It’s too bad the Valley Transportation Authority can’t unshackle
itself from the chains forged by the Silicon Valley Leadership
Group led by Carl Guardino and San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales.
It’s too bad the Valley Transportation Authority can’t unshackle itself from the chains forged by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group led by Carl Guardino and San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales. The VTA is supposed to take care of public transportation in the entire Santa Clara Valley. Instead the agency has become a pawn for powerful San Jose interests.
That’s directly related to the mismanagement cited by the Santa Clara County Grand Jury report of a year ago. The grand jury listed some of the VTA problems as, “over-promising of programs to voters; inefficient timing of expenditures; financial forecasts designed to support program plans rather than evaluate options; and decisions influenced by benefits to local districts rather than to the regional Santa Clara County transportation system.”
Most of it boils down to these words in the grand jury probe summary: “The overriding financial problem facing VTA is that it cannot afford the cost to build and operate a BART system to San Jose. Spending limited resources on BART could squander an opportunity to build, maintain and operate a far larger network of transit options throughout the county as enabled by voters approving the half-cent Measure A sales tax in 2000.”
There are signs that the titanic BART-to-San-Jose machine is taking on water.
A lack of consensus among the VTA board members, despite the dominance on that board by San Jose interests, has caused a delay in their vote to bring another quarter-cent sales tax before voters. Without a united front, a tax would likely fail to earn a two-thirds majority. Instead, they have agreed to two more months of study and negotiation.
The truth is, any half-honest politician will have a hard time dancing around the enormous costs for BART. Carrot-and-stick negotiations aren’t the answer.
The projected cost of BART has increased from the initial promise in 2000 of 33 percent to more than 84 percent of Measure A tax revenues. Our South County leaders have thus far been wise and responsive to their constituencies in not supporting the latest tax proposal, which BART proponents say is necessary to make up for lost revenue due to the downturn in sales tax receipts since the initial Measure A passed.
They must hold the course. It is possible to break the back of BART-to-San-Jose, but unless that happens the cities and areas outside the San Jose BART core will continue to fight for table scraps.
The allegiance to the BART extension flies in the face of the Federal Transportation Administration, which questions the validity of the increased ridership projections and sees the VTA spending plan for BART as the least cost effective in the entire nation. The VTA scoffs at the grand jury report and dismisses alternative rail plans.
Here’s the bottom line: The entire VTA structure, politically, and with the public relations support of the internal staff, is hell bent on ramming through the BART-to-San-Jose project. Until that powerful machine runs into a brick wall like the overwhelming rejection of a sales tax, nothing will change.
The transportation services South County requires would benefit every other area of the county as well: more CalTrain service, express buses, highway improvements, community shuttles and road repairs.
Dropping BART-to-San-Jose entirely from the VTA spending plan would go a long way toward paving the way for a sensible, efficient transportation plan. Hopefully, politics and table scraps won’t derail the effort.
