Here's another way VTA is planning to raise funds to increase its budget. It wants to start charging drivers to use the carpool lanes at all hours of the day, and to make carpools register and get special FastTrack devices.
See Web Link and Web Link and Web Link . Calling them express lanes just means "revenue generating lanes". This is money that will swell the VTA budget to new heights....

Yet another reason to have said "HECK NO" to the dedicated bus lanes! Until the VTA can get its house in order and come up with a self-funding model. There is no reason the public should be subsidizing public transportation, especially to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.



Jim Neal
Old Mountain View

I strongly feel that we do not need more sales tax or fee increases.

Over the last several elections, voters in Santa Clara County have passed multiple tax and fee increases including VTA’s 2000 Measure A ½-cent and 2008 measure B ¼-cent sales taxes, Santa Clara County’s Measure A 1/8 cent sales tax, the state prop 30 ¼ cent sales tax and the 2010 Measure B Vehicle Registration Fee of $10. Additionally, we’re on the hook to pay back numerous state bond issues including high speed rail, last year’s Proposition 1 water bond and the infrastructure bonds of 2006.

All of this nickel and diming has contributed into making the Bay Area a horribly expensive place to live; especially for people of modest means, who must pay the greatest percentage of their income in these regressive taxes and fees. Adding to the painful drip-drip-drip of painful tax increases, we have both the City of San Jose and VTA talking about yet more sales taxes on the 2016 ballot. Each increase by itself does not amount to much, say a quarter cent, but the cumulative effect is to add to the unaffordability of the region. Governments in this state collect enough in taxes; now it’s time to spend that money more efficiently.

For example, VTA needs to eliminate waste and “gold plating” of its capital projects. The BRT project is well known in these parts.

Also, the BART extension’s cost could be cut by reducing the scope to eliminate duplicate facilities. Specifically, a revised “build alternative” needs to be added to the study that eliminates the duplicative and wasteful section between the San Jose and Santa Clara Caltrain stations. The BART segment from the San Jose to Santa Clara Caltrain stations would duplicate both the existing Caltrain line and VTA’s 22 and 522 buses to a station that has only 900 riders. This is extremely wasteful and sends the wrong message to voters who will be asked to approve more sales tax increases in 2016. This is extremely insulting considering recent voter approval of all the taxes/fees listed above.

Regarding the endless tax/fee increases, when is enough enough?