We’ve heard this before. Measure B backers are suggesting that Measure B is the only additional tax needed to build the BART line to Fremont. If it is so, where are the new cost estimates to build the line? Instead, VTA is doing all it can to hide crucial information, knowing full well that additional taxes and transit cuts will be required.

Eight years ago, Carl Guardino wrote in the ballot argument for the 2000 Measure A sales tax: “… pays operating costs for BART, rail, and buses for decades without additional taxes.” To support his claim, VTA even produced a new sales tax revenue projection a few weeks before the election.

After that tax passed, VTA and SVLG tried to save funds for the BART project by targeting youth, seniors, and the disabled. Claiming that these riders weren’t paying enough, VTA doubled their fares under pressure from SVLG. At the same time, VTA also drastically reduced bus service that connected neighborhoods with schools, hospitals, and jobs. This contributed to a 30% drop in VTA’s ridership from 2001 to 2006.

Today, even with growing transit ridership, VTA still has fewer riders today than it did in the year 2000. Furthermore, VTA has no plans to restore the service that got cut.

Audit after audit show that VTA does not have a balanced spending plan, and that VTA isn’t being honest about what new taxes would be required to complete the BART project. Instead of following the auditors’ recommendations, VTA chose to hide the construction cost and distort the ongoing subsidy.

Bottom line, VTA is withholding key information and misinforming voters. A vote for Measure B tells VTA, sure, give us more broken promises, we’re happy to  pay loads of taxes for little results.  Only by voting NO will voters be able to send a strong message to VTA that it is time to change their ways and use their billions of dollars to start delivering new transit now. VTA is instead choosing to line consultants’ and developers’ pockets using a project that would not carry any riders until 2018 at the earliest.

Further reading:

What have we got after 8 years (VTA Watch)