VTA Tidbits

From the April VTA Take One, which is not available from the VTA's web site at the time of writing:

Effective April 9, schedules changes will be made for bus lines 48, 49, 52, 53, 60, 62, 63, 70, 76, 88, 140, 328, 330, and 522. The following will also be effective April 9:

Line 22 - minor schedule changes, some early morning and late night service to Menlo Park will be discontinued.

Line 141 - weekend seasonal service between Great America and Fremont BART station has been discontinued.

Line 180 - major schedule changes, two new northbound trips will be added on weekends from the Great Mall to Fremont BART stations at 7:14pm and 8:14pm.

As a part of the two-year budget planning process, VTA has proposed to reduce "fares for Day Passes and for Youth and Senior/Disabled Monthly Passes, as well as new fares for VTA's Community Bus lines." Meetings will be held in late April and early May to receive comments from the public.

Finally, the delusionals at VTA and the San Jose City Hall will be holding meetings on station designs for the unbuildable and underfunded BART extension. They really wanted to waste our time to get our feedback on the colors of the station walls and ceilings.

BART Station Architecture Open House
April 12, 2007 - 6:00 p.m.

The station architectural design process is well-underway on the BART Project. The City of San José and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) have completed the first phase of conceptual design for station architecture. Several rounds of stakeholder meetings have been conducted to establish a “vision” for the four BART stations in San José.

On Thursday, April 12, 2007, community members are invited to join staff from VTA and the City of San José at the BART Station Architecture Open House to view the conceptual designs of each of the four stations and offer feedback on the initial concepts.

This event will focus on the process that the City of San José, VTA and their design consultants have been through to reach two design concepts for the Berryessa, Alum Rock, Downtown San Jose and Diridon/Arena Stations. Each station has taken on an individual design, incorporating the areas’ history, the community and surrounding neighborhood attributes. Input received by the public will be presented during the next round of stakeholder meetings to further refine the design concepts of the stations. Please join us at:

San José City Hall
Room W118-119
200 East Santa Clara Street
San José, CA
on
Thursday, April 12, 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.

For further information on the BART Station Architecture Open House or process, contact Henry Servin at (408) 975-3078, City of San José Department of Transportation; or Brandi Hall at (408) 952-4297, VTA Marketing and Public Affairs Department.

We look forward to seeing you!

San Jose's problem is not the lack of BART or any subway. Having a small subway station (the delusionals call that the Grand Central Station!) at First and Santa Clara will not fix anything, as Ron Compton pointed out in a letter to the editor:

"I worked for our local transit system for 31 years and have dealt with the conventioneers; I've heard their complaints. San Jose is one of the hardest cities to get around in. You have all the hotels in town and all the shopping centers out of town."