On Saturday, February 23, VTA participated in “Let’s Get Moving” Silicon Valley Transportation Choices and Healthy Communities Summit hosted by the community organization, Transform. Transform’s goal for the event was to bring together community residents, leaders and activists interested in creating better-connected, affordable, and healthy communities in Santa Clara County.

VTA’s part of the event was to host a bus tour of the Stevens Creek BRT Project corridor–essentially a sequel to the bus tour VTA held in September of 2012 for elected officials, city staff and members of the public interested in transit.  A wrap up of the event can be found on Transform’s website here.  The tour booklet that VTA provided for both tours can be downloaded here.

For more information on the Stevens Creek BRT Project, check out the project page.

The 30-day scoping period for the El Camino Real Bus Rapid Transit Project begins on Wednesday, February 6.  This kicks off the environmental process and is a pretty big deal for the project.  To date, discussion and analysis of the project has been at a generally high level and has focused mainly on city preferences, what makes sense for VTA transit operations, cost and funding options.  This discussion has yielded five project alternatives that VTA feels are worth studying in a detailed environmental analysis.  The five alternatives are discussed later in this post, but first let’s go over what the environmental process entails and how everyone from the public to elected officials can provide input.

The Environmental Process
The environmental process is a multi-stage process that starts with a Notice of Preparation or public scoping process, where the lead agency (in this case, VTA) seeks input from the public regarding what should be studied in the environmental analysis.  The public may provide input by attending a public meeting (dates and times here) and providing oral comments which will be recorded by a court reporter or by sending VTA written comments by mail or email.

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We’re starting off 2013 with some changes!

New Branding

To date, the three BRT projects have been developed under the Valley Rapid brand.  The Valley Rapid brand will evolve into VTA Rapid, which is a better fit, namewise, with other specialized services that VTA offers like VTA Express buses.  The planning and design of the project will remain on course, unchanged, though you may see some Valley Rapid artifacts as we complete the branding transition.  Speaking of transition…

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One of the less sexy (if transit can be sexy) and less talked about elements of VTA’s Bus Rapid Transit projects is the curb bulbout station.  This is unfortunate because bulbouts stations—coupled with new BRT vehicles—are an effective way to reduce delays, improve transit travel times and perhaps most importantly, move lots of people more efficiently than we do now.

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At the VTA Board of Directors meeting on November 1, the Board voted unanimously to continue work on the El Camino Real BRT Project through three actions:

• Start the environmental analysis
• Enter into the Caltrans design review process
• Apply for up to $75 million in federal funds through the Small Starts Grant Program

Additionally, the Board adopted a strategy for the project which includes:

• Conduct environmental analysis for two project alternatives: the Optimal Project, which would install 10.3 miles of bus-only lanes on El Camino Real between Showers Drive in Mountain View and Lafayette Street in Santa Clara and the Revised Project, which would install 3 miles of bus-only lanes on El Camino Real between Halford Ave and Lafayette Street in Santa Clara.
• Work with MTC to strengthen local support for federal funding
• Provide regular updates to the Board of Directors, Policy Advisory Board and cities affected by the project.

These actions make official the recommendations made by the Board of Directors at the September 21, Board Workshop and effectively kick off the next stage of the project so here’s what to expect:

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At this morning’s Board of Directors Workshop, the consensus of the Board was to direct staff to proceed with the revised project option for the El Camino Real BRT Project as well as:

• Include the optimal project in the environmental analysis
• Have VTA staff check in with MTC to encourage regional support of the project
• Return to the six cities to share analysis throughout the environmental study process
• Return to the VTA Board with status reports and the results of the analysis

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VTA will be hosting a tour for the Stevens Creek BRT Project on Wednesday, September 26, 2012.  The tour will start at 11:00 A.M. at the corner of West San Carlos Street and 2nd Street in Downtown San Jose and will last about two hours.

The tour will feature discussions led by VTA transit planners as well as guest speakers on topics including VTA’s vision for Stevens Creek and the new Limited 323 service.

To sign up or for more information, please contact Robin Doran of VTA’s Community Outreach office at (408) 321-5868 or robin.doran@vta.org.

A new Mercury News article by Gary Richards discusses the revised project option for bus rapid transit on El Camino Real.  There are three points to clarify about the article:

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On Friday, September 21^st, VTA’s Board of Directors will hold a workshop to discuss VTA’s Bus Rapid Transit Program.  It has been a while since the Board has discussed bus rapid transit and for some new members, this will be the first time they have considered the program.  As such, the presentation will begin with a discussion about what BRT is and the policies and Board decisions that have guided the program thus far.  The final item the Board will consider is how to proceed with the El Camino Real BRT Project.  As with all VTA Board of Directors meetings, members of the public are welcome to attend and comment on agenda items.    You can download the Board packet here.

As many readers know, VTA’s original proposal for BRT on El Camino Real—called the “optimal project”—ran into political opposition from some cities along the corridor.  The optimal project proposed to convert the two median lanes of El Camino Real into bus-only lanes between Showers Drive in Mountain View and Lafayette Street in Santa Clara.  In Palo Alto and San Jose, six travel lanes would remain and the BRT vehicle would operate in the right lane with cars.

While San Jose and Santa Clara unanimously approved the optimal project through city council votes, Sunnyvale’s council opposed the idea of converting a travel lane into a bus-only lane by a 4-3 vote.  Palo Alto and Los Altos, while not taking official votes, indicated a preference against bus-only lanes in study sessions.  Mountain View’s Council took a straw vote 5-2 in favor of mixed flow.

This brings us to the question of how (or if) VTA should proceed with the project.  At the Board workshop, the BRT Project team will present four project alternatives—selected by VTA’s general manager—for the El Camino Real BRT Project and will seek guidance from the Board on which project alternative to pursue.  We preview each of the alternatives after the jump.

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The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report about Bus Rapid Transit this month that examined the BRT services that have been implemented in the United States and the effect they have had on transit and economic development.  The report fulfilled a request by Senators Tim Johnson (D-South Dakota) and Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs  that the GAO produce a report on BRT—presumably to improve legislators’ understanding of what BRT is and its benefits.

Most of the report’s findings are not surprising to folks familiar with BRT:

• BRT results in faster travel speeds than local buses
• BRT routes have higher ridership than the routes they replace
• BRT can attract “choice” riders—those with the choice between car and transit
• BRT is less expensive to build than rail and can be implemented gradually

But there were two findings that jumped out as being interesting, especially in the context of VTA’s BRT Program:

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