New maps and timetables ready, light rail's 20th anniversary, Caltrain proposed schedule change

VTA's web site has now included new bus schedules that will take effect on January 14. Throughout December and early January, VTA will be tabling at various sites offering trip planning to riders.

Light rail's 20th anniversary

20 years ago, the Santa Clara County Transit District opened its first segment of light rail in North San Jose, between Younger Street and Old Ironsides station.

Is the light rail's 20th anniversary something worth celebrating?

After two decades, various system extensions, and an expensive conversion to low floor rail cars, light rail has received way more criticisms than praises. The light rail's passenger load and farebox recovery rank low compared to other light rail systems in the rest of the country. Light rail has not helped turn Downtown San Jose into a major employment or shopping destination. For the majority of commuters having jobs in North San Jose, Sunnyvale, and Mountain View, the 10 mph segment in Downtown San Jose is a huge liability rather than an asset. A lot of folks said that light rail should've skipped downtown and instead head straight to the airport.

The scary part is that these downtown delusionals that were once counting on light rail are now counting on BART in hopes to turn the downtown around. If folks in South San Jose are not riding light rail to downtown, or even drive to downtown at all, why should these downtown delusionals think they could get folks from Oakland or Berkeley to go to downtown San Jose?

Caltrain proposed schedule change

Since the August 2005 schedule change that increased the number of Baby Bullet trains, there are gaps over an hour long in early evening service for both northbound and southbound trains. The current proposal would add an additional round trip within the gap and reschedule other trains to provide an hourly headway. Caltrain says that it can add trains because of the operational efficiency resulted from the new maintenance facility in San Jose.

More route changes coming in January

While it seems that VTA has settled the operating plan down for January, at least two changes will take place that will be different from what was approved by the VTA board in August.

DASH - With the approval of the City and Downtown Association, it will resume the old route before August 2005 when buses go straight on San Fernando Street from the train station to 4th Street. The current deviation on Santa Clara Street has added travel time as buses wait at lights on Almaden Boulevard (freeway onramp) and on Santa Clara Street. This change is reflected in the January 2008 service preview map, which will be released by VTA soon.

Line 11 - Sponsored by VTA Boardmember/San Jose City Councilman Sam Liccardo, line 11 will operate on 3rd Street and on Jackson Street (instead of 6th and then Empire) from Downtown San Jose to Hedding Street & 17th Street. The alignment from Hedding & 17th to Downtown San Jose will stay as originally approved. This change, which will create a large one way loop operation, is not reflected in the preview map.

In addition to the route changes, the VTA and SamTrans board will vote next month whether to amend their interagency transfer agreement. The proposed change will partly mitigate the planned loss of line 22 service in Menlo Park by allowing VTA pass holders to board SamTrans buses in Menlo Park without paying additional fare. In return, VTA will honor SamTrans pass holders on VTA buses throughout Palo Alto. While the existing interagency transfer agreement (which honor each other's passes at shared bus stops) applies to VTA pass holders in Menlo Park today, a change in transfer agreement is necessary because Menlo Park will no longer have shared stops after the elimination of line 22 (the only VTA service) there.

VTA November update

Dean Chu voted off

Incumbent Sunnyvale City Councilman Dean Chu, who is also the current chairperson at VTA, was defeated yesterday for another City Council term. He is the only incumbent from that city to be defeated in this election. His opponent, David Whittum, is against new taxes, including sales taxes by VTA. Chu, who has served on the VTA board for several years, has become one of the most reliable votes outside of San Jose to support San Jose and VTA administration.

Due to rotational representation, Sunnyvale will no longer have a regular membership on the VTA board next year, instead it will have an alternate membership. Chu will no longer be able to serve as a regular nor alternate member on VTA next year. However, he may be able to keep his membership on the MTC. Chu's predecessor on the MTC, John McLemore, has continued to serve on the MTC years for a few years even though he was no longer a member of the Santa Clara City Council.

$40 million staging site

With the support from San Jose downtown delusionals, VTA has done a big favor for the City of San Jose in the name of construction staging.

In a bidding war for a site in downtown San Jose, VTA recently agreed to purchase the property, which is zoned for high density development, for nearly $40 million. VTA said it needs the property so that "the lot will be used to store cranes, compressors, generators and soil cement mixing tanks, and later precast deckbeams, steel I-beams and steel struts..." only if voters in this county passes a new sales tax for VTA.

VTA does not have plans for permanent usage for much of the property and VTA admits the site can support private developments in the future. Regardless, VTA is spending $40 million, along with associated financing cost, to keep the site as an open air parking lot for years to come.

For the City of San Jose, VTA's purchase of the property is a blessing because the city would have much more control (with the city's representation on VTA) over future developments of the site without having to spend its own money. In 2002, the city unsuccessfully tried to include this property into a redevelopment zone, which would allow the city to obtain this property through eminent domain.

Although in the long run, property values will go up. Will the future resell value be high enough to justify the initial purchase price and the financing cost? Can VTA make enough money off of future developments on this property to provide any significant funding for BART construction?

Pending platform retrofit work

On November's VTA Take One is a story about the pending platform retrofit work for the remaining light rail stations south of the Convention Center. If the VTA Baord approves the construction contract next month, work will begin in late February all the way until late November. Most stations will close for about 8 weeks for construction. Tamien will remain open on weekdays during construction, and Santa Teresa will remain open throughout construction with temporary platforms. Substitute bus service will be provided during closure. No construction nor closure will occur over the 4th of July holiday.

Santa Clara-Alum Rock scoping meeting

VTA has scheduled a scoping meeting for the Santa Clara-Alum Rock corridor on Wednesday, November 14, 6:00pm at the San Jose City Hall. VTA is starting the state EIR process for the corridor and the agency will be studying both BRT and single car LRT.

VTA to study a BART extension without downtown subway

One alternative being considered in the EIS is a shortened BART extension to Berryessa. A maintenance facility under this alternative would either be located in some industrial areas near 101, or not in Santa Clara County at all (by expanding the Hayward yard, etc).

Of course this is not a serious alternative for VTA because it is only to be studied in the EIS to fulfill the federal requirement but not the state mandated EIR, which VTA has completed a supplemental EIR last year without this alternative. The supplemental EIR only studied the same extension to Santa Clara with only one downtown station and some small changes. It is obvious that VTA is studying this alternative for the "New Starts" process, as VTA two years ago intended to compete for federal funds for the Berryessa segment and leave the downtown segment locally funded.

Over the last 6 years, Ron Gonzales has refused to give any consideration or even a meaningful discussion in regards to BART to Milpitas or Berryessa, largely driven by delusionals who wanted BART more as a public monument in downtown San Jose rather than as a transportation option.

However, the extension to Berryessa as presented is a viable option. In contrary to VTA's earlier assertion that a full extension is neccessary because of the proposed maintenance facility in Santa Clara, VTA has identified an alternative location east of downtown in an industrial area. A possible outcome from the EIS could be that an extension to Berryessa, which is within the San Jose's city limit, can be built after all without new taxes and minimal impact to VTA's transit operation and its committment to Caltrain. Would then voters support a tax just for the downtown subway?

Whether BART is extended to Berryessa or Santa Clara, a major disadvantage of BART in the corridor is that one less corridor is available for Altamont Commuter Express and Caltrain Metro East.

The 2008 Measure A sales tax campaign starts now

Unfortunately, cutting the VTA board meeting short has finally paid off for VTA. The Governor, going against his other Republican legislators who all voted no on SB264, sign it into law.


There is no way that SVLG and VTA will campaign for a new 1/8 cent sales tax without inflating sales tax revenue and/or making false promises like they did in 2000. In 2000, SVLG and VTA deceived voters all the way to the bank despite the VTA General Manager's recommendation of a new 1/4 cent sales tax as shown in the memo below:





Since the passage of Measure A in 2000, VTA has done nothing to increase transit services, especially to the bus system. Although some lines will see increased service in January under the COA, COA is simply a plan to realign service, not plan to increase service overall. On the other hand, with the COA, VTA would have an incentive to pay part of the revenue shortfall (if a 1/8 cent tax passes) by gradually reducing frequency on lines such as line 23 from every 12 minutes (promised in COA) to every 15 minutes (today) and line 180 from every 15 minutes (promised in COA) to every 20/30 minutes (today).


In the next few months, expect the VTA Board to fool around with expediture scenarios trying to justify a tax increase. Fortunately, the battle against SB264 is not a total loss. Despite a very quiet opposition by VTA, the State has agreed to audit VTA.

Scoping meetings preview

Click pictures above for documents

VTA should be forthcoming about the need to have an additional tax for the BART extension, which is nowhere mentioned in its promotional document shown above. It is no longer a secret that VTA is desperate for some kind of electorial victory when its directors cut its meeting short last week in order to rub elbows with the governor lobbying him to sign SB264, even though a 1/8 cent tax isn't enough to build BART and fulfill other 2000 Measure A "promises" such as Caltrain electrification.

VTA should propose spending alternatives under a no-new tax scenario, and reopen transit alternatives for consideration. VTA's spending ability cannot be separated from the project.

As to station area planning, it is unrealistic for VTA to assume it will obtain over 100,000 riders per day largely relying on future developments around the station. San Jose does not have the employment concentration and density like San Francisco, nor has a natural transportation barrier like San Francisco Bay and the Bay Bridge.

Ridership projection, cost effectiveness, and project viability should not be ignored, as much as these planners want you to focus on mickey mouse stuff like station design, etc.

Meeting times

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Milpitas City Hall, Committee Meeting Room455

East Calaveras Boulevard, Milpitas

Thursday, October 11, 2007

San Jose City Hall, Wings 118-120

200 E. Santa Clara Street, San Jose

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Santa Clara Senior Citizens Center, Room 232

1303 Fremont Street

Google Transit, VTA's "milestone", and breaking a 2000 Measure A promise

Google Transit

As recommended by the RIDES Task Force, VTA transit information is now included in the Google Transit trip planner, which is directly accessible from the VTA's main web page. It is a huge improvement over the 511.org trip planner with a faster and more familiar user interface.

Despite the speed and relative accuracy with online trip planners, online trip planners are generally rigid and don't educate new riders on using transit without going online. In the Google and 511 trip planners, they both list light rail lines with route numbers, which is not used at all both at the station and on the vehicles.

Google Transit and 511 trip planners cannot replace good timetable and map reading skills for savvy riders. The VTA customer service number and 511 are also helpful when traveling with a cell phone and need a timetable on demand.

VTA's "milestone"

VTA's PR department is now blowing smoke publicly after receiving two old grants and a permission to draft the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) from the FTA. These two FTA grants that VTA intends to reimburse itself for preliminary engineering was carried over from FY05 and FY06, before VTA withdrew itself from the Federal New Starts process after receiving "not recommended" status from the FTA for years.

Although VTA has completed the state requirement for Environmental Impact Report (EIR), VTA was not able to obtain permission from the FTA to begin the EIS until recently. The reason was because the BART to Warm Springs extension was under study and the EIS for that project was not approved until late last year. BART started the EIS for the Warm Springs extension in 2004 when the agency wanted to seek federal funds for that project. Originally BART intended the Warm Springs extension to be totally state and locally funded, with a huge portion coming from the operating surplus coming from the SFO extension which never materialized.

VTA has scheduled several "scoping" meeting for the BART project this month. While the presentations to be made by the staff at the beginning would be a waste of time, your feed back is important. The purpose of the "scoping" meeting is to determine areas of concerns the staff should study.

Breaking of a 2000 Measure A "promise"

This Thursday, the VTA Board will vote whether to shelf the Alum Rock-Santa Clara light rail project and recommend BRT instead. For many months, VTA Watch has reported that the light rail extension there is unlikely due to funding concerns, but this time VTA will officially break one of its "promises" in 2000 Measure A.

If VTA can break this "promise," VTA can also break its BART extension "promise," especially knowing that BART will bankrupt the agency and harm local transit, like what the SFO extension has done to SamTrans and Caltrain. Which promise is worthier to break? It depends whether you are a transit rider or a highly paid VTA staffer or consultant.

Why is VTA pit one neighborhood against another?

The highly paid BART delusionals at VTA are asking the community to pick which side of Santa Clara Street the subway would go under at Coyote Creek. To avoid impacting the Santa Clara Street bridge structure, the VTA staff is recommending the tunnel to travel off the street right-of-way and under the neighborhoods.

Those who live north of Santa Clara Street would prefer the tunnel to go south of the street, and those from the south would prefer it to go north. There are legitimate concerns about noise and vibrations generated from the tunnels during and after construction. As we know, for an electric train system, BART is not a quiet, both inside and outside the train.

The city staff perfers the southern alignment, because the northern alignment could impact the redevelopment potential of the former San Jose Medical Center site by limiting the height of future buildings there. However, the redevelopment potential is questionable since no BART station is planned within half a mile from the site and a light rail extension is no longer a viable option on Santa Clara Street.

Just like the Berryessa Flea Market issue, the communities will be the winner if the BART extension is dead and superior options like Caltrain Metro East were pursued instead. Why vote to increase your tax to put noisy tunnels under your house? Vote No on Measure A next year.

SJ Mercury releases VTA salary information

After a recent state supreme court ruling, SJ Mercury was able to obtain salary information of VTA employees along with their names and released it to the public on its web site.

The highest paid employee was General Manager Michael Burns earning just over $290k during last fiscal year. Almost all executives and top managers earn between $100k and $200k.

One of the most interesting details revealed is that there were 22 bus drivers earning over $100k during the last fiscal year. Even the highest paid light rail operator earned less than $90k. Also, four transit mechanics earned more than $100k.

Under the current contract with the ATU, the top hourly wage for a regular bus operator is $27.61, which translates to a yearly income of $57,428, assuming a 40 hour work week for the entire year. These drivers were collecting a very generous overtime pay.

In comparison, in the City of San Jose, a majority of employees earning over $100k are police officers and fire fighters, which is primarily due to employee overtime. Aides to council members advising on VTA and other issues earn between $50k and $80k.

Biased reporting and more

An article about the BART project appeared on this week's Metro. The writer, Erin Sherbert, originally worked for newspapers in the East Bay and the Central Valley, attempted to cover both sides of the story. However she more or less promoted VTA administration's lies about the project being 80% funded. She also proclaimed: "Perhaps one of the biggest mistakes Santa Clara County made was not linking the region to BART from the start," and without mentioning local transit riders group such as VTA Riders' Union and BayRail Alliance that are against the BART extension.

Some reporters like her assumed that BART could have built in the South Bay in the 60s, but history shows otherwise. Two years ago, BayRail Alliance published an article in its newsletter (no longer online) challenging such myth:

It’s a common myth in the Bay Area that if Santa Clara County voters had been given the opportunity in 1962 to vote on the original BART system, it would have been built to serve the South Bay and San Jose. Our own research indicates that the opposite is true. Had Santa Clara
County insisted on joining the original system, perhaps it never would have been built at all.

Early BART studies suggested that the primary role of the system was to serve the greater San Francisco area. The first phase included lines radiating from San Francisco into the East Bay via an underwater trans-bay tube, down the Peninsula through Daly City to Palo Alto, and across the Golden Gate to the North Bay.

The line to San Jose was not considered to be a part of the initial phase, but as phase two (see original map, next page). Consideration was given to building a line to San Jose as a part of the phase one, but that was rejected at the staff level because its projected population density at the
time would not support its inclusion. In the late fifties, when the state legislature was forming the Bay Area Rapid Transit District, Santa Clara County’s Board of Supervisors unanimously requested to be excluded. Knowing that San Jose was not part of phase one, Santa Clara County decided not to pay taxes that would subsidize BART construction in other counties, including Marin.

In short, BART planners were not really interested in Santa Clara County at that time. And Santa Clara County made a decision to opt out based on realistic expectations. Back then, the technical specification for the BART system has yet to be determined and cost overruns were not expected. After formation of the BART district, San Mateo and Marin Counties dropped out for similar and other reasons.

Population density was the political justification for BART’s construction. In 1962, when the original bond issue (which also included the construction of MUNI's Metro system) was placed on the ballot, the state legislature put in a special approval requirement of 60% of voters of the three counties combined. The voters barely approved BART by 61.2%. A county breakdown showed overwhelming support from urban San Francisco with 66.9%, marginal support from Alameda County at 60%, and insufficient support by Contra Costa County at 54.5%. San Francisco voters carried the election and allowed the construction of BART. Had voters in other Bay Area counties, including Santa Clara County, voted on the BART bond, the combined total would likely have been less than 60%, and BART would not have been approved. It is reasonable to conclude that if Santa Clara County had been included in the BART district, the bond issue would have failed...

The most illustrative is the map included in the original BART report as shown below:



By the way, Livermore and Antioch aren't the only cities that are paying BART taxes and not getting BART services. The Richmond District in San Francisco, which is heavily transit dependent and was to be served by BART under the original plan, also paid taxes to BART for decades but not getting any services.

End of San Jose Grand Prix

The San Jose Grand Prix organizers called it quit after three annual races in downtown San Jose, due to possible downtown construction that would impact the race course as well as the end of subsidies from the city in forms of cash and free services.

While the San Jose Grand Prix is a money maker for hotels and downtown parking lots, it is not a money maker for the city and other small businesses. For VTA riders, the Grand Prix means interrupted light rail service at the center of the system and other bus reroutes.

Loss of direct Caltrain connection to SFO

As BART plans to realign service along the SFO extension for January, BART thinks the double transfer from Caltrain to SFO isn't so bad. Under the new schedule, the ride from Millbrae to SFO via a transfer at San Bruno would be 9 minutes, and the return trip would take 10 to 11 minutes. BART is planning a 1 minute cross platform transfer at San Bruno. In addition, the first three northbound trips of the day would start from Millbrae directly to SFO and the last three southbound trips of the day would continue from SFO to Millbrae, as SFO trains would be stored at the Millbrae tail tracks overnight.

Despite BART's effort to make the double transfer more palatable, the BART SFO extension has been and will forever be a disappointment for Caltrain riders from the South Bay heading to SFO. Under the proposal, a one or two minute delay for the first train would mean an overall 15 to 20 minute delay at the San Bruno station. The first and last three direct trains are useless as BART begins service at 4:00am, more than 90 minutes before the first Caltrain arrival and likely to end service beyond 12:25am, after the last Caltrain departure. For travelers going out from domestic terminals but don't want the long walk, the current double transfer from Caltrain to BART and then to AirTrain would become a triple transfer.