Half-cent tax measure means VTA won’t have its own initiative;
Now looks to build without new sales tax
Morgan Hill – Officials with the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority were so confident they would get funding to build a BART line to San Jose they said they didn’t have a Plan B.
Today, the VTA will start work on Plan B.
The countywide half-cent sales tax measure that will appear on the June ballot means the VTA won’t go to voters with its own tax for the $6.4-billion BART project and a basket of road and transit improvements. VTA board members were supposed to finalize a spending plan for its proposed tax measure this evening. Instead, they’ll start debating how to build projects with less money.
Polls predicted the VTA tax would fall short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass. The county tax only needs a simple majority to pass.
“There is not a Plan B,” VTA spokeswoman Jayme Kunz said. “It’s up to the board to tell us what the next steps are.”
And for a board that debated its spending plan to a standstill and allowed the county to beat it to the ballot, the steps are getting more complicated.
Without a new dedicated funding source, VTA staffers say receiving $750 million in federal funding for BART is “dubious.” While Santa Clara County Supervisors say they will allocate potential new tax revenue to road and transit projects, the VTA board has lost some of its power to set transportation priorities. And with less money, building the 16-mile BART extension is sure to get more controversial.
“I think we all see this very differently,” said Supervisor Liz Kniss, who is also a VTA Director. “While it may be for some others, for me, BART is not front and center. There is no question that the county [supervisors] will look at this as a county issue and evaluate all the needs of the county from a transportation standpoint.”
A plan to extend BART from Fremont to San Jose has been in the works since 2000, when voters approved Measure A, a half-cent sales tax to fund transportation improvements. The Measure A tax expires in 2036 and is supposed to fund everything from BART and a people mover to the Mineta San Jose International airport to a variety of new and expanded bus and lightrail lines.
But reality hasn’t matched the VTA’s economic forecast, and the agency is lacking billions of dollars to build Measure A projects. BART supporters were hopeful that a new quarter-cent sales tax that was supposed to go to voters this year would deliver BART by 2016.
A decade ago, the VTA was created as an autonomous agency to be independent of county lawmakers, but it will now have to approach supervisors with hat in hand. Now, with BART already dependent on handouts from Sacramento and Washington D.C., county supervisors hold new power over the project.
VTA Director David Cortese, a San Jose Councilman running for mayor, called the new relationship between the county and the VTA a “shotgun marriage” the VTA needs to improve transportation in the county. He said the success of the marriage rests in the level of funding the county provides.
“If they give us [half of the tax revenue], it’s moot because that’s enough to cover anything,” Cortese said. Anything less than [that], they would wield tremendous power over transportation. Way more than I think was intended. This is the lesser of two evils. Evil number one is that the VTA shuts down all expansion.”
Cortese said he will support moving ahead with BART at the expense of almost any other Measure A project.
“My only sacred cow is the Eastridge light rail,” Cortese said, referring to a project in his district that has already been engineered and authorized. “I think projects that are still on the drawing board have to be open to negotiation.”
The VTA staff has prepared a few scenarios of how BART could be built without a new sales tax, but those plans delay for years many other Measure A projects and put the agency in the red. A spending plan that includes increased bus service and a pavement management program has a $4.2-billion deficit.
The VTA staff also has sketched out a rough plan to build BART and maintain a surplus, but that preliminary spending plan guts Measure A. The money earmarked for Caltrain improvements in South County, for instance, is cut by 36 percent. That plan has not been presented to the VTA board, and VTA staff members declined to comment on it.
Still, Supervisor and VTA Director Don Gage, who says the agency should spend more money in South County, is optimistic that BART trains can arrive in San Jose as early as 2018. Gage thinks scrapping Caltrain electrification, a $300-million project to improve South Valley’s environment will help the agency build new projects. He the VTA needs to act as though it controls it future.
“We need to stick to the same plan we have,” Gage said. “If there’s money, you move forward. If there’s not you don’t. We’re still a separate agency and our priorities have to be up to our board.”
Next Meeting
What: VTA board meeting
When: 5:30pm today
Where: County building, 70 W. Hedding St., San Jose
Three Scenarios
Highlights of VTA 30-year plan to build BART without a new sales tax, accounting for inflation:
Scenario 1 – BART is 28 percent of Measure A budget
– $6.4 billion for BART
– $158 million for South County Caltrain improvements
– $718 for road and expressway improvements
– $98 million for senior programs
– $620 million for increased bus service
– $664 million for Mineta San Jose Airport people mover
– $4.2 billion deficit
Scenario 2 – BART is 30 percent of Measure A budget
– $6.4 billion for BART
n $158 million for South County Caltrain improvements
n $664 million for Mineta San Jose Airport people mover
n $2.7 billion deficit
Scenario 3 – BART is 58 percent of Measure A budget
– $6.4 billion for BART
– $55 million for all Caltrain projects, including South County
– $2.1 million for Bus Rapid Transit
– $35 million for light rail and new rail corridors
– $1.6 billion surplus
