[Sosfbay-discuss] Public Transportation

[Wes Rolley]

In the coming year, public transportation is going to continue being a 
major issue. A significant part of the Governor's State of the State 
Speech, his public "SOS", was devoted to infrastructure funding and a 
major portion of that on New Roads.   The "Bart to San Jose" question is 
still open, at least as to the extent of the project and also as to how 
it will be funded.  VTA is under increasing attacks as it is not now and 
never will be able to operate without subsidy.  Here is a set of points 
that I feel are pertinent to this question and should be considered as 
part of any Green Party statement

- there will always be significant opposition to BART to San Jose in 
South County, especially when it comes to increasing sales tax to pay 
for it, because South County will get little or no benefit from it. Case 
in point, tie editorial in the January 6, 2006 Morgan Hill Times 
headlined "BART Still a Bad Idea" and beginning with the statement "The 
VTA's sudden and suspicious "discovery" of $2 billion dollars in 
previously unaccounted- for sales tax revenue doesn't change the basic 
fact that extending BART to San Jose is a bad idea."

- I have lived for a number of years in two metropolitan areas with 
extensive public transportation systems, New York and Tokyo. In both 
cases, it is often true that you can get within a few blocks of where 
you want to go by taking mass transit.  That is almost never the case in 
the bay area.   The implication of this is that it will not be possible 
to have a comprehensive, highly utilized mass transit system based 
solely on CalTrain, BART and the San Jose Light Rail System.  The key to 
the effectiveness of the system in Tokyo (a mix of public and private 
lines) is that suburban rail became subway in the City, buses and trains 
served the same major stations and those stations were the centers of 
retail development.  The best example was the Seibu Line in Tokyo which 
terminated at a major stop in Tokyo where the same company also had a 
Seibu Department Store as the core of a commercial district.

- VTA financial management needs ongoing scrutiny.  It  has not proven 
to be able to give full accounting of the sales tax revenues.  It's 
political management is a worse.  According to the VTA web site: "VTA 
Board of Directors sets VTA policy. The Board has 17 members and 2 
ex-officio members, all of whom are elected officials appointed to serve 
on our Board by the jurisdictions they represent. Fourteen Directors are 
city council members and three are County Supervisors."

These political appointments are strongly motivated to make sure that 
their own city gets a fair share, which does not lead to the type of 
coordinated planning that we neeed.

If we are ever going to end up with something that is even a little bit 
Green, there must be some fundamental changes in the manner we go about 
planning.  You can not separate transportation issues from land use 
issues.  You can not optomize the system by sub-optomizing the benefit 
for each segment. The real battle ground for transportation may be South 
County, especially the plans that San Jose has for development in Coyote 
Valley, plans that I do not trust as the major objective is to maximize 
the real estate tax base for San Jose.

Is this an issue for the SCC Green Party or for local candidates in 
2006?  Will we have local candidates in 2006?

Wes

-- 
"Anytime you have an opportunity to make things better and you don't, then you are wasting your time on this Earth" Roberto Clemente

Wes Rolley
http://www.refpub.com/
Tel: 408.778.3024