Published Sunday, November 14, 2004, in the San Jose Mercury News

Humor creeps into VTA review

Despite all the troubles facing their under-funded BART extension
plan, at least somebody at the Santa Clara Valley Transportation
Authority is maintaining a sense of humor.

Buried deep within VTA's new, 4-1/2-inch thick final environmental
review, some bureaucrat or environmental consultant slipped in one of
the best lines we've ever seen in what's supposed to be a dry, public
document.

The setup: Transit activist David Schonbrunn had found VTA's
assumptions about ridership, revenues and costs for the $4.2 billion
BART extension to be so unrealistic that he asked in his comment
letter, rhetorically, "Are you people smoking crack?"

The official response: The figures "were calculated using accepted
FTA (Federal Transit Administration) methodology as described in
Section 8.4, Cost Effectiveness. VTA employees preparing these
numbers were not smoking crack. VTA maintains full compliance with
Federal Requirements to ensure a drug-free workplace."