June 15, 2001 Lisa Ives VTA - Planning and Programming, Building B 3331 North First Street San Jose, CA 95134-1906 Dear Ms. Ives: Here are my comments regarding the VTA's Silicon Valley Rapid Transit Corridor project. 1. Timeliness The the criterion 'time to delivery, where sooner is better' should be included and weighted when judging and screening proposed options and alternatives. 2. Public access to planning materials The planning materials for this project should be readily available and discoverable in a timely manner on the VTA's web site. I should not need to evangelize the WWW in this year and County, but my experience so far with this project has been disappointing. For instance, the proposed alignment maps were available only to those who attended in person meetings and specifically asked for them. And as of today, the e-mail address to submit public comments to is not published on http://www.vta.org/svrtc/ . 3. Local representation on operational authority If BART is chosen, and BART is constructed to and in Santa Clara County, will Santa Clara county residents be represented on the BART Board ? Will Santa Clara become an official BART county ? These questions need to be addressed before Santa Clara spends billions of dollars on BART. 4. Budget uncertainty and contingency If an option is chosen and construction undertaken, what is planned if that option goes over budget ? What components of the approved plan would be deleted to get the project back on budget, and how would these cuts be determined ? 5. Plan to add intermodal stations where lines intersect. At Tasman and Stars and Stripes in Great America, a combined Amtrak/ACE/proposed-new-service and Tasman light rail station should be considered. Similarly, add a Shinn Station at BART in Fremont. For the conventional rail, bus, BRT, and LRT alternatives, please add a "transfer only" station in Fremont near Shinn Rd. where BART and the regional rail lines intersect. This Shinn station would be allow only passengers transferring between BART, ACE, or the Capitols to board another transit system at that location, and would not require any automobile parking amenities. |