Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority to continue service
on route 17
Gilroy – Locals using public transportation no longer have to trudge across eight lanes of traffic to shop or work at the Wal-Mart Supercenter.
For the past month Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority has been providing bus service to the Pacheco Pass Shopping Center north of Highway 152. Before the bus route was extended locals were dropped off at the Gilroy Crossing Shopping Center and had to cross the heavy Pacheco Pass traffic.
Currently the VTA makes a special trip to the Wal-Mart parking lot but in January it will become a regular fixture of the route 17 service.
Once route 17 is enacted the line will operate every hour. Major weekday and weekend schedule changes will also be made.
Passengers won’t notice a difference in the bus route, said VTA spokeswoman Jayme Kunz.
The northern shopping center, which consists of the Wal-Mart Supercenter, Costco, Best Buy and more than 730,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, has been without bus service for more than a year. When the new Wal-Mart recently opened and more employees were forced to cross Pacheco Pass, the issue was finally addressed.
Buses couldn’t drop passengers off at the center because there’s no room for a 40-foot bus to turn around on Camino Arroyo, the dead-end road. Wal-Mart officials agreed to allow VTA buses into their parking lot for the time being.
Eventually, an overpass will built across Llagas Creek that will connect the shopping centers.
