On behalf of our group, I want to wish you a Happy (and safe) Thanksgiving.
Want to help make public transportation in Santa County better for everyone? Please join us on Tuesday, November 29 for our last meeting of 2016. At our last meeting for 2016, we will discuss:
- Your thought’s on VTA’s “Next Network” transit restructuring proposal and what YOU can do. (Read more about the VTA “Next Network” proposal.)
- The impact of “Measure B” – its passage and where transit goes from here
- increased safety issues on buses and trains and what YOU can do to help
- other issues YOU have with VTA buses and trains, and how we can solve them together
TIME & DATE: Tuesday, November 29 at 6pm SHARP
PLACE: San Jose Peace and Justice Center, 48 S. 7th Street, San Jose
GETTING THERE: It’s about 50 yards south of E. Santa Clara Street in downtown San Jose, and near many VTA bus lines like the 22, 64, 522 Rapid, 72 and 73. It’s also a short walk from the Santa Clara (Street) light rail stop. Here is a map of the area around the Peace and Justice Center in downtown San Jose.
Bring a pencil or pen and paper so you can take down notes on what to do.
Approving sales tax ballot measures every few years to improve transit is never enough. Whining from behind your keyboard changes nothing. Better only happens when we learn TOGETHER and fight TOGETHER in person.
Power to the people. See you on Tuesday.
Eugene Bradley
Founder, Silicon Valley Transit Users
The fact that VTA is planning to CUT bus service as part of its “Next Network” demonstrates that the agency’s Measure B is already failing. Improving the countywide bus network should be VTA highest priority – instead BART and Highway Expansions come first. I hope that the VTA Board of Directors will someday at least consider spending some of the $1.85 billion allocated to “relieving highway traffic congestion” on projects that actually have some hope of doing so: better bus service and improvements to networks for walking and bicycling and NOT highway expansions for more car traffic.
Certainly for some of Measure B’s massive highway expansion boondoggles like the $440 million Lawrence Expressway Grade Separation, VTA can find far better uses for that amount of money to reduce traffic by providing adequate transit service and safe streets for bicycling. Why are so many thousands of commuters driving cars on Lawrence Expressway in the first place? Oh let’s see… maybe has something to do with the huge office space expansions in Sunnyvale’s Moffett Park north of Highways 101 and 237… ok let’s see… what Transportation Demand Management (TDM) programs can be implemented through those companies to cut auto trips on Lawrence Expressway for $440 million? What buses could be run for $440 million? What parts of the missing Bikeway Network could be build for $440 million?
VTA must consider these alternatives to the highway traffic expansions they are currently planning on building with Measure B money or we are going to have even worse long-term problems with traffic jams, poor transit, poor public health, and all Life on Planet Earth ruined by catastrophic climate change.
For these reasons VTA’s highway projects are illegal. They directly violate California’s 2016 State Senate Bill 32, which mandates a 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions statewide by 2030 – just 14 years from now. Expanding highways to handle more car traffic INCREASES greenhouse gas emissions instead. And now even though Republicans control all branches of the federal government and appear committed to gutting our already weak climate protection regulations, VTA is STILL going full speed ahead with Measure B’s $1.85 billion climate-busting highway expansion program! Vote NO!