The court decision Monday wasn’t the only rejection that hit the transit agency. Gov. Gavin Newsom rejected a request from the VTA to intervene in the labor dispute and asked the two sides to resume negotiations on a three-year contract.
Representatives from both sides met Monday, but neither side budged from bargaining positions for a new three-year contract that remained far apart, with no new conversations scheduled.
VTA now projects the cost of the final phase of extending BART into downtown San Jose and Santa Clara will be more than 30% higher, and take three years longer, to 2036, to complete.
When the project is completed in 2029, VTA riders will be able to get on light rail at the Eastridge Transit Center and connect directly with BART at Milpitas Station.
The VTA board authorized the purchase of a high-tech tunnel boring machine for a massive underground train line under downtown from Berryessa to Diridon Station.
The city says that the state housing and transportation funds will provide 79 units of affordable housing, bike/pedestrian transportation improvements to Roosevelt Park and two electric buses for VTA.
Building B at the Guadalupe Light Rail yard, which began being demolished Wednesday afternoon with the work expected to continue Thursday, May 12, is where six of the 10 VTA employees died in the mass shooting on May 26, 2021.