But critics argue expenditure is throwing good money after
bad
Gilroy – To get money, VTA officials claim, you’ve got to spend money.
So far, their pet project, a 16.1-mile BART extension from Fremont to Santa Clara, arcing through San Jose, has yet to attract the federal funds and local support to realize the $4.7 billion vision. Critics slam it as overpriced and unrealistic; the Federal Transit Administration has dubbed it ‘Not Recommended.’ But the digs haven’t deterred advocates, now soliciting VTA’s board of directors to approve up to $135 million to design and engineer the hot-potato project.
“When the project is better Endangered Tax Could Hit Gilroy Hard
defined, they’ll be in a better position to compete for federal and state money,” said VTA spokesperson Jayme Kunz. By late 2008, the agency hopes to win the FTA’s support – and corresponding funds. “The cost of not doing the preliminary engineering is far higher. If they wait, inflation will cause significant increases in cost.”
But consumer groups aren’t buying it. Margaret Okuzumi, executive director of the BayRail Alliance, derides the project as an expensive fantasy. With ‘Recommended’ projects neck-and-neck for coveted funds, she said, the BART extension isn’t likely to snag federal dollars: the hoped-for source of 16 percent of the extension’s cost. Nor has Measure A, the half-cent sales tax passed in 2000, yielded significant funds, she claimed. Though the tax shoulders 56 percent of the project’s expected expense, the measure only kicked in this year, and the VTA has already borrowed against the expected cash.
“Any good businessperson knows: You cut your losses. You don’t throw good money after bad,” said Okuzumi. “The federal government isn’t going to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into this project.”
Which leads Okuzumi to a second conclusion: If board members approve this next, $135 million step in bringing BART to Silicon Valley, she argued, they’re also approving a future VTA tax.
In Eugene Bradley’s opinion, any money spent on the BART extension is a loss. Bradley, the founder of the Santa Clara VTA Riders Union, would rather see VTA’s dollars spent on express bus service from South County to downtown San Jose. He’s brutally critical of what he sees as VTA’s failings.
“It should never take two hours to travel by bus what it takes 15 minutes by car,” Bradley said, claiming that a sliver of the money channeled toward BART could smooth bus service to South County.
Kunz explained that engineering and design are necessary costs, the basis for snapping up the funds to bring BART to the South Bay.
“Last time the FTA reviewed it, it was in the conceptual phase,” said Kunz. “Now it needs to become a real project, so they can be confident in the total costs.”
Even that $4.7 billion price tag is under dispute. Both Okuzumi and Bradley estimate BART’s cost several billions higher, noting BART’s past price overruns. In 2001, the Transportation and Land Use Coalition estimated the project’s cost between $5.7 and $8.2 billion, estimating a 10 percent to 25 percent overrun on an original $3.8 billion estimate.
Today, with VTA’s estimates nudged higher, and critics warning of drastically greater overruns, critics warn the extensions’ expense could balloon.
Thursday, the question will be put to VTA’s board of directors, an assembly of elected officials that includes county supervisor Don Gage, eyed by project opponents as a swing vote. In the past, Gage has criticized projects that pump money into San Jose instead of South County; the BART extension, which critics pit against local bus improvements, could push that button.
In March, the board rejected the BART extension. Some members feared that funding predictions were too rosy, and would cost VTA later.
No matter what the board’s decision Thursday, with high hopes pitted against dire predictions, the controversy promises to keep chugging along – whether or not BART’s trains reach San Jose.
