What if light rail never came back at all? How much money would we save?

The suspension of light rail service in the county has prompted many transit watchers to wonder: maybe this is an opportunity to move past throwing more and more money at the worst-performing element of the worst-performing transit agency in the country. Marc Joffe at the Reason Foundation sees innovative solutions available to solve VTA's woes, if we have the courage to pursue them, in an SJ Merc op-ed.

Rather than build expensive new transit infrastructure, Bay Area innovators should be applying technology to make off-peak transit on existing lines and working from home more convenient.

A Santa Clara County civil grand jury report that "VTA's light rail system is one o the most expensive, heavily subsidized, and least used light rail systems in the country." Yet the VTA is continuing to move forward with a $468m, 2.4-mile LRT extension from Eastridge to Milpitas. With an average weekday ridership of less than 10,000 prior to the suspension of service, the more appropriate question is whether LRT service should be reduced rather than extended.

If agencies could implement driverless buses and trains, they could affordably maintain five-minute headways throughout the day rather than just at rush hour.

To the extent that Bay Area innovators can leverage autonomous vehicle technologies to implement driverless transit allow cost, they can benefit not only VTA, BART, and SF Muni, but other transit systems around the country and the world.

Read the whole thing here.

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