The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) is “one of the most expensive and least efficient transit systems in the country,” says a report issued yesterday by the Santa Clara County (San Jose) Grand Jury. “Empty or near-empty buses and light rail trains clog the County’s streets,” the agency “veers from one financial crisis to another,” and it is intent on building more light rail even though ridership is declining and “experts have pronounced the early twentieth century concept of light rail transit obsolete.”
Back in 2007, the Antiplanner declared that VTA was the “worst transit agency of the decade.” Since then, says the Grand Jury, “VTA’s operating performance has continued to deteriorate.” This isn’t helped by the fact that VTA is pouring billions of dollars into a BART line to San Jose that one of the agency’s own board members says “is going to bankrupt VTA.” Nor is it helped by the fact that the last proposed light-rail extension is expected to cost $183 million a mile and is predicted by VTA to carry so few riders that each new riders will cost $720,000.
The Grand Jury says that part of the problem is that its board is made up of members of the Santa Clara County board, and city commissioners from San Jose and other cities in the county. These elected officials don’t have time to oversee VTA along with everything else they do, leading VTA to become a “staff-driven organization.” Continue reading
