The budget for the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) has been approved. Also, light rail is officially on its way to Eastridge Mall. The video above chronicles last night’s VTA Board Of Directors’ meeting.
Read on for more highlights on how our transit funding proposal was received….
Our Proposal To Increase Bus Service Funding
Here’s how the VTA Board Of Directors responded to our proposal to increase funding for bus service at last night’s meeting:
They approved a $60m transfer from transit ops to capital. They rejected all proposals to reallocate funds from highways to transit. They rejected proposals to cancel BART to Santa Clara. They also talked about the mega measure (now called FASTER Bay Area) around 11pm.
— Monica Mallon (@monicamallon) June 7, 2019
I'm getting tired of hearing board members say that it’s impossible to improve bus service without another measure. It would have taken a lot of courage for them to vote to reallocate funds for bus service but it was absolutely possible.
— Monica Mallon (@monicamallon) June 7, 2019
Here’s how San Jose Mayor (and VTA Board Member) Sam Liccardo responded to Ms. Mallon and our proposal:
Monica, I appreciated your comments. Roadway projects come overwhelming from restricted funds – we can’t simply shift money from highways to transit construction, because many of the federal, state, and regional dollars are allocated by formulas and grants [with] legal restrictions.
It’s interesting, given Mayor Liccardo’s quote in Medium on highway expansion…
”But more freeway lanes and bigger roads consistently fail to deliver much relief to aggrieved commuters, and worst of all, they fail at a high cost.” – @sliccardo https://t.co/YBDWvn4krh
— Monica Mallon (@monicamallon) June 6, 2019
Our group will continue to follow up on this in future VTA Board Of Directors’ meetings and workshops this summer. We’ll have details on how YOU can help make it happen as well.
Eugene Bradley
Founder, Silicon Valley Transit Users