Buoyed by legislation that will make it easier to get federal
funding to bring BART to San Jose, officials at the Santa Clara
Valley Transportation Authority are taking another shot at getting
the project approved by the Federal Transportation
Administration.
Gilroy – Buoyed by legislation that will make it easier to get federal funding to bring BART to San Jose, officials at the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority are taking another shot at getting the project approved by the Federal Transportation Administration.
Monday, the agency forwarded an updated set of land use plans and financial forecasts for the $5-billion project. Next month, it will submit the most important piece of data – ridership figures.
The old figure, of 83,600 boardings a day, was based on the 1990 census and an outdated population forecast. On this latest application, the VTA is using the 2000 census and population projections formulated in 2003.
“The valley changed so much between 1990 and 2000, but then again between 2000 and 2003,” VTA spokeswoman Jayme Kunz said.
Last month, the project received its first bit of good news in several years. A $286.4 billion transportation bill included a provision that eliminated a stricter cost-effectiveness measure imposed on the project by the FTA. The lower threshold will make it easier to secure as much as $900 million in federal funding.
“We’re not exempted from cost-effectiveness,” Kunz said. “It will still be one of the measures BART is weighed against when we make our application for funding.”
Integral to that application is a recommendation from the FTA. A decision from the FTA should come in early 2006. Earlier this year, it rejected the project as too costly.
As envisioned by the VTA, the $5-billion project would extend the system from Fremont to the Mineta San Jose international Airport.
Desperate for funding, the agency is considering asking voters to approve a third sales tax increase to help finance construction.
