For some time now, Streetsblog and Bay Area transit advocates have criticized plans for the six-mile BART extension to San Jose as over engineered and way too deep. It's been painfully obvious that VTA's planners and local politicians have given total priority to not disturbing merchants in the slightest way, to the point that they're going to flush away billions to create a less-useful system.
The absurdity of the plan has now caught the attention of Alan Fisher, better known as the Armchair Urbanist, who makes videos about transit from his home base on the East Coast. He calls it "the worst new transit project in the U.S." The video is a great explainer about why this project needs stopped, rebooted, and then restarted with some consideration for building a reasonable extension.
As Fisher explains, on a per-mile basis, San Jose is going to spend more than New York City subway extensions. But New York has to go under existing subway lines that have to remain operational during construction. That often requires going really deep and spending lots of money. What San Jose is doing is completely unwarranted.
Be sure to check it out.
