There has been much discussion on this site about BART coming to San Jose from the very beginning. The latest effort to fund the project, a one-eighth-cent sales tax proposal on the November ballot, has brought the issue back into the news and I thought we might take the opportunity to debate the initiative. (There is a very good article by Erin Sherbert in Metro this week that brings the matter up to date.)
While I am a big supporter of public transportation works in general and believe that BART must come here, I am as confused as anyone as to the best way forward. It’s a pity that San Jose missed the boat and 35 years after the system began operations we are still arguing over whether we should even have it or not. Given the circumstances of our regional geography and demographics, as well as current highway traffic problems and automobile transportation costs, it seems to me that we are past the point of necessity for BART. So we must find a way to build it, make it work and pay for it.
How to pay for the BART extension is certainly the sticking point for most people, including me. The state has pledged $500 million and the federal government $750 million, contingent upon proof that the VTA can pay the operating costs of the system. The VTA says that the proposed 2008 sales tax levy will do the trick. However, they said the same in 2000 (Measure A), but now they say that tax did not generate the required funds. In addition, the VTA’s continually revised estimates as to building and running costs do nothing to garner the public’s trust.
I wish I understood how we got to this point. It’s not like there aren’t plenty of models of successful regional transportation systems in the world. The Washington, London, Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong integrated subway and rail systems, for instance, are all first rate. Citizens who live in the communities served by BART love it. Estimates are that at least 100,000 Silicon Valley commuters would us the BART extension every day. That will take a lot of cars off the freeways and ease regional fuel usage and pollution emissions.
The VTA must do a better job of nailing down all of the facts and figures on BART so the public will trust them and support the project. It’s not good enough for the VTA’s general manager Michael Burns to say that he isn’t worried about how they will come up with the money to cover operating costs down the road because the proposed sales tax will allow them to build up funds over several years while the system is being built. If that were entirely true, then couldn’t the same have been said about Measure A and we would have pots of money right now and the VTA wouldn’t need the additional tax revenue?
I think the majority of voting citizens of Silicon Valley are ready to do what is necessary to bring BART here. But we aren’t there yet. The VTA has a responsibility to simply present the public with all the facts and figures of the plan and stick to it. We need to know exactly how much it’s going to cost and what we are going to get for our money. Once they give us reason to trust them, then I think we can make an informed decision as to the best way forward with the financing, whether by sales tax or some other method. We aren’t there yet, so they had better get busy. November is just around the corner.
Jack:
It’s not a choice between BART or nothing. You can support public transit in general and oppose the current BART proposal because the latter is unnecessarily wasteful. The route misses the job-rich “golden triangle” and the airport and travelers to the latter will be forced to ride BART the long way around to Santa Clara and transfer to a “people mover” which is like a cross between and bus and an elevator, to backtrack to the airport. You can add at least another half billion [before cost overruns] for that project.
Yesterday there was an item of interest in the “Antiplanner” blog here:
http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=475#comments
In one of the comments, msetty proposes the following:
“About 5%-7% of the proposed budget for the Fremont to San Jose BART project would be sufficient to fully double track the Capitol Corridor commuter rail line between Oakland and San Jose, add a new connection between BART and Capitol Corridor in Fremont, and run Hercules-San Jose trains every 15 minutes during the peak and every 30 minutes at other times. Travel times would be considerably faster than the proposed BART extension, additional operating costs would be 50% less, and likely patronage would be much higher, mainly due to much faster service. Such an enhanced Capitol Corridor would have an excellent chance of breaking even compared to a BART extension underutilized compared to its capacity.”
VTA has already re-scoped a proposed line on East Santa Street/Alum Rock from Light Rail to Bus Rapid Transit account of cost/benefit. There’s no reason besides stubbornness that the East Bay-South Bay transit link cannot be re-scoped such that the existing taxes will pay for it. See
http://www.bayrailalliance.org/caltrain_metro_east
To compare the routes of the current BART proposal and the Bay Rail alliance proposal, go here:
http://sfcityscape.com/maps/caltrain_metro_east.html#
There needs to be some “outside the box” thinking on this one.
The examples that you cite and you can add
New York city and Chicago are all high density areas. We are not a high density populated area and probably never will be.
Bart here would be a very costly project for the taxpayer.
The fact that VTA gets the money is, by itself, enough to justify a NO vote. Those folks couldn’t manage a lemonade stand.
Every time I read about BART I feel I’m in a Rhetoric Class back in high school—much perusasion but little data. Can BART supporters PLEASE offer up some Success Metrics so taxpayers can judge *why* the cost/benefit analysis works. What’s a legit farebox recovery? How much will traffic get better? How much less air pollution? How much air pollution and carbon footprint will the construction create?
As it is, we have this simple argument: Public Transit is nice therefore we should pay for BART.
That isn’t good enough. Please tell us why this particular project at this particular cost merits our support.
Hugh makes a great point. Just being against BART does not make you anti-public transportation. There are more efficient and cost effective ways to solve the regions transportation needs. You are correct Jack when you stated above that they should have thought of this 35 years ago when they constructed BART in the first place. Today however, the known and likely future costs far outweigh the proposed benefits.
All new public transit proposals, including BART, are all justified by their supporters by their projections of dramatic population increases. These population increases may well turn out to be correct but if so, they will be the result of continued illegal immigration. I am unwilling to volunteer yet more of my labor and tax dollars to support an infrastructure that will primarily benefit illegal aliens.
I will only consider supporting BART to San Jose when local politicians demonstrate that they are willing to support enforcement of our immigration laws.
Same thing goes for new water projects.
Same thing goes for more public health care.
Same thing goes for new public schools.
Same thing goes for more subsidized housing.
Same thing goes for more prisons.
8 – Do you have even a shred of evidence to back up your statement about supporting “…an infrastructure that will primarily benefit illegal aliens”? I don’t support BART but I don’t think such hyperbole is helpful to the cause.
Estimates are that at least 100,000 Silicon Valley commuters would us the BART extension every day.
This estimate is exactly why I will vote NO on any BART tax, as I did in the past.
This reminds me of Iraq. All rosy, optimistic projections with no basis in reality, and ignoring all reasonable opposition, and questioning of the validity of the underlying assumptions.
Unfortunately, like Iraq, we probably will have to build this thing to prove the underlying justifications are a sham. Then we will be stuck with the cost for years, while receiving no benefit. Just like Iraq.
While I somewhat agree with your sentiment, John Galt, I think it a little mean-spirited.
Are you against parks because you can afford to take your family to the movies and illegals can’t? Are you against trails because you can afford gym membership and illegals can’t? Are you against teacher pay raises because your children have already finished high school or go to private school?
I think BART supporters are either people who feel a need to cement our “membership” in the Bay Area or those who have just jumped on the green bandwagon and see all public transit as being the same great thing. Our money would go so, so much further with standard gauge light rail and it would benefit those of us who live in the valley. If we need to import workers, go with Caltrain East.
I wonder if the calculus would change if they just expanded BART to North San Jose, and then connected it to downtown via Light Rail. My understanding is that the tunnel under downtown San Jose greatly increases the costs.
Pete campbell
Instead of spending six billion dollars to build BART to San Jose, use the money for Planned Parenthood clinics and birth control. Imagine families in the East Bay, South Bay and Peninsula having no more than two children each. Thanks, Senator Obama (two children) and President Bush (two children), you gentlemen are wonderful role models for what families are all about.
Let me remind everyone – this is California – a car enables you to go from door to door with a minimum of hassle. Assuming you live or work near enough to a BART station to reach it easily, what are the chances you both live and work close to stations? The ridership estimates are pure fantasy – until more bus routes, light rail or other connectors are in place, it will not be practical for most people to use BART.
Jack, regarding your statement,“I think the majority of voting citizens of Silicon Valley are ready to do what is necessary to bring BART here,” anecdotal evidence indicates otherwise.
By my count, 12 of the 14 respondents thus far are against BART to SJ and two would be classified as “unknown,” as they ventured off to another topic – immigration.
I think the VTA Board and Carl may well be shot down again.
Greg #16
I think you may be right. My point is that the public would support BART if the VTA had a set plan that made sense. However, there is obviously no such plan. I am against it myself as it stands today and I doubt that the VTA will be able to change my mind before the election. It’s a mess for sure and it’s a shame that so much taxpayer money has been wasted already.
BART to San Jose, the Ron Gonzales legacy.
The commitment has been made and BART will come to San Jose, in addition SVLG and VTA have made it a priority. The question remains how long will it take—and the answer alludes everyone.
The problem stems from traditional financing methods—utilizing a myriad of Fed, State and Local dollars, taxes, borrowing, bonding, operating costs etc. In addition a convuluted ownership an management process combined with annual operating costs that must be subsidized.
But were is the out of the box thinking regarding funding?
The Measure A sales tax was supposed to raise $2.8 Billion—last estimate I heard just for construction was 4.8 billion—it is probably higher and will go higher the longer we wait.
That does not include operating costs.
So the key is how do raise an addition $3 Billion along with operating costs? I find it interesting that the business community always supports an increase in the sales tax, but where is their contribution—especially as they would benefit most?
And I don’t mean tax them, but let them invest.
The stations could be built by developers with housing and retail. The BART extension could reap a hefty sum for contracting and leasing retail to businesses and providing opportunities to build housing.
Businesses that contributed to construction of BART should be able to offset the costs with carbon and tax credits. We might think of giving those businesses employees a reduced cost to ride BART after construction for a period of time.
Of course, using the current Cal Train line from Millbrae as a right of way would help. Especially if we eliminated or merged Cal Train with BART.
Then BART would not have to pay Cal Train for the right of way on he west side, BART would already come to downtown—without a tunnel and would could elimnate one bureaucracy.
Or being more creative we could change the name from BART to Larry and ask Mr. Ellison to pony-up. I don’t mind arriving at Sobrato Station, the Apple Platform, or the Google Garage.
Not to mention the advertising one could sell as a way to raise revenue—
The key is to get out of the mindset that all we have is tax revenue. In the scheme of things—$5 billion is not that much for a region this rich.
Rich –
“I find it interesting that the business community always supports an increase in the sales tax, but where is their contribution—especially as they would benefit most?”
Business contribute substantially via sales tax. Capital equipment, servers, administrative supplies, pretty much every single item classified as a tangible good has a sales tax applied to it. One server can cost as much as $500k or even more. How many servers do you think Google, Yahoo or even Cisco run? Manufacturing and R&D capital equipment costs can be in the millions. All subject to sales and use tax. I am no fan of BART, but I believe there are countless real arguments one can make against the proposal without false arguments about industry not paying their “fair share”..
As to who’s legacy BART is or will be, Gonzo does not get all the credit. Carl G has a much larger stake in the game. The proof is the very fact that the issue returns 2 years post the Gonzo era. This is not a business priority so much as it is a Carl G. legacy project. Carl does whatever he tells his board they should tell him to do. How many times do we have to fight the same egos jamming up the ballot before we finally get to move forward with real, cost effective transportation solutions?
This tax won’t be the last we hear of it.
If it passes, it’s still not enough money to finish the job. Last time they asked for a quarter cent, and even that wasn’t enough.
If it fails, Carl will come back with yet another tax in 2010.
9- Just Wondering & 11- Kenny,
I believe I explained my position inaccurately. It is not my concern that the actual riders of BART will be illegal aliens. Rather it is that we are contemplating another expensive public works project that is predicated on the needs of a population demographic that is massively exaggerated by it’s illegal component. I believe that this situation needs to be corrected first- THEN see about building BART.
In other words, would we even be contemplating BART were it not for the presence of the tens (hundreds?) of thousands of illegal aliens in the bay area?
As for Mr.Robinson’s suggestion that corporations could finance it- Do we really want to be any more beholden to the corporations than we already are? When somebody GIVES you something, you OWE them. Just look how the City of San Jose is jerked around like a puppet on a string so that it can get it’s grubby hands on coveted matching funds from the Feds and the State.
No. IF we want BART let’s pay for it ourselves and keep control.
I’m not sure I understand the attitude that BART only benefits East Bay residents and their employers. First, let’s say that most of the users will be coming south from the East Bay. Isn’t being the capital of Silicon Valley something that we are proud of? As a result of that, we provide jobs for the region. The East Bay corridors, and 880 in particular are completely jammed. It will benefit everyone to clear those roads. Even if it isn’t your commute, your air quality and ability to move around the region is affected by jammed highways.
San Francisco is a prime example. The users of BART to San Francisco are not SF residents, but folks who travel there for work and play. That doesn’t mean that SF residents don’t benefit from it. And the South Bay population that lives on the East Side is left out of the regional connectivity. We could benefit greatly by BART to SF. Witness the jammed parking lots in Fremont and north. There are huge number of folks coming from the south to ride BART north.
Perhaps BART’s technology isn’t what we would choose if we started from scratch, but does that mean we shouldn’t solve the East Bay transportation problems now that it is our system?
I do agree that extending south to Milpitas would be a reasonable compromise, but we need a solution to the East Bay mess, and it does affect all of us, even those of you western valley or Willow Glen folks.
I’m sure most of us remember how far off the projected ridership numbers for our trolley from nowhere to nowhere were. There is no reason to suspect the new bozos @ VTA are any better at predicting ridership than the old bozos were.
It has a different guage track, so it integrates with nothing. It’s the diversity poster child for public transit.
Silicon Valley doesn’t have, and likely never will have, the residential density to support such a boondoggle.
Someone pass me a “No on Measure (whatever it’ll be called)” lawn sign please. I’ll tack it onto the telephone pole outside my place to tick Pete Campbell off.
“Stuck on 880” writes “Perhaps BART’s technology isn’t what we would choose if we started from scratch, but does that mean we shouldn’t solve the East Bay transportation problems now that it is our system?”
BART is not “our system.” There are existing rail lines that could be upgraded for a fraction of the cost of BART.
There are existing “Capitol Corridor” trains now operating between San Jose and Sacramento. Spending a fraction of the BART cost on the Hercules-San Jose segment and operating trains every 15/30 minutes [depending on time of day] would solve the problem. The existing Capitol Corridor stop near Great America is more convenient to “silicon valley” jobs than the proposed BART alignment is.
Also, for a fraction of the cost of BART, the existing Altamont Commuter Express service could be improved.
If a new alignment is needed, standard gauge trains should be used so that Capitol, ACE or Caltrain trains could use the new route. The Bay Rail Alliance proposal explains this.
#22
First, let’s say that most of the users will be coming south from the East Bay.
True.
The problem is they are not paying a penny towards the construction. Santa Clara County taxpayers are stuck with the bill.
JMO and Mark G,
At 4.50 per gallon and rising, times are a changin’. Ridership will be going up—on all public transportation systems. It already has on every system, including light rail.
The sales tax is regressive, it is the end user who picks up the cost and hurts poor people the most.
Businesses buy wholesale for their materials—that’s not to mean they pay no sales tax—but end consumers bear the burden.
But my point is that taxes should be seen as a last resort, not the first option—and remember, I’m a liberal.
Rich –
I love a good tax debate, but I think I took my allottment of opportunities to derail the original post topic with my back and forth with Kathleen a topic or two ago…
I conceptually agree with your creative thinking here. These financing ideas you have come up with are actually the types of ideas you shoul have expected from the “business” leader Carl Guardino portrays himself to be. Isn’t it a tad strange he keeps such a narrow focus on raising taxes to pay for his legacy project.
I also agree with you that the economic conditions will likely continue to push more and more folks towards public and alternative transportation methods. I don’t think however, that we should tie our hands to such a costly (regardless of who ends up paying the bill,) and inefficient BART extension. We need that same creative thinking you talk about on the financing side to come out and develop a reasonable transportation plan that works for our needs now and in the future.
Jack,
I’ll bet Dr. Feelgood, Carl G., reads SJI. I’ll also bet that he’s fed up with those of us who whine about paying yet more sales taxes.
C’mon, isn’t the whole BART to SJ issue about looking good and feeling good? Damn the cost anyway… and don’t ask for any kind of independent analysis on ridership, fare box payback, etc.!
What say, Carl? Are you up to the challenge of answering our questions?
100,000 Valley residents will use BART each day?! Nah, probably half that number at best – and they won’t be our folks, they’ll be East Bay residents commuting to jobs in our fair valley.
Let the users pay the freight on this one – East Bay residents and the corporations that employ them. Svengali Guardino can collect assessments via his SVLG.
Ballot measure fools me once: shame on you. Ballot measure fools me twice: shame on me.
Excellent opinion Mr. V.Z.! Couldn’t agree with you more. BRING BART TO SAN JOSE!
Jack,
How much BART will the $6 billion buy?From where to where???
The VTA is that large sucking sound you hear…They are not elected by the public, the are not responsible with the tax payers money, and they have lots of expensive ideas that we (the taxpayers) can pay for and please never ask them to be accountable.
The Bart to San Jose will not help 5% of the residents. Stop the madness and create a better solution….please!
Tony D.-
The problem is that, in trying to bring BART to SJ, the VTA is likely to dig a giant financial hole and have to slash the rest of public transit.
They’re already taking money away from the Dumbarton Rail bridge, light rail for east side, and Caltrain improvements. Bus service won’t be far behind when the red ink really starts flowing. All this not for BART, but for the dream of BART.
I have no problem with BART, if Carl wants to pay for it. I just don’t want to decimate the rest of public transit to get there.
Over on “Rants and Raves,” Tony D tries to compare downtown SJ with downtown SF. His point is that BART works for downtown SF, why not for downtown SJ?
I can think of several reasons:
1: Downtown SF has many more jobs, shopping and activities than downtown SJ does.
2. BART’s main competitor from the East Bay into downtown SF is a highly congested toll bridge.
3. SF has a highly developed transit system to take people from BART to other destinations in the city not directly served by BART.
On the other hand:
1. Downtown SJ is not nearly the regional destination that downtown SF is. Downtown has far fewer jobs, almost no shopping.
2. The proposed BART extension with its East Side route manages to miss the valley’s real job center, north SJ/Santa Clara/Sunnyvale/Mountain View. Much of this area is already served by the VTA light rail system, but the trains are fairly slow.
3. I-880 and I-680 have peak-hour traffic congestion but these freeways have been improved. And most of the drivers head west on SR237 to the aforementioned job centers in north SJ/Santa Clara/Sunnyvale/Mountain View that are not on the BART line. For the most part, they are not continuing to downtown SJ.
See:
http://vtawatch.blogspot.com/2005/09/clear-cut-fraudulent-ridership.html
http://vtawatch.blogspot.com/2006/08/clear-cut-fraudulent-bart-ridership.html
Finally, please post to the proper thread next time. Thank you.
The IA column in yesterday’s Murky News wrote at length about Carl G and BART. Carl claims to have a survey that’s positive re BART, but he declines to release the results. Don’t ya think that if it really were favorable that Carl would release it with trumpets blaring? He refuses to even show them to VTA, according to IA. C’mon Carl, we weren’t born yesterday.
Good catch on the Internal Affairs:
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_10012851
Noteworthy quote: “He pulled the same stunt two years ago, when he refused to release poll results while pushing a half-cent sales tax to bring BART to San Jose and fund other projects. That tax ultimately failed, even though Guardino reportedly told selected officials at the time that his data indicated the chances of winning were ‘very strong.’”
If I were on the VTA Board, and Carl tried to snow me with more of the same, I’d tell him to get lost. Unfortunately, the VTA Board seems to be under some kind of Carl-induced trance.
Reality check,
I’m suprised you are against bart. It will provide so many overpaid construction and operation jobs that are union.
what happened, the union wells drying up in the lobbyist world?
If we vote to fund BART’s working expenses, with this minor tax (a mere 1/8 of a cent), it will not take effect until it’s actually BUILT! So there is no harm in the potential tax until we build BART, and the rest is up to the federal-state government to actually fund the building. True we must hold VTA accountable, but the higher priority is to get mass transit going and time is of the essence. We can always adjust the funding later, to start reducing gas consumption and pollution is the higher priority.
Some people are pushing the trains instead. A bullet train could take $60 billion which is over 10 times the cost of a possible BART extension. The forces that are pushing the trains are often doing so to promote the commute to the bay area from the Central Valley or other rural areas. These trains would encourage long commutes with more petroleum or energy consumption in general; not to mention people in Merced taking our jobs. We need to get 10 million people here in the Bay Area using less energy and later we can work on the smaller number of people in the rural part of the state. Maybe more importantly, we need to promote higher density bay area growth if global warming and gas dependency-scarcity is so critical. BART would promote local growth; businesses and housing tend to grow around the BART stations and would make local housing and jobs more attractive. BART is a better choice for city planning and energy consumption, and costs far less then bullet trains to Lodi, which we can always do later. If the trains win now, it will be the home builders of Central California who are pushing for the trains who win.
BART carries almost a million people every day while the trains like ACE have carried 2000 a day. BART runs as often as every 15 minutes while the train can run as infrequently as every 2 hours. BART is far less subsidized than the trains today, and has a higher fare-box recovery ratio of around 60% (it pays for itself better than the trains). BART is whisper quiet compared to the train. The train lacks a right of way which requires a blaring horn and a jarring racket as it lumbers by, believe me I have lived near both. The average BART train is fast today, often going up to 60-80 mph in stretches, where the normal Cal Train averages around 30-40mph. The ACE train crawls to 10mph over the Sunol grade today. BART is safer with raised separated grading and dedicated overpasses already built, unlike the trains that hit pedestrians or car traffic every other day. BARTs grade separated right of ways are better for traffic congestion because cars don’t need to sit around and wait for the train to pass. The Bay Area has made a huge commitment to BART which already goes to our airports SFO, OAK, major sports stadiums (Oakland As-Raiders, Giants, etc.), a Transbay tube all of which can’t be said about the trains, and seems unlikely in the near future. To have multiple competing systems with guaranteed transfer points reduces the effectiveness of any system and will discourage people from riding. If we have one direct route to San Jose people will take it, if we guarantee transfers there is no way some people will go for the painful transfer process to a train or bus. We can have light rail (like Muni, or VTA) once you reach a city, but light rail doesn’t go between counties, BART is an inter-city system. BART is already electric; no need to spend billions to electrify the trains, and no gas is needed for BART unlike our diesel ACE, Cal Train-Amtrak systems today. For the functional equivalent of BART, trains will need grade separated right of ways, airport connections, major sport stadium stops, downtown city tunnels under SF, Oakland, Berkley, Walnut Creek, electrification, reduced sound, faster speeds (in places like the 10mph Sunol grade), trans bay connections, its apples and oranges, in the arguments I have heard. To make the functional equivalent of BART will cost a lot in the near future and we will expend a huge amount of energy in the mean time.
Some say BART ridership won’t be high; but that is based on biased studies done by a Republican FTA administration, before $5 gas, and the threat of global warming. There will also be a brand new Athletics stadium in Fremont soon and during the A’s 1980s playoff games, Oakland had 40% of the 40,000 fans arrive by BART. In 2000, it was estimated that there were approximately 400,000 weekday automobile trips between the East Bay and Santa Clara County. By 2025, this number is expected to exceed 500,000 vehicle trips (per MTC). Any train in the bay area or Los Angeles is not going to match these numbers because they don’t go to SFO, downtown areas, and we shouldn’t encourage it, frankly. All bay area public transportation is setting record ridership rates, today. Some people are even moving back from the x-burbs because the high cost of buying gas for their commute. So the point is, things have changed since the old studies (some done or influenced by the FTA that is run by Bush administration republican appointees), and the cost has often been exaggerated and the ridership numbers down played, by some with agendas.
The more we promote BART, the more likely it will drive prices down due to the ridership and funding. The more we sabotage BART with guaranteed transfers to the competing train lines, siphon funding for competing trains, the less effective BART will be. Today, you can leave Fremont and arrive in SF 40 minutes later with a transfer. If we have a direct San Jose BART line, the more people will ride, and the more effective BART will get, with fewer transfers in the future.
BART’s initial cost was $1.6 billion, which included both the initial system and the Transbay Tube. The point is, the longer we wait, the more painful it will be.
Has Carl lost it ? Maybe it`s time for a change in leadership at SVLG ?
#41 Jim
Thanks for your very good questions. Sorry, but I am most definitely NOT close to any Bart people and I do not know the answers. Can any of you BART experts provide answers? I’d like to know myself.
#41, 43-
VTA pays full operating cost for the BART extension, including parking lots, police, etc. VTA also pays a share of the maintenance and operating cost for the rest of the system.
If the VTA defaults, then BART can take the TDA funds that pay for bus service.
#44
When you say VTA pays, does that really mean Santa Clara County taxpayer?
pulsar- There is nothing in the language that says the 1/8 cent can’t be collected until BART is built. It only says that the tax can’t be collected until some amount of matching funds are secured. As soon as both the feds and the state each chip in $1, be prepared to pay up.
And people use the train for Athletics games because there is a station at the Colliseum. The new park in Fremont is much further away. I wouldn’t expect fans to take the train for that one.
And BART goes the same speed as other trains. It’s required to, by FRA regulations.
BART averages 39 mph Frement to Daly City. Caltrain averages 31, 42, or 51 mph San Jose to SF, depending on which train you take.
Not a big difference one way ot the other.
Pulsar,
The real pain for taxpayers will come if we build BART to San Jose. There is no honesty given us in the true cost of BART if we build it.
The $6 billion we now are told the new cost will be will build BART to where,how much BART, the whole 16 mile extension or just to Barryessa? This question has been asked many many times in the past 6 months on San Jose Inside and no one can answer the question or, they don`t want to answer the question? Do you know? Have you herd that answer?
What`s the big secret?
Jack,
Both you and Tom are close to the BART people.Can either of you answer the question,how much BART will the $6 billion price tag buy?
Fair box recovery 14cents,who will pay the differance?
BART police,who will pay for them?
BART parking lots in San Jose, especially dowmtown, who will pay for a who will pay for them.
What happens to VTA if they default on their monthly payments to BART after it is built?
Do Tom and you have any of those answers, I can`t find the answers anywhere.
37- The new tax isn’t great for union jobs. VTA bus drivers are union, and so are SJ police, fire, and city hall employees. They’re all going to get squeezed when the cost overruns start.
#46,
If you are asking me what I mean by “Santa Clara County taxpayer” then the answer is a Santa Clara County resident who pays taxes.
I do not mind this BART extension so long as all counties that have BART tracks on their land pay the same tax. However, I am not going to support a Santa Clara County tax for a resource that will primarily benefit other counties. BART is a regional resource, so all regions should be paying for it.
Since the rest of your post appears to be the rambling of a confused mind, I have no idea what you are saying.
People should not vote for BART simply because they think anything better can’t or won’t happen. This is how VTA got to build the light rail as it is today. This is how VTA plans to build BART.
In the south bay, there’s plenty of money to spend on new infrastructure without new taxes. The issue is how to spend it. Light rail is one of these things that got built, and we can see how well it works.
Of course better things won’t be built when all the resources are tied on the lousy BART line. Better things could’ve built without having all that resources tied on the light rail.
A yes vote is an endorsement of a lousy plan.
#47, the three original BART counties have been paying taxes for BART since 1962. I believe that currently 1% sales tax goes to BART. Even places like Livermore and Antioch that have never had BART have paid these taxes all these years.
44. What do you mean by the “Santa Clara County taxpayer”? As I recall, your generation has sold out my generation with Prop 13. It’s a fingerpointing game where you blame others for spending too much, and others blame you for voting against taxes, meanwhile, I’m going to be stuck footing the bill for you.
Our population has nearly tripled in the past 50 years, yet has our infrastructure been keeping up with this growth? No, its all this nitpicking, voting against anything that isn’t exactly to your liking, and meanwhile our transportation problems will continue to get worse. I’m going to be voting for BART because practically, if we don’t, nothing else is going to get built. “Caltrain Metro East” is not going to happen, you can argue that it should, but if you vote against BART on those grounds: its not VTAs fault you’re leaving my generation without a transportation system, its your fault.
Pulsar #50-
Please post the link or data source you have that indicates Microsoft and/or Oracle are in support of BART to SJ? Last time I checked, Microsoft is headquartered in Mountain View, which will still be 20 minutes from any train station (Fremont station is roughly the same distance for them as it is now) and Oracle is is in Redwood City. Cisco might benefit since they are obviously closer to the line, but yet I still don’t know of any public support provided by John Chambers or Cisco executives. Do you? Or are you just throwing these names out there because you feel we will care more if these high-tech giants are on-board?
If you want to win people over to your side, please use valid, verifiable facts, up to and including verifiable listed supporters. If you are just trying to be like the other proponents of this boondoggle and throw false, innacurate or misleading information around along with tired platitudes about how great BART is, then please carry-on with your Carl Gaurdino wanna-be antics.
Richard-
I agree with you on prop 13, but that doesn’t make me support BART.
I’ve read the financial plans to build BART, and they are billions short with or without this tax. Even if every other VTA assumption turns out to be valid, and nothing else goes wrong. (Considering VTA just downgraded their sales tax projections by a couple billion dollars, this isn’t likely.)
BART may be the best thing since sliced bread. Or not. It doesn’t matter if VTA can’t built it.
In 2004 before $4 gas they estimated betwee 100,000 to 150,000 would ride BART, today at $4-$5,$6 gas and greater threat of global warming its going to be 200,000 to 250,000. No other system of buses and trains with many transfers is going to match that.
To not vote for BART WOULD BE INSANITY. BART today carries 100 million people a year. BART is the best inter-city transit we have.
BART ridership is rapidly growing. BART has helped business and downtown areas grow in just about every city it was built in, SF, Oakland, Concord, Walnut Creek, etc. BART to San Jose would help San Jose grow.
BART carries 20,000 people to the Oakland Coliseum on the weekends alone to a single stop, which is 5 times the ridership of ACE and more then the ridership of Amtrak and even CalTrain somedays. The ACE train only carries 2000 people a day on average. BART carries more then ACE, CalTrain, express buses and Amtrak combined.
BART pays for itself better then trains. BART has a 60% farebox recovery ratio, compared to the trains 40%. Amtrak is subsidized by the state and federal government at 60%.
BART is the the best choice for intercity transit. To have any other system you would have to spend billions to have the equivalent.
The trains are being pushed by the rural central valley areas to get people to move to Lodi and Turlock.
Any other inter-city transit will cause lowdensity high energy consumption growth. If we just have buses or trains and buses its GOING TO GUARANTEE MANY TRANSFERS AND AS TODAY MOST PEOPLE WILL never take a cheap slow polluting low ball solution.
BART will be actually used the best, and is being promoted by Silicon Valley Leaders like Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, San Jose convention center, the malls like fashion fair that will be right next to BART, Santana Row, San Jose State, Santa Clara University, San Jose performing arts, etc.
Bottom line BART will be used and is 20 times cheaper then a bullet train system. To make the current equivalent to BART with electrification and subways is going to take
years.
Mark #52, I said that because they are part of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group.
This group is made up of Oracle, Cisco, Micrsoft, Adobe, etc, etc.. The SVLG believes
BART should come to silicon valley.
http://svlg.net/about/members.php
http://svlg.net/
BART carries 360,000 people a day. Its quite likely even in the most pessimistic terms, BART would carry 60,000 new people a day if it went on the proposed new plan to San Jose, with 7 new stations if you include the new station in Alameda. In a more optimistic count with the full 10 new stations the ridership could easily be 120,000 new riders a day. That is 20 – 40 million new riders a year.
BART already has a ridership that is 10 times the ridership of cal trains, a miserable 35,000 a day compared to BARTS 360,000 a day. BART is the most used transit system with the benefits of graded seperations, subways, etc. BART is far less subsidized then Amtrak and has one of the highest fare box recovery ratios in the nation.
Measure B on the ballot will only cost the average person 10-15 dollars of new sales tax a year or 1/8 of a cent, a small price to pay for 20-40 MILLION cars taken off the road (thats a lot of congestion, gas and pollution).
Subways cost a lot and BART is no exception, but for a federal-state sponsered construction its worth it.
The cost that they talk about is always in reference to Santa Clara County part not the Milpitas line that has already had the Environmental Impact Report completed, the Engineering started and funded, etc. The thing is scheduled to start construction in 2009 if Santa Clara just does its part.
http://www.vta.org/bart/benefits.html
Thats a better return than the HSR system to nowhere!
As far as BART benefits this seems reasonable:
http://www.vta.org/bart/benefits.html
Even in the most pessimistic predictions BART would carry 10,000 new riders per new station (low for a typical BART station) or 7 new stations x 10,000 new riders = 70,000 new BART riders. Many San Fran and Oakland stations get around 18,000 to 30,000 riders a day, so to use 10,000 on San Jose a bigger city is pretty low ball.
As far as the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, sure its made up of Cisco, Oracle, Microsoft, Adobe etc.
http://svlg.net/about/members.php
Thats the context I was making those statements in. In general most companies have favored BART and the group they belong to does as well.
Subways cost a lot, and thats no exception on this. If we made the equivalent for trains with subways, right of ways, grade seperation, electrification, etc. it would cost just as much.
The people who are fighting BART the most are the trains they have the most to lose and the most to gain by sabotaging BART. BART is more efficient then the trains in terms of operating costs. BART carries 10 times the ridership of the trains. The BART extension to San Jose itself would be greater then the the entire pathetic caltrains ridership numbers, even with the most pessimistic projections.
The train supports are fighting BART so hard that they are writing the rebuttal of the measure B. In fact bay rail alliance was found guilty of fraud by a Superior Court Judge promoting their self serving agenda.
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_10511692
BART is the best system, because people ACTUALLY RIDE IT and the train supports know it.
“BART carries 10 times the ridership of the trains.”
The BART ridership numbers are higher than the other trains simply because BART runs more trains.
Per train, Caltrain, ACE, the Capitols can carry more riders than a BART train. So if those trains where run as often as BART, then they could carry more riders.
BART’s achilles heel is that it uses a non-standard track gauge. BART therefore cannot operate on any of the existing standard gauge track in the Bay Area. BART cannot coexist with standard world class rail technologies such as the local, express, and intercity trains used worldwide.
Southern California’s Metrolink system shows what can be built quickly and inexpensively using existing track and off the shelf technology. Metrolink was established in 1991, purchased 459 miles of track for $960 million, and carried its first passenger 1 year later in 1992.
Caltrain provides a different example. With relatively inexpensive infrastructure investments over the past decade, Caltrain now offers an express train service that is the fastest (average MPH) in the Bay Area. Even if Caltrain were replaced by BART, the resulting BART service would be slower than Caltrain. (This is because BART stops at every station. Sure BART could offer limited express service, but at what price?)
So the choice really is $6 billion for 16 miles of non-standard track that is a dead end technologically and in terms of growth. Or 100s of miles of standard track that can grow and expand as funds are available and the need is there.
BART supporters vision is a ring around the bay. Commuter rail using standard gauge can offer more. Commuter rail already extends from Sacramento to Gilroy, from Stockton to San Jose. How about tunneling under San Francisco and the golden gate to connect to the SMART system that will run from Larkspur to Healdsburg? How about running 90 MPH and higher speed trains? How about being able to get on a local train in Hayward, transferring to high speed rail in San Jose and ending up in Los Angeles 3 hours later? This is no pipe dream. This is what Europe has today.
The Bay Area needs to move beyond BART. BART through its non-standard incompatible design, enormous expense, and disproportionate mindshare has stunted transit in the Bay Area. Its time to take advantage of the track we have, the latest standard gauge technology and build a comprehensive, fast and relatively inexpensive regional commuter rail network.
Metrolink is an example of what is wrong with the anti-bart crowd.
The metrolink ran head on into a freight train. Its not safe. CalTrain kills 20 people a year. In comparison to BART nobody dies on BART.
BART goes half the distance that metrolink and carries 10 times the ridership of metrolink. Metrolink is the poster child of suburban sprawl. It shows how people spread out. Average BART rider travels 15 miles, metro link average is 60miles.
Metro link is a shining example of spending billions on a competing line that nobody uses. Metrolink is basically empty in comparison to BART. Just one train station of BART gets higher ridership then the entire metro link waste. This is exactly what the car and oil companies want, to sabotage mass transit.
The reason is BART promotes high density and goes to high density areas. BART goes to downtown Berkeley, to downtown Rockridge, Oakland, SF, Walnut creek, Daily city. The trains go to industrial areas don’t go to subways, are dangerous and at least CalTrain is slower then BART (the normal one). The trains Amtrack, etc. are much more subsidized then BART. BART is more paid for by ticket revenue and has had a farebox recover ratio as high as 70%.
BART works it gets 10 times the ridership cause it goes to Oakland Colesium, it goes to SFO, it goes to downtown SF, downtown Oakland etc. BART is a formula that works the trains have been failures.
The train is a road to nowhwere.