VTA Take-One
Winter 2017
What’s Inside:
• January Service Changes
• New Express 185 Bus Line
• BART Phase II Meetings
• 522 Rear Boarding & Bike Racks
• VTA’s Next Network
• Ridership Survey
2017 VTA Board of Directors Public Meetings
The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) Board of Directors invites
you to attend the 2017 VTA Board of Directors public meetings at:
Board of Supervisors’ Chambers
County Government Center
70 West Hedding Street, San Jose
For meeting dates, agendas, schedules of other VTA Committee meetings, and more
information, please visit www.vta.org/get-involved/board-of-directors.
Please call the Office of the Board Secretary at (408) 321-5680 or email
[email protected] to confirm meeting dates and locations.
This location is served by VTA Light Rail and Bus Lines 61, 62, 66 and 181.
Happy New Year – FREE Service!
VTA wishes you and yours a Happy New Year! Let VTA be your designated driver to
your holiday celebrations. VTA will be providing FREE service throughout the
system from 8 p.m. on December 31st to 5 a.m. on New Year’s Day. Extended
service will also be available on VTA Express Bus Line 181 and light rail. Visit
vta.org for the latest information.
VTA Partners with the Community
Our community partners work hard to bring you the best of festivals and events.
Take VTA and join in the fun!
Christmas in the Park
Open daily through Sunday, January 1
Plaza de Cesar Chavez, Downtown San Jose
christmasinthepark.com
The holidays aren’t complete without a visit to this Silicon Valley winter
wonderland. Take VTA Light Rail or VTA Bus Lines 22, 23, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 72, 73,
81, 82, 323, 522, or DASH.
Hawaiian Airlines/Kristi Yamaguchi Downtown Ice
Open daily through Monday, January 16
Circle of Palms, Downtown San Jose
downtownicesj.com
Strap on your skates to twirl and glide under the stars, surrounded by 32 palm trees.
Save $2 when you show your valid VTA light rail or bus pass.
Take VTA Light Rail or VTA Bus Lines 22, 23, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 72, 73, 81, 82, 181,
323, 522, or DASH.
Cirque du Soleil LUZIA
Thursday, February 9 to Sunday, March 19
Grand Chapiteau at Taylor Street Bridge, Downtown San Jose
cirquedusoleil.com/shows
Cirque du Soleil returns to San Jose with LUZIA, a poetic and acrobatic cultural
production portraying a land with spectacular landscapes, architecture, and strong
people.Take VTA Light Rail or VTA Bus Lines 61, 62, or 66.
Cinequest Film Festival
Tuesday, February 28 to Sunday, March 12
cinequest.org
Join over 100,000 film enthusiasts, artists, innovators, and youth in downtown San
Jose for this dynamic event of 250+ international film screenings, countless world
and U.S. premieres, exhilarating innovations, and over 600 film artists from 50
countries. It’s one of the top ten film festivals in the world!
We’re Planning BART Phase II
BART Silicon Valley Extension Project Starts Public Review & Comment Period
in 2017
VTA is committed to delivering the full 16-mile extension of the BART line to Santa
Clara County. Work continues for Phase II of VTA’s BART Silicon Valley Program,
which will include a 5-mile-long subway tunnel through downtown San Jose, and
will extend the BART system from the nearly completed Berryessa Extension for
approximately six miles, ending in Santa Clara near the Caltrain Station. As part of
the environmental document, multiple station location options are being studied for
the downtown San Jose and the Diridon stations.
VTA is planning public meetings in early 2017 to present the results of the updated
state and federal environmental documents for the proposed construction of Phase
II of the project. The public will be able to review and comment on the documents
when they are available. For additional details, please contact VTA’s BART Silicon
Valley Extension Community Outreach Office at (408) 934-2662,
or visit us at vta.org/bart, @bartsv, or facebook.com/bartsv, or subscribe at
vta.org/bart/subscribe.
Good News, Bikers! Easy Boarding on Rapid 522
Riding your bike to transit is about to get easier, as bicyclists will soon have the
option of using their Clipper card at rear door entrances on the Line 522, sixty-foot
articulated blue buses.
Clipper card readers installed near the rear entrances will be operable beginning
January 2, 2017. After notifying the operator, bicyclists will be able to tap their
Clipper card as they board at the rear doors. The procedure for using bike racks in
front of the buses remains unchanged.
The “522 Blue” buses carry twice as many bicycles as before, with room for two
bikes inside and two bikes on the front-end exterior rack. Bicyclists must signal to
the bus operator that they want to enter and pay with Clipper at a rear entrance. For
safety reasons, only bicyclists can enter through a rear door. All passengers can deboard through the center or rear doors.
Another feature of Line 522 is bicyclists don’t have to lift their bikes onto the
interior racks; they can simply roll them in. Once the bike is inside the rack, just
push the front wheel into the rack’s spring mechanism to secure the bike.
For more information regarding bicycles on VTA, visit vta.org/gettingaround/bicycle-ped.
Tell Us What You Think! VTA’s Ridership Survey
VTA is conducting a survey of transit riders through Spring 2017. VTA conducts
passenger surveys approximately every five years to update information about
customer travel patterns, demographics, and rider characteristics to improve
planning for future services. Participation in the rider survey is voluntary and
confidential, and will only be used for transit planning and market research
purposes.
While on board, you may be asked to participate in a personal interview where the
interviewer will record your answers on a computer tablet (i.e., a tablet survey).
Many surveyors are bilingual and will administer the survey in other languages, if
possible. If the survey cannot be administered in your language, the surveyor will
request contact information and the survey will be administered in the appropriate
language through a follow-up phone call.
Please call VTA at 408-321-2300, or email [email protected] if you have any
questions or concerns. Thank you for your support!
Tweet Us Your Service Questions & Comments
Follow us @VTAservice on Twitter for service alerts, reroutes, schedule changes,
and more. Our team monitors the account Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 7
p.m. and responds to questions, comments, concerns, and compliments as quickly as
possible.
Subscribe to email and text updates about your favorite routes and topics at
http://bit.ly/VTAupdates.
January Service Changes
The following service changes will take effect on Monday, January 2, 2017. Since
Monday, January 2 is an observed holiday, weekday changes will take effect on
Tuesday, January 3.
MAJOR SERVICE CHANGES:
Line 168: An additional trip will be added in the morning and afternoon to improve
frequency and running times will be adjusted, resulting in major schedule changes.
NEW Line185: This new weekday, peak hour express route will operate between
Gilroy/Morgan Hill and two research parks in Mountain View (see map). There will
be three northbound morning trips and three southbound afternoon trips.
OTHER SERVICE CHANGES:
The following bus lines will have minor weekday and/or weekend schedule
changes: 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 31, 39, 45, 53, 57, 58, 60, 62, 63, 66, 70, 71, 82, 102,
103, 201 (DASH).
Line 42: Major weekday and minor Saturday changes will be made to better reflect
actual running times.
Line 65: Major weekday changes will be made to better reflect actual running times.
Line 68: The first southbound weekday trip will be moved 15 minutes earlier. Other
minor weekday schedule changes will be made.
Line 104: The morning routing will be streamlined in Palo Alto to operate on
Middlefield to Charleston instead of San Antonio. As a result, the stops at Charleston
& Fabian will be discontinued. In addition, a minor routing change will be made to
use Miranda instead of Foothill Expwy to access the Veterans Hospital (see map).
Minor schedule adjustments will be made.
For details of changes on each route, please visit vta.org/nbs or contact VTA
Customer Service.
Welcome Aboard! The NEW Express 185 Bus Line
This January, take the new VTA express route from South Santa Clara County to the
North Bayshore area in Mountain View! Based on public input, VTA Bus Line
Express 185 is ready to make three morning and three afternoon one-way trips
during weekday peak periods. The northbound morning service will make stops in
both Gilroy and Morgan Hill, travel up to North Mountain View/Sunnyvale via State
Route 85, serve employers around the Middlefield light rail station, and continue up
to the North Bayshore area via Middlefield Rd and Shoreline Blvd.
If you’re in South County, be ready with your VTA Express fare to hop aboard the
new express buses with a new look. Once you ride, contact VTA Customer Service to
share your experience and provide feedback for service improvements.
Visit www.vta.org/xbus for more information.
VTA is Designing Our Next Network
You spoke, we listened and we are designing a transit network with:
• New service to BART
• More frequency
• Easier connections
• Extended hours
• More service on weekends
Be on the lookout for the new draft plan and opportunities to provide input! Visit
nextnetwork.vta.org for more details.