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Your Direct Line to the VTA Board is Here!

If for any reason you cannot attend our monthly meetings, or if you cannot attend the VTA Board meetings and workshops, there are things that you can do to make the VTA Board and Santa Clara County politicians listen to and act upon your bus and light rail needs. This information is for the discriminating VTA rider who is tired of unresponsive customer service and tired of seeing no improvements in bus and/or light rail service.

The VTA's Board of Directors sets VTA policy. The Board has 17 members and 2 ex-officio members, all of whom are elected officials appointed to serve on the VTA Board by the councils of the cities or towns they represent. (In other words, you cannot run for VTA Board, and you cannot vote board members on or off the board.) Fourteen Directors are city council members and three are County Supervisors. Twelve Directors serve as voting members and there are five Directors who serve as alternates. The two ex-officio members are non-voting members and are Santa Clara County's representatives to the Bay Area's regional transit planning and financing agency, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC).

Write to the VTA Board (if you have not done so already), letting them know what is specifically wrong with your daily commute aboard VTA buses and light rail. Also let them know how unresponsive customer service has been, when you have contacted them for service. Be polite and to the point, DO NOT USE VULGARITY, and check your grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Include your full address (including apartment number) so the VTA Board knows which city and district you live in.  The mailing address for the entire VTA board is:

Office of the Board Secretary
Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority
3331 N. First Street, Building B-2
San Jose, CA 95134-1906

The VTA Board can also be reached via their Board Secretary by phone at (408)321-5680. The VTA Board can also be reached by fax at (408)955-0891. Their email address is board.secretary@vta.org. The same contact information can be used to obtain VTA staff reports, which are distributed at every Board meeting and workshop VTA holds. Never go to a VTA public meeting without knowing the information in these reports!

When calling a VTA Board member or the Board Secretary, please speak clearly and politely. If you are faxing the VTA board, please do not send them multiple pages of your complaint(s) unless requested to do so. If you are emailing a VTA Board member, send your message as plain text without attachments (unless requested to do so), include your mailing address, and make sure you are not sending viruses to their email addresses!

Whenever sending email to the VTA Board member for your city, you MUST provide your name and regular mail address or they will be ignored. Also, emails which are sent to multiple recipients are ignored as well. In addition, do not send "spam" to these addresses, as you risk violating state and federal laws regarding unsolicited commercial email.

If you use Caltrain in addition to VTA buses and light rail to get around the Peninsula, you can help improve Caltrain service by contacting the Caltrain Joint Powers Board. This is particulary true if you are from the South County (Blossom Hill, Morgan Hill, San Martin, and Gilroy) and are tired of four trains per direction on weekdays during commute hours, and tired of the poor ride quality along this part of Caltrain.

Below are the current members of the VTA Governing Board of Directors by municipality. Note that VTA Board alternates can replace absent members at any Board meeting.

Group 1 Cities (San Jose)

San Jose residents who do not live in districts represented by VTA Board Members should contact the City Council Member nearest them, or the Mayor.

Group 2 Cities (Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale)

Group 3 Cities (Campbell, Cupertino, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Saratoga)

Residents of Cupertino, Monte Sereno, and Saratoga can contact either board member in this group.
 

Group 4 Cities (Milpitas, Morgan Hill, San Martin, and Gilroy)

Group 5 Cities (Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors)

Ex-Officio (non-voting) Board Members

These are non-voting members of the VTA Board, and serve as VTA's representatives to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.