Sore loser Gonzales tries to re-interpret reality

The message voters sent on June 6 was loud and clear: they demand a fiscally responsible transportation plan without new taxes. After six years of declining ridership and transit cut-backs, they finally rejected Measure A, along with the false promises made by BART supporters.
For some, such as the lame-duck San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales, simply cannot understand reality. He still opposes any other alternative to building the entire BART extension to the Santa Clara rail yard in one phase. Since now he can no longer lie to the voters about the fraudulent tax revenue and BART ridership projections, he can only tell you that he doesn't care about everything else: bus service, paratransit, light rail, Caltrain... can all be sacrificed as long as engineering and construction contracts for the downtown BART subway can be awarded. VTA Watch, as well as many others, knew his intention all along, and now everyone gets to see where Gonzales' only priority is.

It is good to know that he is on his way out of the City Hall with no political future in sight, all due to his own fault.

Silicon Valley Losers Group

This is what SVLG should stand for after spending $650,000 on a campaign for more-of-the-same failed transportation policies and projects. After six years, voters finally saw through the false promises of the 2000 Measure A and BART, and certainly disapproved the backroom deal that created the 2006 Measure A.

Congratulations to the No on Measure A committee for conducting a low budget, truth-based campaign.

Is the 2000 Measure A becoming a lost cause?

A quick read over the minutes of the 2000 Measure A Project Advisory Committee meeting on 5/11 reveals a sad future for VTA. The 2000 Measure A is slowly losing its purpose of transporting people and becoming just a list of pork barrel projects for the consultants and the construction industry.

Alum Rock-Santa Clara light rail - VTA is "exploring a modified version of the light rail alternative, which would operate on the eastern side of the corridor on Alum Rock Avenue between Five Wounds Church (Near U.S. 101) and Capitol Avenue/Capitol Expressway with Eastridge as the final destination."

If this alternatives goes through, it would render this light rail project useless for transportation. Currently, two bus routes (64 and 522) operate the entire length of Alum Rock-Santa Clara corridor between Capitol Avenue and Downtown San Jose. This alternative would make transit inferior by either duplicating light rail service with existing bus service, or force passengers to transfer from light rail to bus (or BART) at Five Wounds Church on their way to Downtown San Jose.

The logic for advocating a shortened light rail is clear: The politicians want light rail on the Alum Rock-Santa Clara corridor, but the project is facing diffculty given the restricted street width and the duplication with the BART subway between the Five Wounds Church and Downtown San Jose. VTA and the politicians may want East Valley passengers to transfer from light rail to BART to get to downtown, but with less than two miles from downtown, this idea (along with BART itself) only wastes tax money and creates inconvenience.

San Jose Airport People Mover - VTA is proposing a three-station people-mover system connecting the Santa Clara Caltrain station (proposed BART station), the airport, and the Light Rail station on 1st Street). VTA plans to build it under the airport's runway and would use automated vehicles operating every 3 minutes.

While on the surface it seems like a good idea and it has support from the Airport commission, the details later revealed demostrate the nonviability of the project.

The Airport and VTA are considering a single station at the airport for the people mover. The people mover will not connect the terminals, and it will not connect with the long term parking lots as well as the rental car center.

The 2000 Measure A would only fund the portion between the Santa Clara Caltrain station and the airport. The connection between the airport and the light rail would be funded by the City of San Jose, but the city has yet to commit any funds.

VTA assumes only the capital cost of the people mover project. VTA General Manager Michael Burns stated that "from VTA’s perspective that VTA would not have responsibility for the operations or maintenance costs."

As it is, the proposed airport people mover is an independent subway system from two transit stations with an airport station in between. It will be funded by all airport users and will have no purpose other than getting transit riders to the airport.

While the airport people mover may create jobs for the engineers and planners, this project is simply not viable. The projected ridership (11,500 per day according to VTA) is insufficient to support a rail system. Also, without it to serve other airport facilities like long-term parking and rental car center, the airport would not be able to achieve cost effieciencies (by not having to run buses to these locations) and instead create a huge financial drain. In order to build and operate this, the airport would have to ask the struggling airlines and their passengers to pay for a service that most users would not use.

While these projects would be a windfall for the engineering consultants and the construction industry, the losers will be the everyday transit riders.

Soap opera drama between SamTrans and BART

Since the opening of the BART extension to Millbrae in 2003, BART and SamTrans, instead of getting into a "marriage," it is more like getting a "divorce." Essentially BART is the parent that has the custody of the BART extension, and SamTrans is the other parent that has to pay "child support."

The marriage between BART and SamTrans actually happened years before that, when both agencies were pursuing regional and federal funds to construct the project. That was when BART and SamTrans agreed on a over-estimated ridership projection, as well as building unnecessary subways and extra station platforms which drove the cost up.

Under the agreement between both agencies, BART bills SamTrans for the operating costs based on car-miles. Therefore SamTrans has an incentive to reduce its operating subsidies by asking BART to run fewer and shorter trains. Since 2003, the service along the BART extension south of Daly City has changed a few times in order to reduce SamTrans' operating subsidies.

The current cost disputes surrounds a recent decision made by BART earlier this year to expand train length on the Dublin/Pleasanton line, which serves the SFO extension. SamTrans did not request the increase of train length, but is asked to pay for it.

Although according to the Matier and Ross article on SF Chronicle that the SFO has out-performed other stations, it is in no way meeting the original, or even revised, ridership projection made before the extension opened. In fact, the ridership was drop by 3.2% in March from last year.

Could this happen at VTA?

Another example of tweaking budget projections

It appears that VTA is teaching the Santa Clara County the fine art of tweaking budget projections to justify a new sales tax.

Over the last six years, VTA has nearly perfected the fine art of tweaking tax revenue projections to sell sales taxes. Fortuately for the last few months, politicians in the north and south county rejected a new upwardly revised tax revenue projection for a proposed VTA sales tax. However with Measure A this June, the county government appears to forgo its more prudent financial planning and adopting VTA's approach of issuing new budget projection to demostrate its funding "needs."

Instead of over-projecting tax revenue, the county is over-projecting its budget deficit by adding in projected deficit of the county's hospital system to its general funds deficit, which the county did not back in February. According to the Mercury News, the new projected deficit for 2008 is now nearly matches the projected tax revenue from Measure A.

Could it be a motive to try to increase support for Measure A, or could it be a first sign of the anticipated food fight between the county and SVLG over spending priorities if Measure A passes? The fact that the county revealed its new projection in less than a month from election, instead of in February, should raise a red flag. Either way, this is another reason why we should vote no on Measure A.

Merc and SVLG have no choice but to dis-inform

The Mercury News and the SVLG are conducting a massive dis-information campaign about Measure A. Three editorials published today on the Mercury News supporting Measure A as the only way to save the BART project, that they're expecting that half of the Measure A tax revenue to be spent on transportation, especially BART, although that is not guaranteed, and that Measure A would support county's services.

At the same time, some voters in Sunnyvale have reported receiving a mailer from the Yes on Measure A campaign showing a Caltrain photograph. It seems clear that SVLG is deliberately misinform voters by sending mailers showing Caltrain to voters in north and south county, and mailers showing BART or highway to voters in San Jose and Milpitas, despite the fact that the language of Measure A does not mention BART or Caltrain, and that SVLG has no intention to fulfill whatever empty Caltrain promises to voters in north and south county.

The Mercury News and SVLG may have a legitimate interest in the BART project, although much of what their arguments in support of BART are mostly fraudulent. It still leaves a question why are they pushing a general sales tax and dis-inform voters instead of taking the high road and go for a specific tax. Simply, the support for BART has dropped significantly from 2000 and won't meet the 2/3 voter approval requirement, and that the region could not agree on a fair and responsible transportation tax plan to sell to the voters. In one form or another, SVLG must tell lies to the north and south county voters in order to divert their tax dollars to the subway in downtown San Jose. These lies include support for non-BART transportation projects like Caltrain, underestimation of the true cost of BART, and over projection of BART ridership.

SVLG is making fake promises to voters now and, if Measure A were to be approved, a food fight is expected at the Board of Supervisors to try to divert as much funds to BART, at the expense of other transit projects in the county as well as at the expense of county services.

Measure A is another reflection of the Silicon Valley's culture of bad government and corruption, with SVLG being at the core. Only a NO vote on Measure A can force the politicians in this county to be more honest.

No matter what the bill number is, tax hypocrites are still tax hypocrites

In recent days, SVLG and State Senator Elaine Alquist launched a counter-attack defending SB1291, a bill that would exempt corporations from state sales taxes, as well as Measure A this June. Patrick Moore offered an analysis of SB1291 and how the corporations would benefit from this bill.

John Ambroseo, speaking on behalf of SVLG, argued that supporting SB1291 and Measure A is not hypocritical because they are "somewhat separate issues." Supporters of SB1291, which also supported SB552, claims that SB1291 is not a tax shift because local sales taxes would not be exempted. A close look shows otherwise.

One of the arguments used by the Measure A proponents is that the county needs extra funds due to the reduction of subsidy from the state and federal government. In the county's presentation to the Board of Supervisors, the county claims that "State support for local services, specifically, health and human services has dropped by 16.5% over the past 4 years."

Currently, over a quarter of the state general fund supports local health and human services, with most of that funding transferred to local counties to implement various social programs. If SB1291 passes, the state government would lose $2.1 billion annually, and therefore would reduce its ability to support services provided by the county, and increase the need for local counties to identify other funding source to support its programs. In addition, SB1291 would reduce the state's ability to fund for K-12 along with higher education, which more than half of the state general fund goes to.

Although Alquist and SVLG can claim their move from supporting SB552 to SB1291 as a pragmatic move not to reduce local tax revenues, both SB1291 and Measure A would still mean a shift of the tax burden from corporations to small businesses and families. No matter what the bill number is, tax hypocrites are still tax hypocrites.

VTA helps to tank Gilroy Caltrain ridership

With all the recent mumbling from Don Gage's office about double tracking the Caltrain line from San Jose to Gilroy, we should realize that Caltrain is only carrying a fraction of riders in the South County than it was six years ago.

Gilroy extension ridership:
2001 - 1,555 riders per day
2002 - 1,143
2003 - 987
2004 - 667
2005 - 636
2006 - 471
(source: Caltrain February 2006 passenger counts. Passenger count provided to VTA showed 364 South County riders)

Why has the Gilroy extension ridership gone down all these years, especially during the last two years when the overall Caltrain ridership increased by over 25% due to the introduction of the Baby Bullet service?

Although the economic decline during and after 2001 is a major factor for the drop in ridership, VTA also took actions that essentially chased passengers away from the trains. In Spring 2003, VTA completed the widening of Highway 101 between South San Jose and Morgan Hill. While the original project called for expanding one lane in each direction, VTA built two lanes instead, thus doubled the width of the freeway.

Later in September 2003 at VTA's support, Caltrain increased the train fares south of the Tamien station as a part of the fare structure modification. Prior to that, Caltrain had a total of nine fare zones, of which the two are located south of Tamien. The fare structure change reduced the number of fare zones north of Tamien and increased the fares traveling between the zones, but kept the same number of fare zones south of Tamien. The modification resulted in a 40% fare increase for trips between San Jose and Gilroy. VTA reportedly requested the fare increase as a way to reduce its Caltrain subsidy. Within a year, Caltrain ridership south of San Jose dropped by 1/3 as passengers chose not to pay high fares and opt for a wider, less congested freeway.

Last year, Caltrain released new operating plans to reduce operating costs and increase fare revenues. In accordance to the plan, Caltrain reduced one roundtrip to and from Gilroy, and scheduled one of the remaining Gilroy round trip to skip most stops in Santa Clara County. This service reduction again eroded ridership by another 25%.

Since the passage of Measure A in 2000, VTA has failed to keep its promise to support Caltrain and transit in the south county. The largely completed double tracking project in South San Jose, which was funded by VTA, will not result in any immediate service improvement or ridership increase.

VTA and Don Gage can plan for more double tracking south of San Jose, but unless comprehensive transportation planning takes place, along with providing sufficient operating funds, realistic transit improvements will not happen. This is something to think about as Don Gage and SVLG lie about their support for Caltrain in their promotions for Measure A this June.

Guardino chickened out on Measure A debate

"I'm not the campaign spokesperson, I'm running the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. That is a full-time job. I'm volunteering with this when I can." Carl Guardino stated for the San Jose Metro on Wednesday as his excuse for not participating in a debate on Measure A scheduled for April 25.

Despite being one of the master planners behind the flawed and dishonest Measure A, Guardino has kept himself behind the scene. On the day when the Supervisors voted to place Measure A on the ballot, Guardino was absent at that meeting. His transportation aide, Laura Stuchinsky, spoke on behalf of SVLG in support of Measure A instead. Recently Stuchinsky temporarily resigned from the VTA's Citizens Advisory Committee to focus on the Measure A campaign.

Back in 2000, while still having a "full-time" job running the SVLG, Carl Guardino was the chief campaign spokesperson for the 2000 Measure A. Why is Guardino refuse to publicly campaign and debate in support of Measure A this time around? Is he afraid to show that he has inconsistent and unfair positions on sales taxes: supporting sales tax exemptions for corporations and sales tax increases for everyone else? Or is he afraid to state his intention of transferring a large portion of the revenue from the sales tax increase to VTA, despite its record of inefficiency and dishonesty, as well as VTA's selection to build wasteful projects like BART at the expense of cost effective Caltrain and local transit improvements?

What else do Carl and SVLG have to hide?

VTA proposes to bring shuttle operations in-house

As a new add-on item to the agenda for the VTA board meeting this Thursday, the board will decide whether to amend the labor contract to include a new classification of shuttle bus drivers and mechanics. Members of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents VTA's drivers and mechanics, have approved the agreement last week.

Under this agreement, new employee classifications would be created to operate and maintain a fleet of smaller shuttle buses with fewer than 28 seats. These shuttle drivers and mechanics would be paid at a lower wage than the drivers and mechanics of larger buses.

VTA would operate these shuttle buses as a part of the community bus program, to primarily serve outlaying communities and provide connections to mainline bus or light rail service. Currently, VTA runs two community bus routes (48 and 49) in Los Gatos under contract with Parking Company of America, which was ruled last year in violation of the labor agreement with the ATU. If this agreement is approved, VTA is expected to convert these lines into in house operations in the next few months.

In addition, the agreement would also bring light rail shuttle operations in house, including the Great America shuttle, River Oaks shuttle, and the Downtown Area Shuttle. These shuttles are currently contracted to New Century Transportation.

ACE shuttles and shuttles contracted by Caltrain will not be affected.

With the approval of this agreement, VTA would be able to hire 100 to 120 shuttle bus operators. VTA plans to replace standard buses with small buses on low ridership routes, which may include 76, 13, 44, and other feeder routes in the south county. VTA expects a reduction in cost on direct labor as well as fuel, due to the lower fuel consumption of smaller buses.