I attended a meeting of the VTA Board of Directors last night (October 1) and just posted a comment on last week's story about the VTA's "third party review" of its rhetoric. Small business owners from East San Jose were there and protested the prolonged and botched bus-only lanes project which is phase one of a larger plan (called Alum Rock BRT). They are demanding compensation at public expense. Imagine the thousands of claims for lost business by owners along and near El Camino if bus lanes and stations are constructed there. And there is another development. The VTA's newly formed advisory committee on El Camino opposes bus-only lanes. So here is what I anticipate will happen next: VTA staff and Board members still planning bus-only lanes on El Camino will ACT as if the plan lacks the support to proceed until AFTER the VTA's sales tax increase is voted on in 2016. I told the Board last night that the only protection against the bus-lane boondoggle headed for El Camino would be language in the tax measure barring the project outright. I had already so warned the City Councils in Palo Alto and Santa Clara. But the VTA can be expected to put no such promise in the tax measure and we will need to defeat it.

Follow Carbon Free Mountain View on Facebook to stay informed about Community Choice Energy moving forward: Web Link