Re: San Jose's Light Rail after 25 years----inefficient etc
Author: Brian Bergtold
Date: 12-27-2012 - 19:37
Having been to Eastridge within the last few years ago, I can assure you there would be no issues with "the clientele" from light rail.
As Carol has noted, it takes forever to get from one end of the system to the other, aka using it for actual transportation rather than a substitution for walking downtown. I remember writing an article 20 years ago for my high school paper about the grand plans VTA had for expanding into Los Gatos. High density housing was going to spring up all along Winchester Blvd for people to ride into San Jose to all the tech companies that would surely flock to downtown. I went down to the VTA headquarters to get some info or a quick interview. The place looked like a solid gold doorknob version of the DMV with workers scattered around trying to look busy. Fast forward 20 years and the LG extension is still a dream, and all but a single empty lot at the proposed end of track (which is still miles from where most people actually live) have long since been developed for other things. Now Google and the like send a fleet of plush motorcoaches right into town to whisk their employees over to their offices in Mountain View. Driving to a crowded Park n Ride VTA lot in Campbell and riding a train to the general Mountain View area takes hours. A couple decades late and a few billion short, VTA.