This Saturday, September 14, the Transbay Coalition and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) Action will lead a protest/celebration/train ride to protest the decommissioning of the Antioch Amtrak station.
The groups oppose the removal of the station, a decision made by the San Joaquin Joint Powers Authority (SJJPA) in March of 2023. While the SJJPA has been designing a new stop on the San Joaquins route nearby - about six miles away in the town of Oakley - it isn't clear why both stations can't be kept open.
Antioch has decent boarding numbers - higher than some of the stations along the route in the Central Valley - and its population is larger, much poorer, and less white than the town of Oakley. It's a bad look for the SJJPA, exacerbated by the Authority' handwringing over the presence of unhoused people, crime, and fare evasion.
In 2017, a drone shot showed that someone was living in a tent inside an open tank-like structure on top of the station building. To deal with the problem, the city agreed to demolish the building and, according to the SJJPA, to "decommission the platform."
Thus began a wild series of misunderstandings. No one at the city itself - neither of two former city managers, nor the current mayor - say they approved the decommissioning of the station. One of the former city managers, Ron Bernal, who is currently running for mayor against the incumbent, says that he approved only the removal of the building. His replacement, Con Johnson, was put on administrative leave just before the March 2023 meeting when the vote was taken. The current mayor, Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe, insists that Bernal approved the move, but Johnson accuses the mayor of being more interested in suppressing media stories about crime statistics than preserving the station, and says the Mayor knew all along that the station was going to be decommissioned.
The city had planned, with local funding and money from the SJJPA, to redesign the station area to be a platform-only boarding area, with seating and trees. But funding for that project has recently been quietly rerouted to a nearby street project.
The March 2023 vote was approved by County Supervisor Diane Burgis, who wrote in a statement that "the decision to decommission the Antioch Amtrak station had been years in the making. It was based on persistent crime, violence and homelessness around the station that created an unsafe situation for passengers and Amtrak workers."
She made that statement to the press on Thursday, August 1, the day after the SJJPA Board of Directors were sent a letter from Congressman John Garamendi (D-Fairfield) opposing the station's closure. His letter pointed out that closing the station is not a solution to crime and homelessness, but further harms an already disadvantaged community.
The Contra Costa Herald's Allen D. Payton did an outstanding job of trying to explain it all in a very long article, sharing what his team had found via public information requests. Payton mentions that the SJJPA may have had to "cut a deal with BNSF [who owns the tracks] to get the Oakley station."
Garamendi asks for clarification on this. "If the Joint Powers Authority or Amtrak’s agreement with BNSF Railway precludes two passenger rail stops less than six miles apart, please provide documentation of this requirement for public review," he writes. (Note that several other stations along the route, including Richmond, Berkeley, Emeryville, and Oakland, are set at similar or shorter distances.)
Also, he asks: "Was the Joint Powers Authority planning to decommission the Antioch-Pittsburg station regardless of the new Amtrak station opening in Oakley? If so, when, where, why, and how was this decision made by the Joint Powers Authority? Was the public given ample opportunity for public comment to inform this decision?'
Garamendi's staff say that so far he has not received a response to his letter.
At one point in the long article explaining who said what, the Herald quotes a representative of the SJJPA describing the Antioch station as "a quick platform-only stop with no shelter." This wasn't actually true until the city agreed to remove the building on the urging of the Authority. Was the city sabotaged? Or did it sabotage itself?
The organizers of the "whistle-stop tour and celebration" are asking people to join them to ride the San Joaquins train route to Antioch on Saturday (Train 716 leaving Oakland Jack London Square at 1:30 pm, with stops in Oakland, Emeryville, Richmond, and Martinez, arriving at Pittsburg-Antioch Station at 2:50 pm, or Train 713 from the east). The ride offers rare views of the Sacramento River Delta. In Antioch, the celebration will include a walking tour of the historic downtown and the El Campanil Theatre, music, food, and happy hour on the banks of the San Joaquin River.
The SJJPA will hold a board meeting at 11 am on September 20, at 1025 Escobar Street in Martinez, where, they say, there will be "opportunity for public comment on Antioch Amtrak Station closure." This seems to be the first time the public has been invited to speak on the matter.
