The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority’s (VTA’s) 81 mile long, light rail system is widely regarded as the most ill-conceived in the entire country. According to the National Transit Database, in 2013 the VTA’s 56 light rail cars carried just slightly over 35,000 riders a day. The reasons for this exceptionally low ridership are not hard to find.
First, much of the area traversed is low-density sprawl, incapable of generating enough ridership to justify the high cost of passenger rail service. To the South the density ranges from low-density, single family to miles of empty land bereft of virtually any potential riders. To the north the rail system meanders its way through Silicon Valley, passing sprawled out hi-tech “campuses”, each surrounded by acres of beautifully-landscaped free parking.
Under the Lee Administration transportation in San Francisco is heading toward a cliff. For starters City Hall is neglecting, if not actively impeding, the downtown extension of Caltrain (DTX), a project that would connect Caltrain to 6 Muni rail lines, 4 BART lines and over 40 bus lines at one spacious location in the middle of San Francisco’s 340,000 person employment center.
Bay Area Transportation Working Group 