The Mountain View City Council chambers are usually not the friendliest place in the world for the Valley Transportation Agency. Tuesday was no exception.
Council members once again blasted the VTA’s plan to spend billions on extending BART to San Jose. Mike Kasperzak encouraged his colleagues to “think regionally,” but the council still voted unanimously to send a letter to the agency outlining serious concerns with the long-term spending plan the VTA Board of Directors was scheduled to vote for on March 2.
Council member Greg Perry, who also serves on the VTA board and is a staunch critic of the BART project, said a main concern was the lack of a fallback plan if voters fail to approve the half-cent sales tax measure which county supervisors approved Tuesday. An unspecified amount of those proceeds is expected to go to mass-transit projects, including the BART-to-San Jose plan.
Other concerns included a lack of guaranteed funding for Caltrain and non-BART projects, a lack of emphasis on bus service, and questions about economic projections which council members said were overly optimistic.
Cities not served by the proposed BART line through Milpitas, San Jose and into Santa Clara “are paying in about half the sales tax and getting less than 10 percent,” said Perry. “We need guarantees, we need a fallback plan.”
— Jon Wiener
