Despite clear and overwhelming evidence that extending BART into
San Jose will quickly bankrupt the Valley Transportation Agency,
the VTA board of directors is still pursuing the boondoggle
project.
Despite clear and overwhelming evidence that extending BART into San Jose will quickly bankrupt the Valley Transportation Agency, the VTA board of directors is still pursuing the boondoggle project.
Instead of heeding its own analysis, which shows the VTA will run out of money well before the project is built, the VTA pursues San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales’ resume-padding dream.
Instead of heeding the advice of federal transit policy wonks, who recognize that the troubled transit agency doesn’t have enough money for the extension, the VTA blindly soldiers on in its attempts to extend BART. Why should we waste federal dollars on a doomed project?
Instead of acknowledging real-life experience, which shows dismal ridership for the recently completed BART extension to the San Francisco International Airport, the VTA continues to insist it will build the line that it can’t afford to construct, let alone operate, without mind-boggling subsidies.
The VTA’s BART-at-any-cost mindset, orchestrated in large part by San Jose officials apparently under the control of Gonzales, is just one reason that it’s time for a radical new approach to managing public transit in the county.
The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors should take over the VTA’s responsibilities – with an adjunct advisory panel to assist in research and also make formal policy recommendations to the board.
To make sure the wide diversity of concerns from each community in the county are adequately addressed, each city would appoint a representative to the advisory panel. The panel would operate like the San Martin Planning Advisory Committee, but the buck would stop with county supervisors.
Each supervisor would add a public transportation aide to his or her staff to handle the additional workload the new responsibility would bring, and an appropriate segment of the VTA administration could become a part of the new structure.
County supervisors are directly elected and directly accountable to voters. If supervisors can manage a huge budget, maintain county roads, operate numerous county airports, deliver medical services and manage hospitals, they should be able to operate the county’s public transit agency successfully.
The benefits are many. For taxpayers, this plan should greatly reduce much of the redundant and expensive bureaucracy at the VTA.
Placing the VTA under the county supervisors’ control should address many of the concerns raised by the recent grand jury inquiry into the VTA mess.
Perhaps most importantly to Santa Clara County residents who don’t live in San Jose, this plan also removes the undue influence the San Jose mayor and City Council members currently wield over VTA decisions. It would be a greatly improved scheme for representation than the current system, which groups cities with divergent interests like Gilroy, Morgan Hill and Milpitas, and forces them to share one rotating board seat.
During this time of upheaval, investigations and introspection at the VTA, we urge officials to seriously consider the radical plan for restructuring county transit responsibilities. It might be difficult to implement, it might even require legislative action in Sacramento to achieve, but we think the benefits overwhelm these potential difficulties.
Without a drastic change in how the VTA operates, this county risks mortgaging its transportation future to give San Jose’s mayor another line on his resume. We need to take whatever steps are necessary to make sure that doesn’t happen.
