>>1463460Absolutely nothing. The Feds say it's shit but it works well for citizens of Santa Clara County, the people who actually pay for it through their taxes. VTA's continued expansion is a testament to people having something they like, and expanding it in the manner they like regardless of what "professional" planners, the Feds, and BART say. This is exactly why VTA is going into southeastern San Jose because that's where the votes are, and it's why VTA has leverage on BART vis-a-vis the new San Jose subway because VTA has the local votes to do simply terminate BART at Berryessa. Not even Muni has this sort of leverage, because most SF voters do not fully trust Muni like SJ voters do with VTA.
The only real issue with VTA is that their most well worn route, the one that connects to Caltrain, took a circuitous route through an industrial area that was supposed to be redevelopmed into a Santa Monica-like area. This never happened (the dotcom boom happened and Cisco bought everything) so now the route is like 15 minutes longer than it needs to be. But this is also fixable by upzoning all the parking lots around it into housing, so whatever. It'd also be fixed if they went up Middlefield into Redwood City, which is worth considering as RWC wants their own ferry terminal anyway.
Additionally, one wonders what VTA's ridership would be if Caltrain bought the S.P.C ROW from UP and ran trains into Santa Cruz; in which case VTA's ridership would either nosedive as everyone down there would be taking Caltrain or it'd increase through transfers at Winchester. This is a very real consideration, since if UP leaves the Peninsula then they'll be pressure for them to sell the Cupertino line because there's only one customer at the end of it and Caltrain (or VTA) will pay. Ditto for Santa Cruz area operations.
