Transit ridership at the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) has declined in every year since Nuria Fernandez was made CEO of San Jose’s principle transit agency at the end of 2013. By 2019, transit fares collected by VTA covered just 9 percent of operating costs, far lower than the national average of 32 percent. VTA light-rail cars carried an average of just 14 passengers, compared with a national average of 24. Most San Jose light-rail “trains” are just one car long, meaning they could easily be replaced by buses at a huge savings to taxpayers.
VTA light rail: a model of government waste. Notice the HOV lanes that could have supported buses carrying more people to more destinations than the light-rail line.
Before Fernandez arrived, VTA had spent billions of dollars building a light-rail system that did nothing but jeopardize the agency’s finances, which in turn contributed to the dramatic decline in ridership: Between 2002 and 2019, the region’s population grew by 15 percent yet transit ridership fell by 29 percent. While she didn’t make the decision to build those light-rail lines, she is proud that she was able to get federal funding to help build a subway line into downtown San Jose.
Visit an online herbal female generic viagra store right now to start living more natural. Amazingly, she began spotting again and effects of levitra professional had regular menses after four weeks of chiropractic rehabilitation. Women should understand the situation and uk generic viagra deal accordingly. If you are already involved in the intake of Super P Force. viagra cipla india try this link With less than 3 percent of Silicon Valley’s jobs located in downtown San Jose, and most of the rest of the jobs scattered across the region in various high-tech campuses, San Jose is profoundly unsuited to rail transit. Meanwhile, VTA and other regional bus service is so bad that Apple, Facebook, Google, and other companies have hired their own fleets of buses to bring employees to their work centers. If VTA had focused on buses instead of rail construction, it could have provided some of that transportation. Apparently, Fernandez and VTA’s board agree that the agency’s main mission is to create construction jobs and contractor profits, not to safely move people around the region.
Under Fernandez’ management, VTA’s response to the pandemic has been lackluster at best. When the state of California issued mandatory directives to transit agencies to protect employees and customers from COVID-19, Fernandez told the VTA board of directors that the directives were “just a guidance” and didn’t have to be followed in detail by VTA. After two VTA employees died of the virus, the state of California to fined the agency for health and safety violations because VTA failed to ensure that passengers and employees wore masks. VTA has also failed to install the best-available filters into its bus and railcar air circulation systems.
Given Fernandez’ track record and President Biden’s love for obsolete passenger rail transportation, it is no surprise that Biden nominated her to lead the Federal Transit Administration. As FTA administrator, Fernandez will become the chief cheerleader for Biden’s proposal to spend an additional $85 billion on transit. This will give many other transit agencies the opportunity to become more beholden to rail contractors than to transit riders. Transit ridership is likely to never recover after the pandemic, but under Biden and Fernandez, spending on transit expansions will continue whether anyone rides transit or not.
Apologies for repeating this, but in 1999 I went on a San Jose tour of supposedly affordable housing for Silicon Valley, hosted by the Silicon Valley Manufacturers Association (SVMA). We were all given day passes on VTA and rode the light rail from one very expensive set of apartments to another. I pointed out to the chair of the SVMA, who was conducting the tour, that the light rail system was only taking 0.2% of cars off the road. He had many responses such as “people living within a half mile of a light rail line are three times as likely to take transit as those who don’t” to which I kept replying, “which is a negligible 0.2%.” Finally exasperated, he said “but you cannot build high density housing unless it is next to light rail!” From this it appears that the reason to build light rail was so that they could up zone areas next to the light rail for higher density housing. Apparently because this was “smart growth” even if the residents still drove everywhere. So, the fact the VTA built light rail may have nothing to do with actually providing transport. It is just a way to trick cities into building higher density housing under the pretense that it will not increase traffic if it is next to a light rail line. Most of the others on the tour were planners from other cities in Santa Clara county, and thought the light rail and high-density housing next to the light rail was great, even though all of them but me had driven to the start place of the tour. No wonder with planners’ lack of critical thinking skills they though light rail was a good idea.
It’s not just California – in Germany, they’re gradually scrapping trains and moving to air travel as the superiority of the latter becomes more apparent:
https://urbantransportnews.com/news/german-aviation-and-deutsche-bahn-sign-mou-to-move-43-million-domestic-flights-to-rail
“From this it appears that the reason to build light rail was so that they could up zone areas next to the light rail for higher density housing. Apparently because this was “smart growth” even if the residents still drove everywhere. So, the fact the VTA built light rail may have nothing to do with actually providing transport. It is just a way to trick cities into building higher density housing under the pretense that it will not increase traffic if it is next to a light rail line. ”
I’ve been saying this for a while. Sure, the corrupt profits from light rail are great for crooked contractors, but the real ideological drive is the excuse to densify.
janehavisham,
That’s not what the article at the link you provided says. But maybe you were being sarcastic?
Following up on this post, Silicon Valley transit agency anticipates net losses over next decade.
https://sanjosespotlight.com/silicon-valley-transit-agency-anticipates-net-losses-over-next-decade/