Stop the Expansions of the SR-85 and US-101
VTA Board of Directors
Air, community health, and traffic in Santa Clara County are under threat! VTA is planning on widening SR-85 and US-101 which will put more cars on our roads and substantially increase greenhouse gas emissions in the region. Sign the petition here to tell the VTA board that we won’t accept this plan!
Here’s what’s going on:
VTA is working on a program to put express lanes on Santa Clara's highways to encourage carpooling, generate revenue for transit, and keep inner highway lanes moving at a steady pace. Early phases converted existing lanes into express lanes (you may have seen them on SR-237, I-880, US-101, or SR-85). But in the coming years, VTA hopes to create brand new highway lanes on US-101 and SR-85, and eventually on I-280, I-680, and SR-237 as well. Creating new lanes is a huge problem that will ultimately lead to more people driving, worse traffic, and worse air pollution. And on SR-85, the new lanes will literally be taking over space that is supposed to be for future transit-only lanes. As they have already done in early phases, VTA should convert existing lanes to be the express lanes – not widen freeways.
The VTA board is discussing the plan at the September 18 Board of Directors meeting, and will vote on it in the near future.
Highway expansions are a waste of taxpayer money that do nothing to relieve congestion in the long-term, and further lock our region into a cycle of car-dependency. Sign our petition to help send the message to VTA that their constituents will not accept this plan.
Sponsored by
Additional Sponsors
To:
VTA Board of Directors
From:
[Your Name]
Honorable Chair Lopez, Vice Chair Mahan, and the VTA Board of Directors:
We demand that VTA remove all lane additions from the Express Lanes Program.
The goal of the Silicon Valley Express Lanes (SVEL) Program is to manage congestion and fund transit by expanding the county’s express lane network. However, SVEL projects with grandfathered CEQA approvals are slated to construct +54 new lane-miles along US-101 (through Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, San Jose, and Morgan Hill) and 24 new lane-miles along SR-85 (through Cupertino, Saratoga, Los Gatos, and San Jose). Lane addition projects totaling +42 new lane-miles have also been contemplated along I-280, I-680, SR-237, and US-101 (through South County).
Express lanes introduced via creation of new lanes have fundamentally different - and worse - impacts from express lanes introduced via conversion of existing lanes. Taking SVEL Phases 8/9 as an example, VTA’s State Route 85 Transit Guideway Study modeled that the dual-lane create+convert alternative would induce a massive 21% increase in Vehicle-Miles Traveled (VMT) along SR-85, whereas the single-lane conversions would induce a more modest less than 1% VMT increase.
Lane additions are fundamentally incompatible with VTA’s 2045 carbon-neutral goal. Vehicle emissions are already the highest source of GHG emissions in the Bay Area, and highway expansion would bake in decades of additional emissions. While the desire to self-fund transit is understandable, the creation of new lanes comes with numerous costs - environmental, public health, social, and competition with transit. VTA must not move forward with these costly expansions.
We demand:
• No adding of new lanes (except mass-transit-only lanes) to any highways or expressways.
• Commit a majority of annual net revenue from all operating express lanes to be spent on public transit and VMT-reducing projects. It is not enough to “promise” that an unknown amount of funding will eventually be allocated, at some unknown time in the future.
• The SVEL program (including the segments already CEQA approved) and its revenue commitments should be continually evaluated and adjusted to ensure the program is VMT negative or neutral (per modern SB 743 standards) on an ongoing basis.
• Reserve excess space in highway medians for mass-transit uses.
• Commit a portion of net revenue from all of SVEL to be spent on public transit and VMT-reducing programs specifically in environmental justice communities (e.g. SB 535 Disadvantaged Communities) in proximity to highways/expressways.
•Commit portions of net revenue from the US-101 / SR-85 SVEL corridor (Phases 3-9) to be spent on increased transit service and VMT-reducing programs specifically in underserved areas in South County and West Valley.