Published Wednesday, December 13, 2006, by the San Jose Mercury News

VTA vote could doom BART to S.J.
THURSDAY'S DECISION TURNS ON LACK OF SOLID FUNDING

By Gary Richards
Mercury News

A pivotal vote by the Valley Transportation Authority on whether to
set aside $185 million to keep alive hopes of extending BART to the
South Bay or let the project die is expected Thursday.

The agency's staff is recommending the board earmark the money to
continue preliminary engineering studies and to buy track rights from
Union-Pacific on which the Fremont-to-Santa Clara line might someday
run.

"Quite frankly, if we don't do this we're basically saying we're not
moving forward on the BART project," said VTA General Manager Michael
Burns.

But opponents say it's a waste of money, and that the funds should be
diverted to pay for more pressing transit needs.

"This is throwing good money after bad," said Margaret Okuzumi,
executive director for BayRail Alliance, adding: "What other Measure
A projects won't get completed due to the interest we will have to
pay on the borrowing for this black hole?"

For years, the $4.7 billion BART project has been in financial limbo.
In June, Santa Clara County voters rejected a half-cent sales tax
measure, where half the money would likely have gone for general
county needs and the remainder for transportation.

And it's likely that voters will again be asked to approve a sales
tax in 2008 for transportation. That would raise about $75 million a
year, the amount the agency says is needed to pay for day-to-day BART
operations.

Supporters of the BART extension say Thursday's vote on the $185
million would continue the preliminary engineering studies for two
more years. The extra analysis would give the agency a better idea
of the true cost of building the 16.3-mile extension and its cost-
effectiveness.

Those are critical figures for the Federal Transit Administration.
The VTA is seeking $750 million in federal funding for the BART line.

"We continue to have issues with the FTA on the financial plan and
need to work through those issues to see if we can come to a
resolution," Burns said. "We need to take this step to be able to
do that.

In 2000, voters endorsed building BART along with upgrading Caltrain,
extending light rail and running more buses when they approved
Measure A, a 30-year half-cent sales tax that kicked in earlier this
year. But there is little money to run more local transit, and a
spending plan approved by the VTA board in June is expected to cost
about $3 billion more than VTA anticipates to receive in that time.
The plan calls for BART to begin running in late 2016.

The VTA estimates that each year of delay adds an additional $165
million in costs to build the BART extension. It has allocated more
than $381 million for BART so far.

Last year the transit district removed itself from the federal "new
starts" program and hopes further studies will enable it to re-enter
the funding process in December 2008.

More hurdles loom. California lawmakers now are allocating bond money
for transit service across the state and the VTA hopes -- but is not
certain -- it will receive around $215 million from that program for
BART.

"We can make the argument that we can build the system," Burns
said, "but we clearly do not have the money to operate the system.
We need to come to a decision point on this over the next 18 months
or two years."


The VTA board meets Thursday at 9 a.m. in the board of supervisors
chambers at 70 W. Hedding St. in San Jose. Contact Gary Richards at
mrroadshow@... or (408) 920-5335. The fax number is
(408) 288-8060. Please leave a daytime phone number.