Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority Board member and
county Supervisor Don Gage, among others, requested in October to
hold $170 million the board had previously approved, in August by a
7-5 vote, to engineer the BART extension from Fremont to Santa
Clara.
Talk of freezing funds to engineer a Bay Area Rapid Transit link to the Silicon Valley has faded.
Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority Board member and county Supervisor Don Gage, among others, requested in October to hold $170 million the board had previously approved, in August by a 7-5 vote, to engineer the BART extension from Fremont to Santa Clara.
Now, after November’s board meeting last Friday, Gage says the engineering is a done deal, but he’d still like to proceed cautiously on the $4 billion BART plan.
A pair of recent surveys show BART remains a high priority in county voters’ minds, despite financial problems that have the VTA considering an additional half-cent county sales tax to pay for BART and a list of other transportation projects – for which voters already approved a 30-year, half-cent sales tax in 2000.
Sixty-one percent of those polled in September said they’d vote for a tax increase if necessary to fund some or all of the projects promised in 2000. While that’s a vote of confidence, it falls short of the two-thirds approval that such a referendum would require on Election Day. The 2000 measure passed with 71-percent approval.
For South Valley residents, that’s more tax for a service many will never use. County consumers already pay one half-cent sales tax for VTA operations (since 1976) and another for capital projects (since 1996). The 2000-approved tax would begin in 2006, when the 1996 one ends, and run until 2036.
The BART link, however, is expected to help the Valley’s economy by making the commute to and from San Jose easier.
An October poll showed BART is easily people’s top priority among the 2000-approved projects. Also important, although to a lesser degree, are service to seniors and the disabled and current bus and light-rail service and Caltrain expansion and electrification. At the bottom of the list were an underground people-mover from San Jose International Airport to the Santa Clara train/bus (and future BART) station and a series of light-rail extensions.
Each survey, done by phoning people at their homes, polled 600 likely voters from all parts of the county, including the southern portion. The polls were sponsored by the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group and conducted by Jim Moore Methods.
“We know that the economy and voter climate is different today than it was three years ago, … (but) BART still commands a very strong support from our public,” said San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales’ spokesman, David Vossbrink.
There’s no doubt the VTA is having financial difficulties. Sales tax revenues have dropped for 10 straight quarters (two-and-a-half years) by an average of 25 percent per quarter, according to Carl Guardino, president and CEO of the SVMG, which represents 190 of the largest employers in the Valley.
In 2000, at the height of the dot-com boom, the VTA predicted the half-cent tax would bring in more than $6 billion over 30 years. Recently, VTA staff drew up a new, recession-based projection that dropped revenue to the $4 billion range – not much more than BART’s price tag.
Given that admittedly conservative economic outlook, VTA staff reported they would not be able to complete BART and the other 2000-approved capital projects within any reasonable time frame.
These updated figures polarized the VTA Board and interested parties. Original BART proponents like Gonzales and the SVMG said the new projections were unrealistic in predicting no economic recovery for the next 30-plus years.
Some taxpayers, like Margaret Okuzumi of the BayRail Alliance advocacy group, opposed BART three years ago and still do, saying the 2000 promise was optimistic from the start. Guardino, however, says the figures were “moderate at the time.”
“If (the VTA) had been conservative back in 2000, we might have been spared some pain,” Okuzumi said.
Gage agrees with Guardino and Gonzales the best scenario would be to complete all the 2000 projects, but he isn’t convinced the sales tax revenue will come through.
“If we don’t (have enough money), I’m looking for the projects that would give us the best value for our dollar,” Gage said. BART isn’t one of these, he’s said in the past; he’d rather focus on cheaper projects like Caltrain.
Meanwhile, talk has arisen of restructuring the VTA board, perhaps giving Gilroy and Morgan Hill more permanent representation instead of sharing a rotating seat with Milpitas.
A committee from these three cities met a week ago to drum up suggestions to bring before the VTA Board. Gage’s idea was to let Gilroy and Morgan Hill share a seat and send Milpitas into a four-city rotation sharing three seats. This would add two seats to the board, which now has 12 voting members.
A Milpitas representative wanted every city to have a seat – raising the number to 21 – with each city having a weighted vote according to its population.
Any proposal to add board seats would require state legislative approval, Gage said.
Speaking for Gonzales, Vossbrink said any restructuring would have to retain representation proportional to population.
Currently on the VTA board, San Jose has five seats; Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara and Palo Alto share three; Campbell, Cupertino, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno and Saratoga share one; Gilroy, Milpitas and Morgan Hill share one and the county Board of Supervisors has two.
Gilroy Mayor Tom Springer held the South County seat this year. Next year it will go to Milpitas City Councilwoman Patricia Dixon.
