Transit leaders and experts concur with harsh criticism of VTA
Spurred by recent SJ Merc reports on collapsing ridership and dubious cost and construction timeline estimates by VTA, city, county, and state transit and political experts have joined the growing chorus for fundamental change at the embattled transit agency.
Sam Liccardo, SJ mayor and VTA board member:
“It’s not a poor system. It’s a colossally bad system. And we’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars to expand it as we speak.”
Edward Ring, senior fellow with and co-founder of the California Policy Center, and a Sacramento-based writer and activist:
"The San Jose Mercury News' recent coverage of VTA's problems is strong work and offers some useful ridership stats.
"Here's a thought: As cars and busses become green, sustainable, autonomous, and capable of high speed (freeways) and convoying (urban streets), as people increasingly work remotely, and as people become more aware than ever of dangerous pathogens in congested spaces, rail transit becomes increasingly obsolete. Public investment should refocus on upgrading our roads, including building smart roads and hyperlanes."
Will Swaim, president of the California Policy Center:
"Even Californians numb to the failures of math-challenged politicians ought to be outraged by these revelations. The only thing "rapid" about this project is the speed with which reality passes every new estimate of a cost increase. This is truly far worse than even VTA's critics predicted."
Johnny Khamis, former SJ councilmember and current candidate for county supervisor:
"I spent six difficult years on the VTA board from 2013 to 2018 fighting for cost-savings and accountability. It saddens me that the same severe issues of accountability and competence we identified and tried to address previously still plague the VTA and continue to drain taxpayers' pocketbooks.
"The generous interpretation of most recent BART and High-Speed Rail cost overruns suggests that the in-house teams simply have not understood the true cost of their projects. A more skeptical analysis would suggest they have deliberately misled us in order to pass new taxes. Either way, it's clear that these major projects would greatly benefit from a big injection of free-market competition. I would like to see how businesses would respond to a wide open RFQ for the initiative, in addition to an RFP for the whole project."
Pierluigi Oliverio, SJ planning commissioner:
"Our country has a difficult time getting things done and especially more so in California. It is no surprise the VTA BART project is further delayed and blown past budget amount by 200%. The public is not surprised, but yet again disappointed."
Read Randall O'Toole's epic analysis of VTA's woes here.
Read the Merc story here.
Read more on the California Policy Center here.
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