South Bay road fixes stuck in slow lane
Highway 85 study stalled as lawsuit ties up tax funds
Traffic on Highway 85, one of Silicon Valley’s most important freeways, grinds to a standstill during rush hour — and everyone is pointing fingers over who should pay to find a fix.
Highway 85 is the essential but narrow link between Apple’s Cupertino headquarters and the Googleplex in Mountain View. Every year, nerve-fraying traffic jams worsen as companies feverishly hire workers who, due to the region’s housing crunch, often must commute from far away.
City governments, tech companies and the valley’s main transportation agency all recog-
nize the problem.
But a study that was commissioned to examine solutions, such as adding bus-only lanes to the freeway, has been stalled by a funding gap that the parties haven’t been able — or willing — to fill.
City officials want the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority to do it. The agency says it can’t, because public transit funds generated by the Measure B sales tax increase have been tied up by a lawsuit. Suggestions that the tech giants relying on the freeway could help fund the study have, so far, produced no concrete results.
“The lack of a vision for Highway 85 that everybody can get behind is impacting our ability to improve” it, said Howard Miller, vice chairman of the study’s policy advisory board.
The study is supposed to examine traffic patterns on Highway 85 and explore options that may help reduce congestion. The study’s $400,000 first phase, which included tracking tech company shuttle buses on the road, was paid for by Measure A, a sales tax increase that Santa Clara County voters approved in 2000. Now, $1.2 million is needed for the study to continue. Meanwhile, traffic on Highway 85 has worsened, with the average annual number of cars increasing 6 percent from 2011 to 2016, according to Caltrans data.
“We need to keep the momentum moving,” said Mountain View Councilman John McAlister, who chairs the study’s policy advisory board. “It doesn’t take much to reduce traffic on this road. Anything is an improvement.”
If no other funding sources are found, the study will be halted until Measure B litigation is resolved. Jim Lawson, the transit agency director of government affairs, said at a February meeting of the advisory board that staff members have “looked under the couch cushions,” and “we’re just reaching a point where we don’t have additional funds for this project.”
Cupertino Vice Mayor Rod Sinks, who serves on the board, questioned that explanation, calling the lack of funds “deeply disrespectful.”
“This isn’t really about funding is it?” Sinks said at the February meeting. “This is really about whether the majority of the (transit agency’s) board cares about this project or not.”
San Jose has more members on the agency’s board than other cities, and much of the money from Measures A and B is earmarked for San Jose projects, such as bringing BART to the city’s downtown.
Smaller cities pushed their constituents to vote for Measure B in part because money would go toward the Highway 85 study. While the San Jose BART extension also does not have access to Measure B funds because of the lawsuit, that project can continue because it has Measure A funding, as well as money from the state and federal government.
“San Jose wins most every time, and the only time when others get much of anything is when we challenge them,” Sinks said in an interview.
Without a formal study, Cupertino will not be able to charge real estate developers building projects near the freeway traffic impact fees that could help pay for improvements to the road, Sinks said. “Without this study being completed, we have no legal basis for that,” he said.
Lawson said that the transit agency has invested in major regional projects that affect cities like Cupertino, including upgrades to Caltrain as well as the BART project. “We invest in all of the cities in the county,” Lawson said. “We also invest regionally.”
One way for the Highway 85 study to continue is if cities collectively front the money for it. Miller, a Saratoga councilman, opposes that idea.
“How do you have an organization that is managing hundreds of millions of dollars in capital projects that can’t find” money to continue the study? asked Miller, referring to the Valley Transportation Authority. “You are going to come to a city like mine that has less than a $20 million budget?”
Lawson said that the agency did not anticipate Measure B funding would be “tied up as it has been.” Putting forward more money from Measure A would be difficult, because much of the money is already