To no one’s surprise, the Mercury News Editorial Board recently voiced their support for Measure B, the 1/8 cent sales tax designed to help bring BART to San Jose. Among their arguments for the measure was the statement that BART is “a strategy to connect the region’s major cities, universities, airports and other institutions…”
In terms of connecting the universities, I vaguely remembered that the proposed station for San Jose State had been scrapped in an effort to cut costs. I checked with the VTA…here’s what I found:
Currently, there are six proposed BART stations:
Montague/Capitol (Milpitas)
Berryessa
Alum Rock
Downtown San Jose
Diridon/Arena
Santa Clara
The Santa Clara Station will connect to a proposed “people mover” that will run to the San Jose Airport.
The BART stop at San Jose State has, in fact, been eliminated. According to the VTA, the Downtown Station will serve San Jose State.
“During value engineering, both of the earlier proposed downtown stations were consolidated into one larger station eliminating the one station further east on Santa Clara St.” (I guess the students will have to “hoof it” the rest of the way.)
Measure B is a crucial vote. Will it pass, and send a loud and clear voice that BART must come to San Jose, or will the measure fail, and set the project back indefinitely?
Three city blocks, or 1/4 mile, is now considered “hoofing it?” We must be extremely lazy Mr. Campbell. I use to walk to and from the Paseo de San Antonio LRT station to State all the time…walking three city blocks isn’t all that bad. Just voted absentee! For change and our city’s/valley’s future…yes to Obama/Biden, Measure B and Prop. 1A (high-speed rail).
Anybody notice that, in the ballot info just mailed, Dr. Feel Good Guardino’s name is conspicuously absent from the argument and rebuttal credits?
Appears that some bright proponent figured out that associating Carl’s name with the measure is risky business. Witness the recent bad press including the ballot measure litigation and the survey that never existed.
BART to SJ is a dead duck. And, given the current state and circulation numbers of the Murky-News, I’m afraid it may soon join the ranks of the BART measure.
The BART tax continues to stink. County Supervisor Blanca Alvarado has an excellent article in the Merc:
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_10610967
Also Scott Herhold:
http://www.siliconvalley.com/scottherhold/ci_10632838?nclick_check=1
These two articles list in detail reasons why I’ll be voting “NO” on this nightmare tax proposal. I urge everybody to do likewise.
Carl Guardino has a beautiful head of hair. It is thick and nicely groomed.
I still think that the best option would be to run BART to North San Jose. (connect it to the Light Rail Line). I’m guessing that it would be about one-third the cost.
How ironic it would be, if the Bullet Train (at $40 billion) gets passed…but Measure B fails….
Pete Campbell
Guardino’s name isn’t the only thing missing. The entire pro argument pretends that VTA has nothing at all to do with the tax. They even refer to the VTA as “irrelevant” to the tax measure.
When you’re too embarassed to mention your own name, something’s wrong.
The best thing to do is build the Bay Rail Alliance’s Caltrain Metro East plan:
http://www.bayrailalliance.org/caltrain_metro_east_maps
The next best thing to do is build BART to the Alameda-Santa Clara county line and run the VTA light rail up to connect. Keeping BART out of Santa Clara County means that we don’t have to “buy in” to BART.
BART to San Jose Measure B is more BS from same untruthful lobbyists and politicians who gave us
– VTA’s slow Light Rail to No Where,
– promised Measure A projects that will never be built,
– said Measure A will pay for everything with no new taxes
What VTA and BART supporters are not telling you is that Measure B – 1/8 sales tax is 1 of 4 new taxes for BART ( another 1/8 cent for shortfall VTA / BART operations ( HAY Report), 1/4 cent for $4 billion BART construction overruns and 1/8-1/4 cent for BART passenger projection shortfalls and higher operation costs which VTA has to fund )
There’s some good analysis of the BART project at:
http://transbayblog.com/2008/10/01/bart-to-san-jose-volume-1-a-long-expected-party/
http://transbayblog.com/2008/10/06/bart-to-san-jose-volume-2-the-shadow-of-the-past/
I’m voting NO on each measure that costs us any money except the one fixing Valley Med. Center.
Have you noticed that the state and our federal governments have run out of money? We’re all going to have to pay for it and I just can’t face more money flowing out of my account.