VTA and the City of San Jose need more cooperation

Recently, bus reroute brochures have appeared on many buses traveling through downtown San Jose. These brochures describe the temporary rerouting for the Rock and Roll Half Marathon in Downtown San Jose on October 8. The event requires the temporary closure of The Alameda and Santa Clara Street, among others.

Unlike the rerouting information provided for the San Jose Grand Prix. These rerouting brochures only contain the reroute descriptions in text, with no maps and graphics, and are photocopied rather than printed.

It was reported that the VTA had no prior knowledge of this event until sometime early last week when one of the VTA staffers visited the Marathon's web site. The VTA staff quickly drafted a rerouting plan and made it available to the public.

Although VTA's quick action has prevented a possible transit meltdown on the morning of October 8, it also highlights that the City of San Jose, which hosts the event, needs to work with VTA to plan around special events and to help market transit to participants. The Rock and Roll Marathon's web site contains no information on VTA, despite the fact that the light rail and some of the bus routes start operating early on Sundays, well before the 7:55am start of the race. The Bay to Breakers, on the other hand, provides extensive information on access by public transit online.