I am a Registered Engineer with an extensive background in Public Works and Transportation. I served on the BART board for 12 years and before that, on the AC Transit board for 20 years as a publicly-elected director. I’ve always cared about making public transit serve the community equitably and cost-effectively. It is clear to me that the Measure B tax is a dubious and costly project for Santa Clara County. The tax supporters are not using the facts from studied documents and are promising results that just aren’t possible given the history of BART and the poor manner in which the extension is being designed. Initially MTC’s professional staff estimated its cost per trip per new rider was $100.24, and subsequently the Final Environmental Report/Statement (FEIR/S) managed to lower it to $35+ with extensive dense development around each new stations. The Federal Transit Administration  reviewed the project and concluded “Not Recommended”. Most FTA funded projects do not exceed $25 per trip while the average funded FTA project is under $20 per trip.

The Federal environmental report shows that around 40% of the BART to San Jose extension’s riders will be from outside Santa Clara County, yet Santa Clara County residents will be responsible for paying all its capital and operating costs. Furthermore, the environmental report claims that fares will cover about 75% of the extension’s operating and maintenance costs–BART, in its 35 years has never exceeded 65% cost recovery from fares.

Decent, walkable Transit Oriented Development is essential for high ridership, yet plans for the Extension include about 10,000 parking spaces, mostly in expensive structures, immediately adjacent to the new stations. The likelihood of the immediate parking structures being removed in the future for a decent people oriented Transit Development will be very small. Lastly, the ridership figures appear to be inflated. For instance, the Milpitas station is supposed to generate 30,000 trips per day. With BART Today, only Embarcadero and Montgomery stations in downtown San Francisco get that many trips where a rider enters or exits the station. A comparison of Milpitas with the density of development at Embarcadero and Montgomery is incomparable.

I was a BART director when VTA agreed to pledge about 30% of their overall operating budget to us in order to provide BART assurance that they could pay for the Extension’s operation including the indirect costs on the rest of the system. Presently VTA, knowing they will lack funds to operate the Extension have placed an additional one eight cent sales tax to pay for its operation. Even with this additional tax it is dubious that it will be sufficient for to attain the 75% fare recovery for it will require under the present uncertain economy all the ambitious projected infill developments. It was unconscionable for VTA of Santa Clara County to make such an agreement based on such tenuous circumstances.

Vote No on B.

—Roy Nakadegawa, former BART Director