“In 2000, they promised expanded bus service. Instead, VTA cut service and raised fares. Annual transit ridership fell by 17 million trips.”

VTA disputed a) that ridership fell by that much and b) that the decline in ridership was the result of them cutting service and raising fares. VTA also claimed that it was impossible for them to use 2000 Measure A monies to fund bus and light rail operations before 2006 because the tax didn’t start getting collected until 2006.

We used VTA’s own documents to tear their frivolous challenges to this statement in our ballot argument, to shreds.

Exhibit K shows how annual ridership dropped from 1999 to 2005 by over 17 million trips. This was over the same period that they cut service and increased fares.

Exhibit T consists of the following documents:

T-1 is a chart that shows the history of VTA fare hikes from 1995-2005, compiled by the VTA riders union (not affiliated with VTA)
T-2 is a scan of booklets VTA issued for some of the public meetings on service cuts during 2002-2003 (3 different rounds of cuts)
T-3 is a graph showing how VTA fares increased while service decreased
T-4 is an April 2003 Mercury News article talking about a potential 21% cut in VTA transit service

Just by comparing Exhibit K and Exhibit T-1, you’ll see that the ridership drops seem pretty darn correlated with the fare increases and service cuts.

Exhibit U contains two VTA documents, which we numbered U-1 and U-2, that admit there is fare elasticity – that ridership is affected by service cuts and fare hikes or decreases. We highlighted some of the relevant sentences and paragraphs.

Exhibit V is a Sept. 2003  VTA memo talking about all the service cuts of the past few years and the impending 21% cut.

Exhibit W shows that the VTA board directed staff to work toward allowing VTA to bond against 2000 Measure A funds to avert the 21% cut in service. If successful, VTA would cut only 3% of the service.

Exhibit X shows there was a 3% cut not a 21% cut in bus service, meaning, that VTA was successful in getting legal permission to borrow 2000 Measure A money to avert severe bus service cuts.

I actually have the documents that go into more detail the tussling between various lawyers, VTA and the public over the legality of borrowing against Measure A to pay to restore bus operations that were cut, rather than only using the monies to increase service over 2000 levels (levels that we’re still well short of). But I ran out of energy and time to include these other documents in the exhibits, or to to look up the Superior Court case that gave VTA permission to use Measure A funds to backfill existing operations. So we just present the circumstantial evidence that counters VTA’s claims that it was impossible for them to use Measure A funds before 2006 to save VTA operations from being cut.

Burns apparently didn’t know, and none of his staff enlightened him, that VTA had actually gone to court to gain permission to use Measure A funds to backfill bus and light rail service back in 2003, and that they’d obtained this permission from the court.

But it strains credulity that Burns would claim that all the ridership loss was the economy’s fault and VTA had nothing to do with it (p. 3-4 of the pdf of his declaration). That VTA would go so far as to deny this history where they’d doubled, or nearly doubled many of their fares, and even disavow what everybody in the industry knows is true, and what they stated in their own memos even more recently (last page of Exhibit U ), that when you increase fares and decrease service, transit ridership goes down, and vice versa.