San Jose
– In sharp contrast to previous hearings full of excited public
comment and heated debate over bringing BART to San Jose that
pitted board members from San Jose and Santa Clara against the rest
of the county, the Valley Transportation Authority signed off on a
draft of its transit master plan with
little discussion Thursday nigh
San Jose – In sharp contrast to previous hearings full of excited public comment and heated debate over bringing BART to San Jose that pitted board members from San Jose and Santa Clara against the rest of the county, the Valley Transportation Authority signed off on a draft of its transit master plan with little discussion Thursday night.
The Valley Transportation Plan 2030, as it is known, is based on revenue projections of nearly $22 billion through 2030. Revenue sources include sales, gas and other taxes, and state and federal funding.
With a price tag of $4.1 billion, BART is by far the VTA’s most financially ambitious project. Some members of the VTA board voted unsuccessfully last month to have the VTA study alternative BART proposals that would have halved the project’s price tag, but delayed by many years any hopes of running BART trains through downtown San Jose.
As is stands, construction will be on hold until the VTA can secure almost $2 billion in state and federal funding.
Other major projects including the VTP 2030 are $650 million for Caltrain electrification, and another $100 million for Caltrain upgrades in South County; $164 million to widen U.S. 101 between Cochrane Road and Monterey Road; $85 million for work on the U.S. 101 State Route 25 interchange; and about $5 million for improvements in Gilroy, including $3.9 million to upgrade the traffic signal system.
The VTA must adopt a revised transportation outlook every three years, to tie in with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s master plan for the nine Bay Area counties, which is also revised every three years.
The plan includes every transit project the VTA hopes to begin or finish by 2030. Projects not included in the plan are not eligible for MTC funding.
