SANTA CLARA VTA RIDERS UNION P. O. Box 390069 Mountain View, CA 94039-0069 http://www.vtaridersunion.org/ NEWS RELEASE TO: Editor or News Assignment Desk or Transportation Reporter FOR RELEASE: JULY 5, 2005 Press Contact: Eugene Bradley 24 hr. cell/pager (408)888-2208 email: eegenebradley@yahoo.com NEW RAPID BUS SERVICE EXCITES TRANSIT ADVOCATES Eagerly Anticipate Introduction of "Bus Rapid Transit" In Santa Clara County MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA (June 30, 2005) - The Santa Clara VTA Riders Union (SCVTARU - http://www.vtaridersunion.org/), a public transit advocacy and watchdog group, today announces its support for a new "rapid" bus line the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA - http://www.vta.org/) will implement on Tuesday, July 5. On that day, VTA will replace its Line 300 Limited Stop bus service between Palo Alto's Transit Center and Eastridge Mall in East San Jose with a new "rapid" bus line. Line 300's successor, known as Line 522 or "VTA RAPID" (http://www.vta.org/projects/line22brt.html), will feature traffic signal prioritization along El Camino Real between Palo Alto and Race Street in San Jose, as well as reduced stops. "Line 522 will allow buses to just keep going without those highly annoying waits and thus one can reach their destination faster and without the frustration," said Christopher Lepe on the Santa Clara VTA Riders Union e-mail list (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vtaridersunion). Service on Line 522 will operate every 15 minutes between 5:00am and 8:00pm Monday thru Friday, and 6:00am to 8:00pm Saturdays. VTA will charge regular local fare for this line. "I plan to take the 522 next Tuesday morning from San Jose to work in Mountain View," said Judy Purrington on the SCVTARU e-mail list. Line 522 will feature VTA low-floor buses from Gillig Corporation (http://www.gillig.com/) and will be painted in distinct red, white, and blue colors. Line 522 is Santa Clara County's first implementation of transportation technology as Bus Rapid Transit (BRT - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_rapid_transit#BRT:_A_Definition) where buses are used instead of rail technology to perform premium services on existing thoroughfares such as El Camino Real. El Camino Real throughout most of Santa Clara County is also known as California State Highway 82. Cities such as Oakland, Los Angeles, and Pittsburgh use BRT technology to provide faster trips for commuters aboard buses. According to VTA, the introduction of Line 522 cost $3.5 million - part of 2000 Measure A's $30 million allocated to constructing BRT projects like Line 522 between Palo Alto and Eastridge Mall. "For the fraction of the cost of a mile of VTA light rail or BART, a 26-mile bus corridor which carries over 22,000 riders a day is finally seeing major improvements," said SCVTARU Founder Eugene Bradley. The corridor is VTA's most heavily used in terms of bus ridership. According to the Metropolitian Transportation Commission (MTC – http://www.mtc.ca.gov/), the corridor is the most heavily used bus route outside San Francisco. It is the only VTA bus corridor in the MTC's "State of the System 2004" table of Top 10 bus ridership routes by boardings. (http://www.mtc.ca.gov/library/state_of_the_system/2004/transit_ridership.pdf – 52K Adobe Acrobat PDF) SCVTARU will reevaulate the success - or failure - of Line 522 in six months. It is hoped that Line 522 will attract new transit riders to public transit - leading to less traffic and air pollution along El Camino Real in Santa Clara County. ### About the Santa Clara VTA Riders Union -------------------------------------- Founded in October 2000 by Eugene Bradley, the Santa Clara VTA Riders Union is a grassroots-based organization dedicated to ensuring that elected officials improve and implement cost-effective, frequent, and reliable mass transit in Santa Clara County. Our web site is at www.vtaridersunion.org. We are based in Sunnyvale, CA. Our organization has absolutely no affiliation with, nor is endorsed by, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) in any way whatsoever. Note to Editors and News Desks: More information on SCVTARU can be found at the following URLs: http://www.vtaridersunion.org/whoarewe/who.html http://www.vtaridersunion.org/PR