As an 82 year old native San Josean who well recalls the development and construction of the VTA light rail system, it was doomed by poor planning from the start and has never recovered.
Going at a snails pace thru downtown San Jose sealed its fate as the last choice to go from anywhere to anywhere. The poster child of incompetence was the scenario that they were going to run the First Street line at grade across the SP tracks and SP heard about the plan and said ,scuse me, I think not—- and so the project was set back some big bucks and time while they dug an underpass. They later decided to run a line out to Almaden which went merrily back and forth empty and recently they said they were going to shut it down. The whole system has been a Colossal disaster.
C