Posted on 12/27/2012 12:00:43 PM PST by fifedom
there was no grand celebration this month as Silicon Valley marked 25 years of light rail... The near-empty trolleys that often shuttle by at barely faster than jogging speeds serve as a constant reminder that the car is still king in Silicon Valley -- and that the Valley Transportation Authority's trains are among the least successful in the nation by any metric.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
30 years ‘late’. lol , and soon we will have a BART station closeby, currently two miles away a light rail station runs thru there now and will get BART’d in the next few years.. construction just means more dang pool cleaning here.. I need a subsidy ;-]
Reparations!
speaking of boondoggles, where did Willie Green go?
Ha...just wait til the high speed train from Button willow to Bakersfield comes on line
Anyone remember Houstons metro rail. Sorry POS
They are spending Billions for this nonsense in Orlando area...and even got support for spending this billions from GOP Gov Rick Scott and other GOPers
Light rail in Orlando is doomed to fail, because so few people conduct business downtown, and, no lines reach out to the eastern and western suburbs of Orlando. Not a good decision
That property was owned by Mayor Tom McEnery, who was instrumental in getting the San Jose Light Rail and downtown hockey stadium funded and built. These taxpayer funded projects increased the value of his property tremendously.
“If you build it, they will come.” And tax you.
Hah!
Our overall total to about $65 billion. (For comparison, the notorious Boston Big Dig, after its overruns, came in at $18 billion). At that point, 72 miles of the 125-mile system would remain to be built. Bond payments have been extended to 2040 at 600 million a year!!!
The price originally cited for the entire 125-mile network was $13 billion. Its completion was projected for 2020.
Not only that the trains have hit several cars and pedestrians!
“But I think what’s happened is that it wasn’t quite as easy or quick as originally conceived of 30 years ago.”
San Jose didn’t follow development rules of encouraging housing to balance out commercial properties. There was more money to be made from large computer campuses (campi?) and housing was a secondary, if that, consideration. what housing was available necessarily skyrocketed in price. Speaking of twenty years ago, when we moved to the area the company sent us brochures of houses available in Silicon Valley. We could pick up a 1500-sf house with a carport for “only” $445k. We went to an exurb and picked up a house almost twice as big for half the price. Many, many Silicon Valley workers live outside the San Jose Valley area. For some there is BART or commuter rail but for most it requires a car.
In most places it makes no economic sense at all. Here in Dallas a ride on the bus cost about $3 and the taxpayers probably pay $10 a rider on top of that.
ping
The only people I know who take it don’t have a car and have legal issues.
I think you possibly being excessively negative. That said it often seem to me that the expected utilization figures for far too many transit projects are somewhere between fantasy and dubious. My biggest question would be are they planning on building it as an integrated system (big failure in Baltimore is that it was not, DC got a system designed at the same time, was built as a system and it works better). Next question is does it take people from where they are to where they want to go? E.G. are Disney, Universal studios, the major sports and convention venues, and the Airport planned stops?
So, are you trying to say you are supporting Government control of “transit projects”?
The only purpose of government is to give certain people a license to steal large quantities of public funds ie legal plunder. Winning!
The quaint concept that government in some way represents the People's interests in terms of preserving liberty is a fantasy. Once you properly adjust your perspective, there are simply no surprises left.
What a piece of crap.
It goes nowhere near anything that makes it a worthwhile alternative to just driving.
Although, with the new 49’r Stadium being built, there will be opportunities to park somewhere on 1st street and grab the light rail there.
I lived and also worked within a half block of VTA stops. If I used VTA (bus and light rail) it took anywhere from 45 minutes to 1.5 hrs to get to work and cost $2.75. If I drove, it took me 12-15 minutes and cost about $1.50 for gas.
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