60 people have already signed the petition.

Yay!

Recall Showalter and Rosenberg.

Better bus service in Mountain View is a great idea. More cars is the problem, not the solution.

If you want better bus service, then fight this BRT proposal. It sucks away any chance at better bus service serving 95% of the residents of Mountain View. It's designed just for a small fraction that want to travel OUT of Mountain View.

There will only be TWO STOPS on the dedicated lanes, withing the city of Mountain View. This proposal boggles the mind it its WACKO factor. Creation of two hopefully high use stops in a city of 80,000 people. What, are 10,000 going to use each stop? What's the thinking. And when the alleged customer gets off at one of these stops, WHERE THE HECK is he going? What portion of the city is reachable by connecting service from those stops?

Moving along pretty well.

I think the new goal should be 500.

100 residents have signed the petition in less than 24 hours!

Now please pass this on to your neighbors. Explain the situation and have them sign.
They can buy these politicians to lie to us, but MV itself cannot be bought by the VTA!

Didn't Mountain View voters sign a similar petition last November by electing 3 new council members who had opposed dedicated lanes during their campaign?

Shameful that 2 of them ignored the rule about "no flip flops before Memorial Day".

Flawed petition. Read why:

This is an excellent project that will greatly speed up public transportation all throughout dense and rapidly growing El Camino.

To the anti-BRT crowd. Let's review some of your arguments against the project:

1) "Dedicating one out of three lanes to public transit will bring El Camino to a standstill for automobiles."

Actually, that is incorrect. Read the traffic study. Automobiles only be delayed a very few minutes.

2) "Because auto traffic will be delayed on El Camino, the cars will use alternate routes and put those to a standstill."

That is also incorrect. You really need to read the traffic study. Again, the increased time is minimal.

3) "The study is flawed! The model is incorrect!"

Actually, it's not. But since a vocal few keep screaming about this, there will be an independent evaluation over the summer. If the model is shown to have poor forecasting ability, then the project will be delayed until better forecasting can be accomplished.

4) "The BRT dedicated lane is less environmentally friendly than the mixed lane option."

Yes, that's right. In order to make this project happen, certain trees in the median along the route will need to be removed. It's more environmentally friendly to stay home then it is to go out and socialize with your friends and family (less consumption of gas, water, energy, etc..). Does that mean you should stay home? No, of course not. The benefit to going out outweights the environmental cost.

5) "Illegals use buses. Why are we supporting things that enable illegals!?"

Sorry, but this is America. We are a (relatively) compassionate country, which many consider to be a strength. There are countries that have very aggressive border controls and will imprison or even torture undocumented immigrants. If you would prefer polices like this, please move there. You can go into any US embassy, surrender your passport and relinquish your US citizenship. Have fun!

6) "This project is so expensive! We cannot afford it!"

This is also incorrect. First, the capital expenses are already paid for through Measure A and federal grant money. If we don't do this project, there would be no refund and we would love the fed money. More importantly, this project will REDUCE the annual operating expenses for VTA! Yes, that's right! If we don't do this project, taxpayers will be paying MILLIONS each year unnecessarily.

7) "Bus service is not very good on El Camino. Why should we invest money in something that is not very good?"

Um. Because this project will make it very good. People complain that it is slow and difficult to make connections because of unpredictability. Now there is a project will fix that. This is very simple.

8) "We don't need this. If people want to travel quickly on public transit, they can just use CalTrain."

Caltrain is great for people that both live and work near the tracks. If you don't, then you're screwed. If you are low income, then you're screwed (Caltrain is VERY expensive). If you don't work a standard 9-5 work day, then you're screwed. Bus service is 24 hours/day. Caltrain is not. BRT runs along a dense corridor of business and residences. CalTrain does not.

9) "When a lane is closed today for construction, it really causes gridlock on El Camino. That is what will happen when this project is completed."

Construction projects are usually blocking the right lane where businesses, apartment buildings and streets. There are big scary signs set-up with blinking warning lights. Construction workers may be flagging you to slow down or just working in that lane forcing you to stop texting and pay more attention. Contrast that with BRT which will have two middle lanes clearly separated from the rest. It will not change from day-to-day, but remain constant so people are accustomed to the minor difference. Comparing a construction lane closure with a co-ordinated planned permanent solution makes no sense.

10) "Since so few buses are planned in the dedicated lanes, it seems like a big waste of space!"

Actually, it's not. What IS a waste of space is all these cars filling the roads just to move one person. Emergency vehicles will be able to use these lanes in cases of emergencies which will save lives. Currently, El Camino can be gridlocked and many automobile drivers are either too selfish or stupid to get out of the way of the ambulances. This will not get any better. Also, VTA announced that they are open to negotiating a deal with private shuttles (like Google buses) to use the lanes. This could be a source of revenue that would make this even a better financial deal for county residents than it is forecasted to be.

Now that we have disposed of many of the superficial arguments against the project, I wonder if the anti-BRT crowd will give their approval? I think not. There is clearly SOMETHING that these people have against the project that they are either unable or unwilling to vocalize. Care to speculate?

Where are the penalties if all these pie in the sky promises fall flat? Does VTA pay for the lane re-conversion. It'll be easy to show the damage to the vast majority, with minimal benefit for the vast majority. Then we can move, with traffic facts, not projections, to end this bone headed, corrupt decision.
There will be nowhere for VTA to hide at that point, but they will, so we need to be ready with lawyers to force VTA to pay their selfishly misleading the voters and paying off our politicians with future campaign donations for their next run.

VTA and these council members just gave a HUGE middle finger to MV.

@CounterArgument

VTA shill

Well [new] Lenny's We Need Housing rent a mob has had some time off, he should get them to protest the dedicated lanes.

Wow. Over 200 signatures in less than 2 days. Ken and Pat, are you listening to the people you were put in office to represent? As news of this spreads through neighborhood discussions and email aliases, the anger and disgust is only growing.

Wow. 200 signatures is only 0.2% of the population of MV.

1/2 these "signatures" are probably from non-residents or fraudulent dupes. Even if all 200 are valid, 0.2% is negligible--call it ZERO!

Or about 10 fold to the people who showed up when we thought the politicians would live by their word. I guess the only retort for the haters is to invent how valid the signatures are in their minds.
This fight is now just getting started. Sleeping dragon is awake and all.
The organization is just now coming together and momentum ramping up.
Rosenberg and Showalter are done in this town and come next election the majority will continue to speak loud and clearly on this.

Here we go.

Don't let out of the area interests show up at city council meeting and trick the council members into voting with them. These weren't Mountain View residents. They didn't speak for the residents of the immediate area. They were VTA shills who lied and impled that not having a dedicated lane meant not having BRT. Couldn't be further from the truth. San Jose said they'd never agree to dedicated lanes, and VTA gave them what they wanted from the beginning. VTA is an appendage of San Jose city interests. That's who sent the liars to the city council, not someone nearby.

@Counter Argument - In my opinion it is your arguments that are flawed. Either you were not at the Council meeting where this issue was discussed, or you have intentionally decided to ignore everything I said which answers or renders moot many of your arguments.

You also set up many straw man arguments in order to inject emotion and hatred into the debate such as:

"5) "Illegals use buses. Why are we supporting things that enable illegals!?"

NO ONE has said or written anything like that. This type of blatant bomb throwing is a typical tactic of those who have no real logic to support thier own positions and so resort to name calling, lying about the other side's positions, and trying to stir up emotions in order to overcome reason and logic. It is a typical tactic used by large organizations that stand to make millions or billions of dollars on projects.

The truth is that having dedicated bus lanes on El Camino does absolutely nothing to help the poor no matter what thier race or legal status. I heard someone say that having the BRT lanes was a matter of "Social Justice". How?

Does it make transit less expensive? No.
Does it make housing more inexpensive? No.
DOes it provide more jobs for low income people? No.
Does it help to raise the minimum wage? No.

Where is the Social Justice interest here? The biggest benefit I see is that it will provide a lot of money to the VTA for something that we don't want and don't need.

Dedicated lanes will not make bus service better. Right now, the VTA bus service is one of the most EXPENSIVE in the bay area because you have to pay every time you change buses. It also penalizes you for not travelling alone, unlike cars and taxis, which are less expensive as more people use them. For example, for 3 people to take a cab to and from the same place, you pay one fare, on a bus you pay for each person at least once, and then again every time you have to change buses! Does that sound like a good deal for the poor?

As far as the 'traffic study' is concerned, it is based on a computer model and not on any actual data. Do you really think that with so much money at stake, the VTA's model would say anything different? What happens if they're wrong? Once the lanes have been changed, there's no going back.

You also claim that what is wasting space is El Camino is full of cars with single occupants. That is untrue. I spend a lot of time walking along El Camino and most of the cars I see have multiple occupants. Even if they have single occupants, so what? How do you know what the circumstances of those people are? Perhaps the buses don't go to thier destination, or can't get them there in a timely manner, or the people may have disabilities that make driving less difficult than climbing on and off three of four buses.

As far as the 'independent' study, who will be conducting it? How do you know that if the model is found to be flawed that the project will be delayed? I note that you don't mention that there is any possibility that the project will be scrapped, because we all know that it doesn't matter what people want; this is going to be pushed through just like High Speed Rail.

I heard people at the Council meeting saying that all the opponents to this plan are people who do not use public transportation. That is a lie, because I have taken public transportation almost exclusively for the last 3 years! I take Caltrain, Muni and Bart daily and I am for the BART extension into San Jose because it makes sense. Taking two lanes on El Camino and dedicating them to buses in order to try to force people out of thier cars does NOT make sense.

If VTA wants to increase ridership, they should try lowwering fares, adding free wireless to the buses, issuing timed tranfers so you don't have to pay multiple times each way, having certain routes run later so you don't have to take a taxi after 6pm if you want to have dinner out, and adding routes that allow people to get from one part of Mountain View to another in a reasonable amount of time. It should never take 2 hours by bus for me to get the 3 miles from my home downtown near Castro to the movie theater in the North Bayshore.

Lastly, I found it ironic that none of the VTA representatives at the Council meeting would answer my question as to whether or not they took the bus to get there and would also take the bus to return home. I think that says it all!


Jim Neal
Old Mountain View

VTA BRT El Camino dedicated lane won’t help poor people?

Reducing bus commutes down by 39 minutes each way or almost 80 minutes every single day! That extra time could be spent working more hours to generate much needed income or hopefully spending time with their family. So, all the bus rider would receive a massive benefit. Since many of these riders are low income, what is the basis for the claim that this wouldn’t help?

Here’s a comparison of transportation costs:

Car ownership: 2856/yr (for low income earners (see: Web Link
)
CalTrain Pass (2 zone): 1512/yr (Express service only in a narrow timeframe, Only covers a narrow N-S commuting corridor)
Bus pass: 840/yr (Express service around the clock with a network of buses throughout the county)

So, automobiles cost the low income driver over 300% more than a bus pass.
CalTrain costs the low income commuter almost TWICE that of a bus pass.

And BRT won’t help out the low income worker.

Here’s another way to look at it. Car ownership is 2856/yr and at 10/hour (min wage), takes 285 hours to pay for this expense. That’s 7 weeks/year! But many low income workers are part time, so let’s assume 30 hours, so that’s almost 2 1/2 months! Not spending on food, childcare expenses…button the car. Contrast this to a bus pass which only takes TWO weeks (or three weeks PT) to pay this off!

More choice nuggets from future un-elected council candidate Jim Neal!

(About: "Illegals use buses. Why are we supporting things that enable illegals!?”)
"NO ONE has said or written anything like that. "
—> Uh, yes they did. Actually they wrote worse, but the comments were deleted. If you think that racism is dead in America, then you need to open your eyes!

"Dedicated lanes will not make bus service better.”
—> If you believe that MUCH FASTER travel time along El Camino is not better, then you are right! I think most would agree that when the buses get to their stops ON TIME and at HIGH SPEEDS, then it is BETTER.

As far as the 'traffic study' is concerned, it is based on a computer model and not on any actual data.
—> The only way to just use DATA without some sort of model is to completely do the project, collect data for many months and then learn the truth (20-20 hindsight). By using a MODEL and data collected from the roadways & intersections of the area, a forecast can be made. That is how forecasts are done.

"I spend a lot of time walking along El Camino and most of the cars I see have multiple occupants.”
—> at 5pm? Really? That is simply not possible. Even during the day, most cars I see have one driver.

"I take Caltrain, Muni and Bart daily and I am for the BART extension into San Jose because it makes sense.”
—> Extending BART costs over $200,000,000 PER MILE!!!! Yes, that’s right. The cost of the entire BRT project could fit into 1 1/2 miles of a BART track budget. And hey…guess what happens when BART is extended? Annual operating costs GO UP! With BRT, annual operating costs GO DOWN. It seems that you work COMPLETELY out of area. If it is long term, then you should move. Your long commute is adding a lot of greenhouse gases from the unnecessary energy expenditure.

Neighborhood email aliases are now buzzing and, people are extremely mad about this; shocked, angry and thankfully, motivated!
This is an issue that will drag on for quite a while, but at least now everyone's eyes are open and ready to fight.
Besides Rosenberg and Showalter, I think the VTA has burned any future support in MV for pretty much anything.

Great job so far.

Keep it going and keep spreading the word.

Thanks for starting this petition. Lane closure would be a huge, expensive mistake.

389 signatures so far. Tell your friends and neighbors!

@Counter Argument - Trying to insult me "More choice nuggets from future un-elected council candidate Jim Neal!" does nothing to establish the merits of your arguments. Instead, it shows the extent to which you are emotionally invested instead of using logic and reason.

I will take your word for it that the offensive post about 'illegals' was deleted, but it is not entirely out of the realm of possibilty that the person who posted it was actually in favor of the BRT lanes and simply posting something offensive to make people who oppose the project look bigoted.

Speaking of bigotry and racism, should I assume that you are a racist because you chose to personally attack me, a black man? As a black man, I can tell you that I know very well that racism is alive and well. Part of the reason that I ran for City Council was because I thought that it could use some diversity of culture, race and opinion.

The traffic study I was referring to does not require any hindsight. Caltrans could simply close one lane of traffic in each direction using cones or some other type of barrier for a month or so as a test, then watch what happens in the REAL WORLD. I'm betting the resulting chaos would be interesting.

You also claim that the $840 Annual pass would be good for 24/7 express BUS service around the clock. This is absolutlely untrue. Except for ECR, many routes stop running between 6pm and midight, and do not run at all on weekends. How many low income people do you think will be living in the new housing that will be built on ECR? The ones that don't (most) will still need to drive or walk to the nearest high speed mega hub.

The real goal of the dedicated lane project is to reduce our choices and "get people out of their cars". I say let the VTA and Council lead by example and get out of theirs first!

Lastly, I find it absoultely hilarious that you say my commute is adding to the greenhouse gases, when my entire commute consists of walking and public transportation. You also say I should move just to make transportation easier. I have moved over 20 times chasing jobs for over 30 years; and I was working at Stanford when I moved to Mountian View. I have a lot of friends here and I love living in Mountain View; so I am not going to move for you or anyone else. If I move it will be because it is my choice. I get choose where to live, what to eat, what to do, how to travel and where to travel. That is what freedom of choice is all about.


Jim Neal
Old Mountain View

435 signatures. That's significant. Keep spreading the word to your neighbors and friends.

435 "signatures" (signatures meaning non-verified clicks on a unregulated website) is just 1/2 of one percent of MV residents. Not much more than zero.

Seems that the lack of support for this petition is telling of the correct decision by our council.

Yay for MV for making the right decision!

Meanwhile, the Palo Alto post UNDERSTANDS the issue and is writing about how this is a political career ender for Rosenberg and Showalter. Rightly so IMO.
Hey, look Rome is burning. Think I'll whistle and pretend nothing is wrong.

Interesting article in the front section of the Wall Street Journal today where Mountain View director of community development, Randy Tsuda, is quoted as saying about commuters "backing up onto our city streets that are causing tremendous inconveniences for our residents" ... "It's now compromising general livability."

That you Randy, for speaking the truth...well, the truth is, it's been compromising the general livability for awhile now and Mountain Views current polices are not poised to do anything by exacerbate the problem for residents.

The article was written before the Council vote approved the dedicated lane of BRT, which was the first recent decision meant to help commuters navigate the clogged roads.

Congratulations to Mountain View for leading the pack!

I find it interesting posters are pointing out "it's just 2%" of MV signing the petition and yet there's no mention that the comments on these articles are OVERWHELMINGLY against this action of the Council.

The majority voted when they elected council members who were AGAINST this from the beginning.

Who wrote it was less than TWO pct? I see that it is less than ONE HALF percent. Perhaps you should DRIVE in your precious automobile to MVHS, enroll and learn to read?

When you show poor reading comprehension, it makes us discount what you have to say. It seems that many of the people against this project have similar cognitive impairments.

Two Council members with 6 months COMBINED experience (who campaigned as against this very boondoggle) and one who thinks we can solve our traffic nightmare with a magic monorail system make one of the worst decisions ever in Mtn View.

The VTA has a horrible track record. This is a farce

Over 500 signatures on the petition. Great!

With only 0.7 percent of MV residents signing the petition, it sends a clear message to the Council that 99.3 percent support it. ***


*** Note: between 50-75% of the online signatures are fradulent as there is no validation performed, so the support by MV residents for BRT is likely much higher.

@Wedidit aka VTA shill

You are going to need to back up your assertion that an overwhelming majority of MV residents support BRT and that 50-75% of the petition signatures are fraudulent (note the correct spelling).



I'll check back in 30min to see your supporting evidence.

Over 500 signatures in less than one week without any direct canvassing of neighborhoods. It's a good start.

The VTA shills will continue to ridicule and dismiss the import of the signatures, but the writing is literally on the wall. Had the good residents of Mountain View suspected for a moment that city council members Showalter & Rosenberg would go back on their campaign statements that they were AGAINST the dedicated lane option of BRT, then I have little doubt that the council chambers would have been filled with residents expressing their opposition to this plan. Quite honestly it appears as if the residents of Mountain View were sandbagged by Showalter & Rosenberg, as evidently they had changed their minds long before the vote was held, but failed to inform their constituency of their "change of heart". Dirty, dirty, politics.

What goes around comes around.

It's unfortunate to hear the last gasp of the greedy. Sorry, but the lower class people will be able to travel freely in YOUR neighborhood. Oops!

Still far less than 1% of MV is opposed to this. Let's see the data to support something else. (cricket...cricket..)

Someone needs a statistics lesson starting with sample size.

The reason Rosenberg and Showalter were put in office was because the majority of voters, who voted for them because they said they were opposed to BRT, were also opposed to BRT. That's the way things work.

Election night was a much better sample size than this one off petition, and the voice of the majority was heard that night: No BRT. That said, 500 sigs on a one off petition shows that there is definitely a large and motivated opposition. I won't call it a majority and I CERTAINLY wouldn't call 500 signatures a sign that the majority support BRT(that''s quite a leap of logic)
And who except those trying to somehow make this a class/racial issue has mentioned class or race as the motivating factor? Its all about the gridlock, erosion of quality of life and stolen family time of residents as a result. Jeeze, I guess if you can't win on facts, make personal attacks and accusations about the messengers. Weak.

Yes! With 643 signatures and assuming that all of them are legit, we have now shown the overwhelming opposition to buses with a whopping 0.8 percent of Mountain View.

Of course, it's only been a month and the signature have all but stopped, but it still proves that this petition is more scientifically valid than a "traffic study."

Woo!

The chicken dinner guy is a math genius. He should do budgeting for Obama as well as for VTA. He can sample his chicken dinners while discussion health care costs.

VTA needs to listen, and they are governed by a completely unelected board of directors. We need directors for VTA who are directly accountable to voters. This veiled indirect thing is responsible for the entire mess. $500 Million per year in taxpayer sales tax funds is not enough for them. Now they say they must have more. 90% empty seats on 450 buses is not enough. No way. They insist we need 95% empty seats on at least 500 buses to reach the next level of flatulence.

Many of the flaws in the VTA' s draft enivormental documents are addressed in the January 2, 2015 letter to the VTA from the City of Mountain View. The letter is attached to the staff report for item 7.3 on the agenda for the April 21 City Council meeting. Take a look. As of April 21, the VTA had not even responded to the letter.

Rosenberg and Showalter have still not revealed who it was that presented such a convincing argument for dedicated lanes that it induced them to break their campaign promises to oppose lane closure. Who was it? Why won’t they say?

Likewise, we still do not know exactly who the individual or individuals were who set up the money pipeline that sent developer/landlord funding ($90,000 from the California Apartment Association) to a shell called the “Neighborhood Empowerment Coalition,” which in turn pumped a total of $114,000 into the last city council election. Most of this dark money was spent on behalf of Rosenberg, with the remainder on behalf of Showalter and Ellen Kamei (not elected). It made the voluntary spending limit irrelevant.

Mountain View politics seems to have gotten pretty dirty. The Voice did do some reporting on the election money (Web Link but stopped short of identifying the persons responsible.

We could use some sunlight here.