Wednesday, January 06, 2010

VTA to start planning work on BRT and more

On the VTA Board agenda tomorrow is the approval of an agreement between VTA and the City of San Jose on the BRT project along the Santa Clara-Alum Rock (SCAR) corridor. Knowing that VTA has no money along with other issues, VTA decided to change what was originally a light rail project into bus rapid transit.

The proposed project would consists of two BRT lines, 522 and 523. In San Jose, new "stations" would be constructed on San Carlos Street, Santa Clara Street, and Alum Rock Avenue. Along San Carlos and Santa Clara streets, the BRT stops would mostly be longer curbside bus stops that cover the parking lane (so that buses would stay on the traffic lane while at stop). On Alum Rock Avenue east of King, BRT will have an exclusive bus way on the street median and will have dedicated BRT stations similar to light rail.

14 stations are planned along San Carlos, Santa Clara, and Alum Rock Ave. Included in the proposal is a station on Santa Clara and 28th Street, which is intended to be a BART transfer point if VTA ever finds the money to build it beyond Berryessa. Since funding for an extension beyond Berryessa is unlikely at least in the foreseeable future, VTA also proposes a BRT station at 24th Street (instead of 28th Street) to better serve the neighborhood. In addition, VTA will consider two station options near the San Jose City Hall. One option would put the eastbound bus platforms right in front of the City Hall between 5th & 6th streets. Another option would put it where it is now between 6th & 7th streets. The City of San Jose is actually quite elitist by not allowing VTA to put bus stops right in front of the City Hall. Before the construction of the City Hall, there was a bus stop for the 22 line on the southeast corner of Santa Clara Street and 4th Street. It was moved to 3rd Street during the construction and was never returned.

Included in the BRT plan is the stop enhancements along Capital Expressway between Alum Rock light rail and Eastridge, under the assumption that VTA cannot find funding to extend light rail from Alum Rock to Eastridge.

Meetings on Vasona LRT extension

Despite the fact that VTA studied the extension nearly 10 years ago, and the fact that most of the original proposal has been completed, VTA will be hosting a meeting in Campbell next week for the extension from Winchester to Vasona Junction. While VTA has completed the environmental document for the project to Vasona Junction before the construction of the line to Winchester, VTA needs to update the document and complete the federal environmental process to qualify for federal funds. Like the Alum Rock-Eastridge light rail extension, VTA no longer has local funds to build them as originally planned.

Wednesday, January 13, 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Campbell Library
77 Harrison Avenue, Campbell

3 comments:

bossyman15 said...

can't wait for 523!!! about time!

crzwdjk said...

I read somewhere that with the introduction of the 523, headways on the 23 will increase to 30 minutes. I'm not so sure that this is an improvement for the majority of 23 riders.

Anonymous said...

Given VTA financial situation, Line 23 probably won't operate and look for Line 22 as well as other routes to fund these expensive new 522/523 routes.