Scathing grand jury report blasts VTA as ‘most expensive and least efficient’ transit system in country

A scathing civil grand jury report released earlier this week blasted a Silicon Valley bus and light-rail operator as one of “the most expensive and least efficient transit systems in the country.”

In a 61-page report released Tuesday, the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury criticized the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) as too big and too political to make sound financial decisions, which has led to an ongoing structural deficit.

“The VTA Board is in need of structural change to enable it to better protect the interests of the county’s taxpayers,” the report read, “and address the many complex challenges presented by emerging trends in transportation, rapidly evolving technology and the changing needs of Silicon Valley residents.”

Santa Clara City Councilwoman Teresa O’Neill, the VTA board chairwoman, said she agreed with many of the report’s findings, if not all of its analysis. She noted that when she assumed the role of chairwoman in January, she made better governance a priority, appointing a committee to study the issue and come up with recommendations for the full board to implement.

“We’ve known about some of these issues for quite some time,” O’Neill said.

The report marks the third time in less than two decades that a civil grand jury has called out the authority’s governance structure as ineffective. And it comes in the same week that a union representing VTA bus drivers and light-rail operators overwhelmingly rejected the authority’s final contract offer, opening the door for a possible transit strike.

With an unwieldy board comprised of 12 voting members, six alternates and additional ex-officio members, the VTA directors suffer from a lack of engagement and conflicts of interest, the most recent report said. The directors are all elected officials from Santa Clara County, but some, including representatives from the Board of Supervisors and the city of San Jose, are full-time politicians with dedicated staff to help them digest VTA materials while others from smaller cities hold other day jobs.

The agency not only operates the county’s public bus and light-rail services, but is also planning the development and construction of a massive, six-station extension of BART into San Jose and Santa Clara and serves as the county’s congestion management agency, overseeing highway performance and improvements. But despite VTA’s complex and expansive role overseeing nearly all facets of transportation throughout the county, attendance to board meetings averaged 87 percent between 2017 and the first four months of 2019, the report read.

“Their position on the VTA Board is clearly of secondary importance to most, if not all, directors,” the report read, adding the job is “viewed by some principally as a ‘resume builder’ and a one-day-a-month job.”

The structure of the organization and the breadth of its scope has led to some pretty bad outcomes, especially for the public transit side of the authority, the report’s authors said.

The VTA’s operating expenses are some of the highest in the country, even compared to transit agencies of a similar size and coverage area, the report said. The VTA recoups only 9 percent of its operating costs by selling bus and light-rail tickets, one of the lowest rates in the country, meaning taxpayers are on the hook for the remaining roughly 91 percent, or about $9.28 per passenger, per ride.

Those high costs are not all the result poor management, said VTA board vice chairwoman and Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez. Urban planners in the 1950s designed sprawling suburbs built for cars, she said, a development pattern that makes it extremely difficult to provide effective public transit.

But the report noted that San Diego has a lower population density than the VTA’s service area — which extends from Palo Alto to Gilroy — but its transit agency had twice as many riders per hour, on average, than the VTA in the last five years.

Despite these high costs, the VTA’s board has failed to take steps to curb spending, choosing instead to rely on new taxes, includes sales and gas taxes, to fill holes in the budget, the report said. And the agency continues to invest in costly capital projects, such as the Eastridge to BART light-rail extension, which was unanimously approved earlier this month.

The 2.4-mile addition will connect the Alum Rock light rail station to the Eastridge Transit Center at a projected cost of $599 million, despite a 15 percent decline in the number of people riding the light rail in the last five years, the report said. During the same time period, operating costs rose 54 percent system-wide.

O’Neill said the committee on governance will seek to address whether changes to the composition of the board itself could lead to better outcomes. It will look at the basic structure of the board, board terms, whether it would be better to hold direct elections or continue with its system of appointing public officials, how to provide a better orientation for new board members, as well as ongoing education.

“We should not ignore this report,” she said. “The community needs the board to be as effective as possible.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the Eastridge to BART light rail extension would connect the connect the future Alum Rock BART station to the Eastridge Transit Center. It will connect the existing Alum Rock light rail station to the Eastridge Transit Center.

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