While Mercury News readers dubbed the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority’s $76 million tunnel boring machine “Shai-Hulud,” after the sand worm creatures from “Dune,” the transit agency has its own idea — anointing the massive machine with a moniker after a prominent local woman.
VTA, which is spearheading the more than $12 billion BART extension from the Berryessa Transit Center in north San Jose through downtown and to Santa Clara, announced its long-awaited naming contest this week. The custom-made machine has been likened to a mechanical earthworm and will dig a five-mile-long, nearly 54-foot in diameter tunnel to make way for BART.
VTA is taking name submissions online through Monday, April 29, and asks that the name honor a “prominent female figure” associated with Santa Clara County or the surrounding communities.
“TBMs are traditionally given a female name to provide good luck to the project, and similar projects across the world have followed this practice,” VTA said in an email announcing the contest. “This tradition dates to the 14th century and is based on the patron saint of military engineers and miners, Saint Barbara, who stood as a symbol of protection and good luck for miners. Miners would name tunneling machines with a female name as a way to pay homage to her.”
Other cities that have used tunnel boring machines and have followed this practice include Seattle, which named its machine “Bertha” after the first female mayor, Bertha Knight Landes, and San Francisco, which named its “Mom Chung” after the first Chinese-American woman physician in Chinatown.
Late last year, The Mercury News held its own naming contest, and while the sci-fi worm won out, other popular nominations included Diggy McDigface, Dionne Warwick (Grammy Award-winning singer of “Do You Know the Way to San Jose”) and Boring McBoringface.
“I think it’s a good way to engage people with BART SV in a positive way,” transit advocate Monica Mallon said. “VTA did a naming contest before for the first light rail car and it seemed to drive a lot of positive engagement.”
VTA ordered the custom-made machine last year from a German company. It will be manufactured, assembled and tested overseas before its broken down and shipped in pieces to Santa Clara County. Officials said it will be capable of digging 30 to 40 feet a day.
The six-mile BART extension has been in the works for years and has faced ballooning costs and time delays. A recent review of the project by the Federal Transit Administration increased the cost once again — this time by $600 million — and added an additional seven months onto the timeline. The project is expected to cost $12.75 billion and will open in 2037.
VTA officials don’t foresee any future increases as they expect to get shovels in the ground this year to start digging the hole that the tunnel boring machine will eventually use to burrow deep below the surface.
