The VTA needs to spend only what it has on real transit needs
and not wants, like proposed expensive light-rail extensions around
the county and the $4.7 billion BART-to-San Jose project
It’s time for the decade-old Valley Transportation Authority to learn to live within its means. And that means those leading it, its board of directors, its general manager, chief administrative officer and chief financial officer, need to take responsibility for the financial mess the agency is in.
They can do this by realistically looking at its $340 million annual budget, the very few passengers – 135,000 riders each day – and its projected $2.8 billion deficit for the next three decades. Together, they need to immediately draft a budget they can keep. It will take some leadership that seems nonexistent.
The VTA needs to spend only what it has on real transit needs and not wants, like proposed expensive light-rail extensions around the county and the $4.7 billion BART-to-San Jose project.
The critical March 22 Philadelphia-based HayGroup independent audit, at a cost of $500,000, makes the same points. We applaud VTA General Manager Michael Burns for taking the proactive steps to have the beleaguered agency’s practices reviewed. VTA needs to start behaving like private sector companies when they’re in trouble.
Some of the same concerns raised by the latest audit were raised in 2004, when the Santa Clara County’s Civil Grand Jury recommended suspending the BART-to-San Jose project and disbanding the VTA’s board of directors. The board then ignored all of the grand jury’s recommendations.
Most damaging in the HayGroup audit are the findings related to how the agency has forecasted its 30-year economic outlook, erroneously relying on money generated from the 2000 passage of a half-cent sales tax. The audit found that in light of last year’s failed half-cent sales tax proposal and no other incoming revenues, the VTA cannot build and operate the promised transit improvements.
When the agency became too ambitious last year by asking voters for too much – a half-cent instead of a quarter-cent sales tax increase – it failed to pass the much needed financial sales tax relief it needed.
Now Burns has welcomed a transportation-only tax measure in the November 2008 ballot. This makes more sense as last year’s failed tax proposal lumped transportation needs with county needs and that seemed to turn off voters.
Ridership is also down, so it’s a good thing that the agency is now considering the logic behind its bus service. Buses with few passengers need to be eliminated and bus routes that aren’t benefiting greater numbers of passengers need to be consolidated or reassigned.
In South County, VTA services are minimal. Only bus route line 68, from Gilroy/Gavilan College to the San Jose Diridon Station, has 4,700 daily riders. This ridership base is loyal and constant, but how expensive is it to operate? South County has a population of more than 90,000. Perhaps some of these riders are from San Jose. Maybe some are from South County. The line’s economic viability needs to be explored by the VTA’s board. Last Thursday the VTA downsized local Morgan Hill line 15 and the move makes sense, particularly service reductions to Jackson Oaks area to accommodate riders from the Centennial Recreation Center. The agency’s “community bus” program, which will replace the 40-foot-long busses in Morgan Hill and Gilroy with 25-person shuttles this summer, is also part of the agency beginning to maximize efficiency.
The agency needs to remember that it doesn’t have to cater to all riders, everywhere, all the times if it’s going to bankrupt it.
CONTACT SOUTH COUNTY VTA DIRECTORS
- Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage, (408) 299-5010,
- Morgan Hill City Councilman Greg Sellers, (408) 779-7259,
- VTA Board of Directors: (408) 321-5680 or visit www.vta.org. or write to:
VTA General Manager Michael Burns, (408) 321-5559 or [email protected].
3331 N. First St.
San Jose, CA, 95134-1906
