What's Gone Wrong With Santa Clara's Light Rail

Budget problems of San Jose's regional Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) have been given wide publicity. While most of this is a result of California's statewide budget crisis, and deep economic problems besetting Northern California and Silicon Valley in particular, VTA's policies and management have in many respects compounded its problems. Rail opponents and some in the news media have been taking the opportunity to go after VTA's light rail transit (LRT) system with a hatchet. It's time to sort out the real facts.There is nothing wrong with VTA's LRT system that good management could not fix. San Jose's critical policy issues go all the way back to National City Lines, Inc. – the notorious highway industry outfit which bought up electric streetcar lines in order to convert them to buses.

Thanks to Michael D. Setty