the Antioch station—if that was the direction of the Board, staff was seeking timeline and deliverables.

Young stated she was in favor of a continuation of the item versus a reversal which is two different things because she did not want to stop the progress.

Burgis stated Oakley has invested more than $6 million while the JPA is continuing to the platform. She urged the board to approve the staff recommendation while offering Antioch an option to get its station back in the future. She called it important they not stop the Oakley station.

Young stated it was important to get bus service to downtown Antioch to get them to the Oakley station while stating it would be frustrating to work on something for 10-years only to go backwards at the last minute just because people on boards and city managers change.

She then explained she didn’t want a continuation to impede on what Oakley was doing because its 10-years deep and $6 million spent—she called the continuation would only be to bridge the gap in services once Antioch was shut down such as bus services.

Staff jumped in saying they can’t leave the decommissioning of Antioch out there because they are currently building the Oakley station with a completion date of fall/winter of next year. Its an issue for BNSF that they cant have both stations. They also cant leave Antioch there because people will still think its an active train station and it creates confusion. If they continue the discussion, they have to decide to stop progress on Oakley because why would the JPA or Oakley continue to spend funds on something that would not become a reality, they would then have to discuss what service in Antioch would look like from safety and what the platform would look like.

The Board expressed concerns with stopping progress in Oakley but said as a board and staff has to have better information and outreach to the public.

After some procedural issues on the board vote, substitute motion, Burgis made the motion to approve the staff direction to decommission the Antioch Station for Oakley and then come back with ways to possibly re-open Antioch in the future—including outreach to the community.

After more questions from the board on the “pause” for a continuation, staff asked the board to consider what exactly they were gaining on a pause because items were in motion already and eventually they would have to choose anyway between recommitting to Antioch station (not knowing what that would look like) versus an Oakley station.

Needing 6-votes to pass, the item originally failed on its first vote in a 5-2 vote. With a board member concerned the item not passing would pause progress in Oakley, they voted to reconsider their original vote–which passed. They then re-voted on the motion to decommission the Antioch Station which passed in a 6-1 vote.

Thorpe Provides Overview of City of Antioch

Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe was given a courtesy of his own agenda item to give an update on the City of Antioch which he hoped would prevent the decommissioning of the Amtrak station.

He stated the staff report  had two things which stood out to him which were crime and homelessness.

“Shutting down a train station is not a solution to homelessness. Its just not,” said Thorpe noting Antioch has come a long way since the economic downturn.

Thorpe told the Board in the last two years since he was mayor, crime had gone down and has not surpassed the rate of crime anytime between 2013-2022.

“We continue to drive down crime in our city because it’s a challenge and last year the murder rate went down by 25% and that is huge for our city,” stated Thorpe. “We are making strides today because of the investments in our city.”

He then compared Antioch to Concord while noting Antioch is the second most racially diverse in the San Francisco Bay Area.

“The City of Concord has more crime than Antioch,” stated Thorpe. “I don’t know why; I don’t understand how but crime continues to plague us because of the narrative in the City of Antioch.”

His talking points included a new Chines Historic District within walking distance of a station, a $1.8 million CALVIP grant award, new department of Public Safety and Community Resources, while calling Antioch key because of its location in East County that everyone has to travel through it.

Thorpe argued that the narrative doesn’t support the closure of the station and called it alarming.

“This is all new to me, I didn’t know we were shutting down the AMTRAK station. When I talked to my colleagues on the city council, they didn’t know that the station was being shut down,” stated Thorpe. “Oakley, getting a new station is not news to us, we didn’t know it would come at the expense of the city of Antioch. We just did know our former city manager Ron Bernal with your staff and agreed to shut down the station.”

Thorpe argued the community voted for him and his four colleagues on the city council who make decision on behalf the people, not the city manager.

“That was inappropriate and wrong,” stated Thorpe. “I spoke to our representative, County Supervisor Federal Glover, he has no clue that this was happening today. He said please share with them I would like a voice in this decision as well. We have not had that opportunity.”

Thorpe highlighted the city has made investments in homelessness, including purchasing hotel space at the County Facility in Pittsburg. The city has leased a 33-room hotel for homeless individuals—including wrap around services (a $2.3 million investment).

“No city in Contra Costa County is making the kinds of investment that the city of Antioch has made towards homeless services, no city. We are the only city doing that,” stated Thorpe. “We are serious about homelessness and the issues we have seen plague our city for a long-long time. The Amtrak station is a part of this.”

Thorpe also highlighted Antioch is launching its 24/7 Crisis Response Team which is a non-police response which allows police to handle police calls and professionals to handle other calls such as homelessness and mental health—a $1.8 million investment each year.

“This was the flagship of our police reform efforts that we started a few years ago,” said Thorpe.

Thorpe also highlighted the downtown specific downtown plan which focuses around transit oriented development and that the only transit is the transit buses and Amtrak station—in 2018, AMTRAK was always part of the downtown development strategy with housing because it had been zoned for mixed use, high density residential and medium density housing all within walking distance of the station.

He then highlighted the $28 million transportation grant to Contra Costa County which money from that is being used to transform L Street which leads to the AMTRAK station.

He then stated the Chamber of Commerce is making the investment to tourism to the downtown which includes the AMTRAK station—which includes a $100k investment from the city of Antioch.

Thorpe then mentioned the El Campanil Theatre, which is the oldest continuing theatre in East County which is in walking distance to the AMTRAK station. Along with Waldie Plaza being transformed into the Chinese Historic District.

“We were one of the original sundown towns in California where we burned down Chinatown and pushed people out because we didn’t want them there,” stated Thorpe who noted up until the 1990’s Antioch was mostly white. “It wasn’t white by happenstance; it was white by design so we are breaking a lot of barriers to get to the place where we are at today.”

Thorpe stated around the AMTRAK station you have a large population of the Latino community and the underserved community.

He also stated that G St & 2^nd Street were undergoing a “renaissance” which a new cannabis dispensary on G St—calling cannabis businesses being very “nice for Antioch” because they have increased public safety and being so close to the AMTRAK station is critical.

Thorpe then highlighted they were building a new towns square near the AMTRAK station. This project is in the planning phase at $200k after residents had fought for a town square.

He then brought up the investment of private security for the downtown which they were finishing up an RFQ to award a contract. He then highlighted the success of two local restaurants in Monica’s Riverview and Smiths Landing Seafood Grill. The private security also would assist in improving safety,

“I can’t emphasize enough we have made investments in this city for public safety, investments for unhoused residents, investments to economic development and the plan has been around the AMTRAK station,” explained Thorpe. “To have that taken away from us, I just cant in good conscious sit here and agree to that.”

Thorpe stated he hoped the Board voted no on decommissioning the station in Antioch for Oakley and urged the Board to postpone the decision to give others a voice to speak up on the station.

“Pleas do not close our AMTRAK station,” stated Thorpe.

After some comments from the Board, Thorpe called this decision to close the station a reaction.

“In my time in public policy, I’ve never seen a good decision when it’s a knee jerk reaction, every decision that we have made as our city, the investments we made is a long-term plan,” stated Thorpe. “It requires structural changes in our city, which means going against the status quo and pissing a lot of people off but we have made those commitments and we are going to make those commitments. But what we are not going to do is make knee-jerk reactions.”

Board Member Jose Rodriguez, City of Madera, agreed that no decision should be made by a city manager and they should have the opportunity and that the decision should come from the governing board.

“The fact this came before you as a shock obviously raises questions,” stated Rodriquez who noted the City of Madera has something similar happen in the past.

Former Oakley Mayor/Councilmember Kevin Romick spoke under public comments highlighting the $6.5 million in investments to help bring an AMTRAK station to the city and support the platform—including 200 parking spaces, updated roads and sidewalks, infrastructure and landscaping.

“We have  been working on this effort since 2014 including millions of dollars in in-kind improvements to support the platform,” stated Romick. “Our platform will be safe, well lit, and will be a critical component to attract new investment into the downtown.”

He also noted how safe Oakley is as over the last decade Oakley has been named one of the top 50 safest cities in California via SafeWise.

Acting Oakley City Manager Kevin Rohani echoed Romick’s comments saying Oakley had been working with the San Joaquin Joint Powers Authority for nearly 10-years—since 2014 in a collaborative fashion towards an Oakley Station while structuring improvements around the station. He noted the work done with local partners such as Tri Delta Transit with buses along with a recent bus station just a ½ mile from the site.

“Our plan, along with Tri Delta Transit, is to bus people to the station to use the station,” said Rohani. “This is a much broader project that was not created overnight. We have been working on it for nearly 10 years to structure all the components of it not only with the San Joaquin Joint Powers, but also our other sister agencies.”

Thorpe then responded saying he also serves on Tri Delta Transit stating it doesn’t make sense to split up all the transit points and not have one hub—calling it “ridiculous”.

“Down the street, not a ½ mile away, is a proposed park and ride,” stated Thorpe. “This is breaking news to me. I serve on Tri Delta Transit and I have served on Tri Delta Transit for the last six years. This is breaking news to me.”

He then argued the park and ride being developed in Antioch is much closer in terms of relative location than the one in Oakley.

The board then moved onto Item 9.