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VTA Sales Tax With Massive Highway Expansion Program on November Ballot
By Andrew Boone |
The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA)’s half-cent “Envision Silicon Valley” transportation sales tax is now headed to the November 8 general election ballot in the county, after receiving the unanimous approval of the transit agency’s Board of Directors on June 2. The new sales tax would fund a massive highway expansion program, spending $1.85 billion […]
VTA Sales Tax Promises Transit Lanes On Highway 85
By Andrew Boone |
After planning for the past decade to install express lanes on Highway 85, the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) is now pitching its $350 million sales tax funding request to widen Highway 85 as “transit lanes.” On June 24, the VTA Board of Directors [PDF] struck any reference to “express lanes” from the Highway 85 project description that they had approved […]
VTA Measure B’s Bloated Highway Expansions Leave Transit Unfunded
By Andrew Boone |
The Valley Transportation Authority (VTA)’s proposed 30-year Measure B half-cent sales tax is bloated with billions of dollars in highway traffic expansions. If Santa Clara County voters pass Measure B on November 8, $1.85 billion would be lavished on highway projects while less than half that amount would go to bus, light rail, bicycling, and […]
VTA Cuts Alum Rock and Santa Clara BART Stations From Funding Plans
By Andrew Boone |
Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) officials announced on October 6 that they would not seek federal funds in 2015 to construct Alum Rock and Santa Clara BART stations planned as part of the transit system’s extension through downtown San Jose. The move sparked an outcry from neighborhood leaders and elected officials, who have worked in community […]
Caltrain Service Cuts Could Be Mitigated With New MTC Plan
By Aaron Bialick |
Communities from San Francisco to San Jose may be saved from much of the expected crippling Caltrain service cuts. A new Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) plan being developed could make up much of the agency’s budget deficit for the next two years, said MTC Public Information Officer John Goodwin. A large chunk of the coming […]
SPUR Talk: High-Speed Rail on its Way to Northern California
By Roger Rudick |
High-Speed Rail construction is well underway in the Central Valley, said Ben Tripousis, Northern California Regional Director for the California High Speed Rail Authority, during a forum at the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association’s (SPUR) Mission Street center. “The High-Speed Rail question has shifted from ‘if’ to ‘when,'” he told the packed house at today’s […]