Feb 26, 2004

OPINION

Almaden Valley Community Association

Let's put light rail in mothballs

By Bob Boydston,
President, AVCA

I will be the first to admit that I do not have the “Big Picture.” I don't know the terms of the Labor Agreement, the conditions of the Federal Grant to Light Rail or the economics of operating a bus. But the other day I saw in the paper that the VTA is spending $8.42 to transport one passenger on light rail and is getting a little over a dollar for it. I say, “enough already.” We continuously hear about budget shortages, so why are we letting light rail, (LR) bleed us. Common sense says that this can not go on, but then common sense tells us that the world is flat too.

In 2000, passenger cars carried 99 percent of motorized passenger miles of travel in the San Jose area. Buses carried about 0.83 percent of motorized passenger miles, and light rail carried 0.17 percent of total motorized passenger miles. Clearly people are voting by their seats in overwhelming favor of the auto. For every thousand people using transport, 990 were in their cars, 8.3 were on the bus and 1.7 was on light rail.

I remember my first ride on light rail. It had just opened from the Almaden Valley, using the Spur, and my wife and I were going to a meeting at the Fairmont Hotel in downtown San Jose. I was looking forward to a relaxed journey. I was surprised and disappointed; the trip took 40 minutes; the same trip by auto took about 25 minutes.

So why are we still operating light rail? Corporations all around us have been downsizing, reducing their workforce, stopping unprofitable operations, improving productivity and now making a profit. Businesses need the flexibility to adjust to changing economic conditions. So why doesn't light rail downsize; keeping only those operations that do not require a subsidy, or going out of business entirely? Does the labor agreement offer any flexibility or is VTA locked in to high labor costs with job protection regardless of economic conditions? Are the federal grants so attractive that it pays to keep running even if there are no passengers?

We see that two additional lines, Capitol Expressway and Vasona are being constructed, hoping to get ridership up. The Capitol Expressway line is particularly hard to understand. To construct it in the median required the removal of the two diamond lanes, which are the most heavily used of any in the county expressway system. The estimate at County Roads is that this removal would reduce the Level Of Service, (LOS) so that a total of seven Capitol intersections would be at LOS F, which is two levels below the minimum acceptable LOS D. Presently there are two LOS F intersections. The 1.7 LR passengers are given a higher priority than the 990 people taking their car. There was also a story that the VTA could not afford to run many trains on Capitol, just enough to qualify for the Federal capital equipment grant.

There is no guarantee that the two additional lines will get ridership up. I only take light rail if I feel that I will have difficulty finding a parking space for my car at my destination. There is plenty of parking at Eastridge, so I would never take light rail there.

One astute person familiar with transportation issues suggested to me that it would have been wiser to lay some kind of basic structure and run frequent express buses in the lanes that, for example, the Capitol Expressway LR would be using later and count the passengers. If and when there were enough riders to justify the economics of LR , then proceed with the LR infrastructure.

Another point needs to be made. LR runs in what is called a Transit Corridor. For 2,000 feet on either side of LR, housing densities can be constructed with high density 25+ dwelling units per acre. The premise being that these inhabitants will take LR and leave their cars at home. This has not proved to be the case. We asked the management of the high density Lake Almaden Village Apartments, located at the end of the Almaden Spur, if the tenants were using LR. We were told that few were. Some people feel that LR is being built to create a Transit Corridor which then allows profitable high density housing to be built.

Maybe I have got it all wrong and the people running LR can make a good case for LR's existence. But when they do, ask them, if they don't mind, to start with the $8.42 cost per passenger per ride.

AVCA's Web site is www.avca-sj.org