Our Goals
As an independent, grassroots public transit advocacy and watchdog group, we ensure the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) does its job in providing timely, fast and affordable public transit in Silicon Valley. We also strive to ensure the following goals below from our local, state, and federal elected officials:
- Overall increases in Silicon Valley bus and rail service midday, at night, and on weekends.
- Rapid express bus service along every major highway, every state highway, and every county expressway throughout Santa Clara County and up to Fremont BART, operating 24 hours/day, 7 days/week, 365 days a year.
- Better timed intermodal connections between VTA buses, light rail, Caltrain, BART, and ACE.
- Proper state and federal funding for service and infrastructure improvements on VTA buses, light rail, Caltrain, and ACE within Santa Clara County, and the Bay Area region. Also, ensuring that such funding is not wasted on unnecessary staff or equipment.
- A “rider-oriented” Valley Transportation Authority where policy is mandated by riders, and members of the VTA Board of Directors are directly elected by Santa Clara County voters. In essence, ensuring that VTA is fully accountable to the public that it serves.
- Construction or renovation of one transit mode should never come at the sacrifice of another.
Our group can only do so much. Ultimately, YOU are needed to help provide better public transit service in Silicon Valley and to help hold VTA accountable. The only dues you have to pay to help: your time and your voice.
Guarantees
- Doing nothing ensures you will continue to have that bus stop running after the weekday rush hour ends, or not run at all on weekends.
- Doing nothing ensures that the buses and light rail will continue to be too slow for you to use, thus forcing you into an automobile. (By the way, VTA also designs, funds and helps build some of the roads you drive on in Silicon Valley. Roads and running public transit in Silicon Valley are just some of VTA’s duties.)
- Doing nothing ensures public transit in Silicon Valley will never be for everyone, the way it should be. It will continue to be for those who cannot drive, for whatever reason.
We discuss these transit issues – and what YOU can do to help resolve them – here on our new web site, on Facebook, and on Twitter.
Conclusion
Do you want things at VTA to change for the better? YOU have to change first. Together, we can all help change VTA for the better.