VTA light rail among the nation's worst

[Blackwolf]

A rather scathing article from the San Jose Mercury News about the now 25-year old VTA Light Rail system.

The near-empty trolleys that often shuttle by at barely faster than jogging speeds serve as a constant reminder that the car is still king in Silicon Valley -- and that the Valley Transportation Authority's trains are among the least successful in the nation by any metric. Today, fewer than 1 percent of the county's residents ride the trains daily, while it costs the rest of the region -- taxpayers at large -- about $10 to subsidize every rider's round trip.

The cost to carry one passenger round trip, $11.74, is 83 percent more than the U.S. average and the third worst in the nation, ahead of only trains in Pittsburgh and Dallas.

Sacramento -- which also opened its light-rail network in 1987, operates with approximately the same level of service and runs through a similarly sprawled-out region -- carries nearly 40 percent more passengers per day than VTA.

ARTICLE HERE

 

[Nathanael]

Discussion of mistakes made in the VTA Light Rail design dates back to at least 2004.

http://www.lightrail...res/f_sj002.htm

With little personal experience, I would say the Campbell/Winchester line is the only well-designed one, and even that has its problems.

 

[WhoozOn1st]

Not a lot of personal experience here either, but I do recall sluggish crawls through the downtown area, as well as nice running through seemingly miles of huge free parking lots surrounding the sea of high tech industry buildings along some sections of right of way. Hard to fill those trains where free parking as a work perk is a given.

 

[AlanB]

Well the system was badly hurt by the Dot.com crash in 2000 that took out Silicon Valley. Part of where the lines run was based upon the demand from Silicon Valley. With that demand gone, it dramatically hurt the light rail system. That's not to suggest that VTA just doesn't seem to be one of the better agencies when it comes to controlling costs.

 

[Blackwolf]

Completely scrapping the original fleet of cars, then doubling the overall fleet with an order for 100 brand new cars just to be able to have low-floor ADA access for all of their vehicles was certainly not a smart one. Maybe ordering a small amount of low-floor cars and combining them with the high-floor fleet would have been a much better idea and more responsible with public money?

Sacramento's RT benefited from VTA's misguided decision, though. For pennies on the dollar, they bought all those original VTA UTDC cars and currently have them mothballed (I believe the idea was to contract with Siemens Corp. for refurbishment, then use them as vehicles for the planned airport Green Line extension.)

 

[AlanB]

Completely scrapping the original fleet of cars, then doubling the overall fleet with an order for 100 brand new cars just to be able to have low-floor ADA access for all of their vehicles was certainly not a smart one. Maybe ordering a small amount of low-floor cars and combining them with the high-floor fleet would have been a much better idea and more responsible with public money?

Yes, that's how San Diego handled things, mixing & matching for quite a while. I believe however that they're close to having all low floor now down there.

One thing that the hatchet job by the reporter didn't point out, which I did in the comments section, is that despite the "failings" of light rail in San Jose, it is still cheaper than the buses!

 

[Blackwolf]

One thing that the hatchet job by the reporter didn't point out, which I did in the comments section, is that despite the "failings" of light rail in San Jose, it is still cheaper than the buses!

No kidding! Now only if the VTA would stop competing with itself and running express bus service between the same exact places already served by LRT, and you might not have as bad a rap sheet!