The Loma Prietan
March/April 2006
BART Extension Threatens Santa Clara County Bus Service
By Greg Perry and Patrick Moore, Chair,
Transportation Committee
One of the key public transportation issues
in Santa Clara County is whether to extend
BART to San Jose. Not only is it a huge project,
but it may do more harm than good.
San Mateo County's experience with the
SFO extension is illustrative. Original projections
were pretty good. For $1.2 billion, 62,000
riders per day would get out of their cars. The
line would have so many people it would turn
a profit, and that money could be used to help
fund other public transportation.
It hasn't turned out that way. The project
was two years late and $300 million over budget,
and the 12,000 to 13,000 net new riders
is a fraction of the predicted 62,000. Few riders
means less fares, so the extension has run
large deficits, forcing huge cuts to bus service
in San Mateo County. Those bus service cuts
have resulted in a loss of 22,000 riders per
day. That loss is almost twice the anticipated
gain from building the BART extension in the
first place.
Low ridership, service cuts, and loss of existing
systems are the reasons the Sierra Club and
the Transportation and Land Use Coalition
opposed the first tax to fund the proposed
BART-SJ extension. Santa Clara County could
suffer the same damage as San Mateo.
Just as the SFO extension has had very low
ridership, the San Jose extension does not look
promising. Public transit advocates at the
Transportation and Land Use Coalition have
raised serious doubts about the accuracy of the
VTA's projections. For example, the number
of riders per station is predicted to rival that of
San Francisco. With no Bay Bridge or parking
shortages to limit driving, and far less office
space, this seems unlikely.
Even the Federal Transportation Authority
has raised doubts, openly questioning the
methodology used in preparing the VTA estimates.
Those doubts are the primary reason
the project was withdrawn from consideration
for federal funding.
The BART financing plans also threaten to
damage VTA bus operations. (Buses may not
be flashy, but our bus systems carry far more
riders than do our rail systems.)
The contract between the VTA and the
BART system grants BART $48 million per
year and the right to take away VTA bus
funds to get it. So far, funding has not been
identified to make these payments to build
the extension. The potential loss of $48 million
per year is about a quarter of the VTA's
bus budget.
The other risk to VTA bus operations
comes from the financing to build BART.
The current plan to finance BART is to borrow
against our bus operating funds. That
gives New York banks the right to take our bus
funds if the financing plan goes awry.
The final question about BART to San Jose
is whether it would be better than the systems
it would replace. There are two trains that
run from Fremont to San Jose, the Altamont
Commuter Express and the Capital Corridor.
Both are popular and have strong ridership:
actual riders, not just projections.
The sidebar highlights the top 10 commutes
into Santa Clara County. Eight of
these commutes represent 85 percent of the
total number of commuters and have nothing
to do with linking Fremont to San Jose.
Interestingly, all but one of the top 10 commutes
would be well served by improving
Caltrain, ACE, or Dumbarton Rail.
For riders who just want to get to work,
this means BART-SJ doesn't add much. We
would do better just to expand service on the
systems we already have.
When you add it all up, the current plan
for extending BART to San Jose just doesn't
make sense. For the sake of projected riders
who may never appear, it risks tens of thousands
of existing riders. All to build a train
that isn't any faster or more direct than the
ones we have today.
To get involved in transportation issues
please contact Pat Moore at pm24601@yahoo.
com or visit the Loma Prieta Chapter website
lomaprieta.sierraclub.org/transportation/index.html