VTA: A textbook case of “Special Interests” prevailing over public good
Image by transitwiki
Board members change, but the song remains the same at our troubled transit agency: government waste, mismanagement, and the creep of crony politics are the constant refrains. Athan Joshi reports for California Policy Center.
The agency’s latest draft budget for Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27) projects a staggering $14.9 million deficit, ballooning from a modest $868,000 shortfall in FY26. This is not a sudden calamity but the predictable outcome of years of declining ridership, unchecked labor cost increases, and a reliance on increased tax incidence on gullible taxpayers.
Let’s start with ridership, the lifeblood of any transit agency. VTA’s ridership peaked at 43.944 million in FY15, long before COVID-19. It had already fallen over 19 percent by FY19. In FY25, ridership is projected to be 40 percent below that high-water mark of FY15, a decline that began well before the pandemic and has only worsened. Also, FY25 ridership is down from FY24, casting serious doubt on VTA’s rosy projection of a nearly 15 percent ridership increase in FY26. What fuels this optimism? Certainly not data or reality. The agency’s own history shows a steady erosion of public trust and utility, with ridership numbers reflecting a service that fewer and fewer people find worth using.
While ridership plummets, the only thing soaring at VTA is labor costs. Since FY15, employee expenses have surged by 47 percent from $289 million to $427 million, and the agency’s workforce has grown by 8 percent, despite serving 40 percent fewer passengers. The VTA’s primary revenue source — local sales taxes, which account for over 80 percent of its income — has been a boon thanks to Santa Clara County’s tech-driven economy. But rather than investing in better service or infrastructure to reverse ridership declines, nearly all of this revenue has been funneled into higher salaries and more employees. Picture this: FY25 has seen a $149 million increase in sales tax revenue (including the 2016 Measure B) over FY15. Over the same period, increase in labor costs has been $137.5 million, accounting for almost the entire increase in sales tax revenue.
Read the whole thing here.
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