Wednesday, October 29, 2008

VTA schedules VTP 2035 meetings after the election

Without providing advance notice to its advisory committees, VTA announced it will hold meetings on VTP 2035 right after the election.

VTP 2035 is a transportation wish list (includes highway and transit projects) that VTA has to submit to the MTC every few years in order to receive state and federal funding. VTP will determine the transportation priority.

On the November ballot, Measure C was supposed to ask voters to approve VTP 2035. However, because VTA delayed releasing the plan until the after the election, the Measure C ballot language asks voters to approve a plan "to be adopted" by the VTA board in December.

There's no reason for VTA to ask voters to pre-approve a plan that voters can't see. Without a balanced capital plan for the last two years, there's no reason to assume that VTA wouldn't propose cuts to projects like Caltrain electrification after the election. We already know that Measure B would not be enough to build and subsidize the BART line.

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