This is important. We can't get away from the fact that VTA does not serve the north county well and is not functioning well as an agency.

The LightRail should be world class, other cities are improving and extending similar systems worldwide. Why is this one failing. Is it because the original routing was poorly designed? It would make a lot of sense to me to have it continue from Moffett all along the Bay, serving Google, serving Facebook and terminating at RWC harbor to align with ferry services, for example. The rail could also be used by pods or similar in the future. Where is the investment and why aren't Google and Facebook looking into these common sense methods of getting their employees to work.

Why aren't public transport taking us to airports?

Why aren't public transport routes to Morgan Hill and Gilroy using highways to airports and Google/Facebook? We have the beginnings of a system, but unless it is improved giving commuters several choices with service 3 times an hour?

Why isn't pricing encouraging offpeak times? Why do some routes end at 6.00pm to prevent later travel into the evenings?

Why isn't public transit being discussed rather than just housing. Housing will bring more traffic and parking issues. Public transit that works will help reduce traffic. FAANG companies are using corporate bus travel, VTA should be learning from them so that others can use efficient, affordable alternatives to solo driving.

It is natural for a bureaucracy to seek to benefit itself. VTA employees and private contractors working on projects mainly want to pad their own pockets and pension plans. That is why an agency is seldom more effective than its oversight board. And what does this area's rep to the VTA Board say: yeah, I saw the problem and said nothing about it.

The VTA light rail is not being used because it is too slow for most routes. Mountain View Transit Center to Levi's Stadium is 40 min by light rail (direct route, no transfer), 15 minutes by car.

Don't forget MV city council was in favor of a dedicated bus lane on El Camino. I'm glad that that's not going thru. VTA gets you no where

@Jake O.

The 522 and 22 are VTA's busiest routes - they carry 1/5 of all bus riders in Santa Clara County. Implementing true BRT on El Camino via dedicated bus lanes was and still is a good idea.

Anyone who still thinks taking two lanes from El Camino exclusively for the VTA busses, must work for the VTA. That was resoundingly opposed - and for good reason. As I remember, the only person who spoke in favor of this fiasco, was exposed as a VTA employee!
The VTA has massive double busses that run empty because they are impractical. When I go out, I stop several times: perhaps grocery store, hardware store and pet store in one trip, for example. How does anyone haul around several items from several stores and find busses to take you these places and make the connection to various directions? The bus does not take me where I want to go and is only good for single destinations. That is 19th century travel in a 21st century world.
Perhaps if they used 14 passenger vans and ran more often, they could get a slight increase, but it still doesn't work for anyone making more than one stop.
Cramming El Camino auto traffic into four lanes instead of six - simply to pacify the poorly run VTA - would be laughable, if it wasn't so ridiculous. The article points out the many fatal flaws in this system. The worst in the nation.

It is an expensive failure.
Every workday morning and afternoon, forty to fifty cars sit stopped at a rail crossing and watch a train with five people aboard pass. It is a wasteful failure.
How do these board members justify themselves? What have they accomplished?

The wonderful viewpoint shared by Useful? and Robyn can be summed up in this new adage: Never try to get between a Boomer and their car.

Also, Useful?, don't sign your posts.

The snarking above is ill advised. Cursing these baby boomers for their support of cars is out of place. It wasn't baby boomers who created Uber and Lyft and all the extra miles put on cars by using these services. The VTA system is distinguished in its mediocrity and in its inefficiency. They spend too much money for too little benefit. If you read the report, you'll see it called out that the big drain on the VTA budget will be from BART. It's an open tab they have created, with a great price still to be determined. VTA is run by idiots who make decisions based on cliche. The cliche that BART is a modern system with a lot to offer was a false basis to decide to spend a fortune to operate BART in San Jose. The idea from the SVLG was that the workers they need in Santa Clara County can live in the East Bay and commute to work in San Jose. What a crock!

The BRT idea on El Camino Real was similarly flawed. The reason VTA sees so much of its riders on that main route is because all the others are barely used. They don't need to up the capacity on 22/522. There is still a lot of room and the demand won't increase no matter what they do. The fact is that the only thing that let Mountain View house its workers in San Jose was that San Jose put up with it. San Jose isn't doing this any more. Mountain View will need to build housing for all of its own jobs, or at least way more than at present. How the heck is anyone in Mountain View at home supposed to get up to Google HQ using El Camino Real????

Just read the grand jury report. They detail the problems with VTA which mainly come from a bloated system of governance that places decisions in uninformed board members, which means some really bad things get done...

I once contemplated suicide taking VTA from the convention center to Mountain View, such a slow agonizing journey shared initially with a few free-loading bums in San Jose, and then left alone at night for the last two thirds going through the middle of nowhere... . It was bleak. It was depressing. I will never get that hour and fifteen minutes back.

An independent analysis came to the conclusion that money would be better spent by shutting it down. There’s no debate here. It should be shut down.

I agree with Robyn regarding the light rail as I commute on Central. Compared to Caltrain's crossings on intersecting streets, the light rail crossing has the barriers down longer and traffic stopped longer. I can only assume the light rail is moving much slower than designed.

I'm not a boomer, but I drive. Why do I drive? I considered Caltrain. When I did the comparison, taking Caltrain, with a monthly pass, my commute would cost more. It would take longer. It would give me less flexibility to run errands. What's not to love? I'm originally from NYC. If there were decent mass transit in Santa Clara County, I'd use it.

I think it would better the system if light rail did go by more shopping centers, and the airport. Also going further south in our county. Morgan hill and Giroy are growing like weeds and commuting on the freeway is a nightmare. I have been here for a little over 20 years and heard that the light rail was supposed to go by the airport. who or what was it that messed that up? SFO has the BART going to an entry area that is really convenient for anyone!. I love it here but in order to get from one place to another most of the time it is at least one to two transfers and 2-5 blocks of walking. It just doesn't seem like the routing is very sensible. there are so many "blank areas in the county where there is not a bus to be found. The reason, no one rides the bus to make it worth the effort. Well if you really wanted to get people change their way of traveling, you have to give them good reason. The ideas for public transit the way it is now, why take the bus as it takes two + hours to get anywhere? fix the system and give people a good reason to take public transit. On another note... Because of the way the world is right now, there needs to be more security not only for light, but the buses as well. periodically there should be random checks on every bus line and plain clothes security as well so if there may be a problem, that problem can be removed and all of us will feel and enjoy or travel time :)

Bart is having problems with security. Bart users are often critical of the safety aspect. A stabbing on a Bart platform, killing one young lady and seriously injuring her sister was big news. A couple of days ago, a shooting in San Bruno were two gunmen were assumed to have escaped by Bart and have not been found.

Bart ridership is down. In a time where traffic is getting worse and more people are living here and commuting to their jobs, why is Bart ridership down. Could it be due to safety and security issues?

Saying that, VTA is not increasing ridership either. Once again, with more people living and moving to the area and commuting times so high, why are we not seeing more people riding VTA? Could it be due to the fact that VTA is not providing a good service. It needs to up its game and provide efficient service to be a good alternative. They are supposed to be serving us. That is not being done.

Bottom line, improve service and do a better job of providing safe service. People will use a service that gets them where they want to go faster than they can drive and without parking problems.

QED.

Mtn View want to put in bike lanes instead of the VTA bus now on El Camino R....

I think that the discussion on the way the directors are chosen sort of misses the point. I don’t think it matters that much how the directors are chosen. Change my mind.

However, the grand jury is onto something when it writes “Despite the serious ongoing structural financial deficit, the VTA Board has been unwilling to review and reconsider decisions made years or even decades ago regarding large capital projects (and their attendant operating costs) that are no longer technologically sound or financially viable, based on their costs and projected ridership.”

Based on current ridership projections, the Eastridge extension is questionable. This is especially true if you consider that it duplicates the existing Rapid 522 service.

An even bigger waste of money, which the grand jury ignored is the extension of the multi-billion dollar BART line from the San Jose to the Santa Clara Caltrain stations. This would duplicate existing Caltrain service and the 22/522 buses from San Jose to Santa Clara. This just reinforces the common impression that big ticket transit projects are a waste of money.

I see huge buses on El Camino going by empty. Why don't they run small vans in the mid day? We need more routes into residential areas and coordinated transfers. like they meet at the same time so you don't arrive at the transfer place just after you next ride has left.
I once took a trip from Los Altos to San Jose with Girl Scouts. It took over an hour. The driver had to stop and get out to smoke.
Same trip 20 minutes by car, I.Never took a bus again.

When the VTA proposed their middle lane grab of RECR, it was the beginning of the end. Many MANY people here stated that it was an over bloated org with too many mid-level mgrs. I'm glad the grand jury also saw this. It sucks to be right in this case if you're a tax payer.

Is this a surprise to anyone? VTA's long been a punchline among transportation professionals, of which, by the way, that transit agency has precious few.

We all could laugh out loud at VTA's woeful inefficiencies, lofty but far-from-realized ridership projections and general managerial incompetence -- were it not for the fact that its OUR tax dollars paying their bloated salaries and misguided, if not just plain wasted, "improvement" expenditures.

The VTA board chairwoman said "We intend to carefully review the report provided by the Civil Grand Jury." Uh-huh. Expect them then to promptly dispatch the report to the nearest shredder, after which they'll resume business as usual.

Councilman McAlister, your board enhancement committee is a good start, but PLEASE put some teeth into its recommendations -- along with some solid, your-jobs-are-on-the-line directives for VTA management, because that agency truly needs to have its feet held to the fire!

And speaking of auditors, what about BART?
Web Link

The lane closure on 101 for their flood project was the most devastating, neverending, mismanaged fiasco I've ever seen. I think it had a worse impact on people, the economy, lives, and basic functioning of anyone who commuted between Palo Alto and Redwood City than the *just-in-case* flood construction could ever make up for.

However... it's not solely the fault of VTA! I think they're using it as a scapegoat. It's the zealous anti-car ideology that's at fault.