The VTA has completely failed to understand the concept of destination-aware transit. There is a VTA light rail that connects Los Gatos to Mountain View, the trip takes about an hour and a half. Who would ever use this link? How much did it cost to build?

Why not connect destinations like the various peninsula Downtowns; San Antonio; North Bayshore, and let commuters hop between them as rapidly as possible?

The VTA needs entirely new management before we should even consider giving them more money.

"Why not connect destinations like the various peninsula Downtowns; San Antonio; North Bayshore, and let commuters hop between them as rapidly as possible?"

Because relatively few wish to go from downtown-to-downtown. Most want to go from their home to a specific destination and back again. That's why automobiles are so popular and why our streets are so crowded.

Fortunately, there is a plan to put a rapid transit system along the highest density corridor in Santa Clara county: El Camino Real. That entire road is going to be a "downtown" of it's own. It's much longer than any single city, so a rapid transit will give the best benefit. Devoting all the resources to shuttle the multi-millionaire Los Altan's (for example) to Caltrain would nice for them, but most of the county have more pressing needs.

Dedicated lane along El Camino has been approved by Mountain View and most of the cities within the county, so the decision has been made. Congratulations to MV for voting with both their brain AND conscience!

@uh clearly doesn't understand the implications of closing 2 lanes (1 each way) on El Camino.

It probably helps people living in San Jose who work in Palo Alto or Mountain View. It might help some people who live NEAR El Camino in one city and work NEAR El Camino in another city along the line - but that's a very small number, as few will both live/work in those proximities.

But it will definitely hurt people living in MV with their local MV driving around town. Traffic on El Camino will become unbearable, and it will be hugely burdensome to get to businesses around the city.

@Uh, Connecting mixed-use downtowns isn't necessarily so people can hop between restaurants in different cities, it's because downtowns are both hubs of higher-than-average population densities, and also (hopefully) easy to get to from other parts of the city. Connecting downtowns means someone can live in Mountain View and eat at Evvia or visit the Apple Store in Palo Alto, or someone could live in Sunnyvale and get to Fu Lam Mum or Shell Shock in Mountain View, all without a car. And since many business concentrate around downtowns, someone could live in Menlo Park and work in Sunnyvale and commute via transit.**

Furthermore, if we had a fast link between downtown Mountain View and North Bayshore, someone could easily get from downtown Palo Alto to the Googleplex with a single transfer. That's a lot better than a 1.5 hour commute by rail from Los Gatos to Mountain View.

El Camino is precisely _not_ a "downtown" because of its length. How are the residents of the massive new apartment buildings at El Camino Real @ El Monte supposed to get to a BRT station? They are 1.5 miles away to the nearest stop. That's a long way to travel just to _begin_ your commute to wherever you are actually trying to go. Transit links work best when they are spanned by interesting destinations in multiple directions, not just in a line.


** Connecting downtowns is perhaps still not the best example since we do have Caltrain, but its infrequency during off-peak hours make it a tough sell for many trips.

I agree with "Uh" that El Camino is the place to give priority for public transit efforts. Connecting downtowns offers little benefit and major cost. Most retail in the downtowns has been moved out by increasing rents and competition with online and warehouse retailers. That leaves restaurants, which is just focused a few hours in the evenings.

I also read that El Camino is the highest density road in Santa Clara County. Creating a BRT on that single road is far easier than connecting all the little downtowns through a maze of roads, residential neighborhoods, etc.. "VTA Fail" mentioned that we had caltrain to do that anyway. That doesn't work, so how could a bus system that has to share a gridlocked road with a whole bunch of cars work???

VTA Fail's argument is a nonsensical strawman argument: "How are the residents of the massive new apartment buildings at El Camino Real @ El Monte supposed to get to a BRT station? They are 1.5 miles away to the nearest stop." That could be said of ANY form of public transit or roadway. Unless we were to put transit stops outside of everybody's house and in front of every single business in the county, one could always argue and complain about the "commute" to the stop.

An intelligent realist would realize that compromises must be had in order to make a functional transportation system. If we had stops every 50 feet, then the line would be incredibly slow. Nobody wants that. The best we can do is to look at the data, estimate the optimal places to place the stops and then make adjustments as conditions change. The "Do Nothing" approach suggested by the aforementioned "vocal minority" has already been implemented and has resulted in gridlocked roads. Time to do something new.

VTA BRT on El Camino is off the table - not because it would waste lane capacity and bring El Camino traffic and retail businesses to a near standstill -as it would - but because the VTA bureaucracy and Board want to get voters to approve a sales tax increase measure they plan for the November 2016 countywide ballot. If the measure does not affirmatively outlaw seizing the left lanes on El Camino for VTA "rapid transit" buses only, the measure will need to be defeated. If the VTA Board DOES include a provision in the measure outlawing the project, the measure could pass and then only voters through a subsequent measure could ever authorize the project. But do not expect the VTA to include any such assurance in its ballot measure.

I think the point is transit works best when there is density in a radius AROUND a transit station, rather than in a LINE along a corridor. VTA Light Rail guidelines suggest high-density housing and office within 1/3 of a mile of a light rail station (see link below)

Low-density housing/office works better in transit dead zones, so people can park their cars and create less traffic.

Web Link