BART

TRANSDEF Opposes VTA Sales Tax Measure B

The TRANSDEF Board has voted to formally oppose the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority’s (VTA’s) transportation sales tax measure. We have No Confidence in VTA. Check out the websites of our allies Sierra Club and BayRail Alliance!

Measure B would double VTA’s sales tax. This is intolerable, when the Measure fails in three distinct policy areas:
  • BART to San Jose and Santa Clara is a horribly wasteful and ineffective response to the commuting challenges of Santa Clara County residents.
  • The continued funding of highways is ultimately futile, as congestion will merely continue to get worse. See this study to learn how highway widening increases greenhouse gases over the long run.
  • While Silicon Valley desperately needs great transit, VTA continues to operate a hopelessly ineffective transit system. Its plans allocate little of the Measure A proceeds to an Santa Clara County transit network.
See the brilliant video, produced by the City of Cupertino, that shows how Silicon Valley could have great transit. Read More...

Bay Area transit ridership down despite subsidies, enticements

In today’s Chronicle, Matier & Ross write about how regional transit ridership in the Bay Area has down for decades despite the many billions of dollars MTC has put into construction projects. This begs the question “Why?” For us, the answer is simple: MTC’s unique combination of indifference, incompetence and unwillingess to do the hard work of policy development has created a politicized unaccountable system that works great for contractors, but does little for Bay Area residents and commuters. See related several posts on this site: Bay Area Basics; a case study we did on MTC called Politics Trumps Outcomes; and a comment letter on how to set up a new transportation pot of money so that it is not wasted, as MTC’s resources have been. Read More...

Oakland Airport Connector--Government at its Worst

Guy Span wrote a powerful post on the decision of the BART Board to put itself into serious debt, in the midst of cutting service and not having the funds to replace its cars.

Here’s the comment we posted:
Read More...

Major new figure emerges in Bay Area Transportation Reporting

TRANSDEF was exceedingly pleased to discover the blog of Guy Span, available at Examiner.com. He wrote an in-depth multi-part series on MTC decisionmaking that was, in our opinion, the very best analysis we’ve seen. Check out his List of Articles.

The BART Oakland Airport Connector

TRANSDEF blasted the BART Board as having “an extreme indifference to project cost.” Read More...

Comments on the DEIS for BART to San Jose

Summary only available when permalinks are enabled. Read More...

Warm Springs BART litigation

TRANSDEF recently filed a taxpayers' lawsuit to prevent Bay Area transportation agencies from illegally sending BART over $315 million for construction of its Warm Springs extension. Check it out.