At last weekend’s Festival of the Arts event — a street fair extravaganza spanning two days, 700 booths, and more than 300,000 people — the City of Fremont teamed up with BART to highlight the upcoming opening of the Warm Springs/South Fremont Station.

Warm weather and good food attracted the usual crush of festival-goers in Fremont last weekend.

Over 50 volunteers talked to hundreds of residents about the changes that are on tap as a result of BART’s expansion toward Santa Clara County.

Here are some common questions we heard throughout the weekend.


“It’s going to be completed when??”

Give or take a few weeks, BART is scheduled to pull into the Warm Springs station this December — a fact that astounded visitors stopping by the joint City/BART booth. We’re in the home stretch, and the public couldn’t be more pleased. BART is already well-utilized by Fremont residents, and now employees who work in South Fremont can arrive in the heart of the Innovation District.

Kids had fun playing on the “BART-mobile” — although we had to explain that this was not a replica of the next-generation BART cars currently on order!

“When can I live in Downtown or Warm Springs?”

We all know that housing opportunities connected to transit are hot commodities. Even more popular are housing options that are connected to transit AND have pedestrian-friendly public amenities, active public spaces, and yes — jobs. The lifestyle shift to more urban living interests everyone from all ages and walks of life.

Music acts were well-attended, showing community support of the arts in all forms


“When will BART connect with San Jose?”

People understand the importance of BART reaching San Jose and the rest of Silicon Valley. Both the Milpitas and Berryessa stations are currently under construction, and completion could happen as soon as 2017/18. With the Warm Springs station offering a mid-point connection to a major employment center, Fremont provides the opportunity for BART tofunction as a real two-way system by being able to draw riders to and from in both directions.

Overall, the community is enthusiastic that it will soon be even easier to get around. There was a general sense of appreciation on local efforts concentrating on quality development at transit nodes. We look forward to sharing the evolving story at future festivals.

A few more festival factoids courtesy of the Fremont Chamber:

  • 2015 marked the 32nd anniversary of the Festival of the Arts. The first festival was held in 1983 in the Fremont Hub.
  • Folks consume 18,526 ice cream bars at the festival.
  • The Festival of the Arts is the largest two-day street festival west of the Mississippi.
  • On average, servers pour 23,552 mugs of ice-cold beer during the festival.