Passenger Trains > Santa Clara VTA Almaden Branch to Close

Is this unprecedented in terms of closure of a modern light rail line?  Santa Clara Valley
Transportation Authority's Almaden Branch in San Jose, CA is now proposed for closure after years
of extremely low ridership(only 300 boardings a day at its two stations).  A single car shuttles
back and forth every 15 minutes on the line between Ohlone/Chynoweth and Almaden.  The following
news account of this service suspension proposal lists the branch at 3.5km long but it is actually less
than 2km in length making it one of the shortest light rail lines in North America:

https://www.railjournal.com/regions/north-america/silicon-valley-light-rail-line-to-close/

A little more from the TO archives:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,1831186,1831387

We are natives of San Jose and watched this light rail l system be built, going mostly from nowhere to nowhere, very slowlly thru downtown San Jose, and running mostly empty, and not just on the Almaden branch. Not surprised to see them close this useless branch. 
C

EDIT—- from my post on AP

u> But Carol, what about the Levi’s Stadium traffic? 
> I couldn’t climb aboard. Too many bodies. 


Yes, weekend sporting events it is a useful way to avoid parking problems—— when the light rail first opened down to Cottle road it was a great way to go to night events at the CPA etc. and probably still is. 
But if you want to use it for a daily commute to work from south San Jose to north San Jose and do the crawl thru downtown, no way.

Carol Voss
Bakersfield, CA



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/09/19 22:05 by CarolVoss.

Sounds like Pittsburgh. The Penn Park branch never got much service or ridership. If it was to be the start of light rail operation on the East Busway, it never happened. The Drake branch also slowly died off. 

I could never quite figure out why the Almaden Branch was built.

Jishnu Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I could never quite figure out why the Almaden
> Branch was built.

I will offer two possibilities...

1.     To distract railfans while playing at Golfland
2.      To attract Almaden voters.

I am not an Almaden resident but have played a round or two at Golfland. 
(With the branch closing, I can now focus on holing the volcano!)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/09/19 17:23 by KMiddlebrook.

I wonder if they are going to pull up the track and abandon the ROW or simply mothball it in the hopes that things change sometime in the future....like around 2030?
-j

Well Duna said it wouldn't work.

VTA has threatened closing the branch for years. The system runs at street level through downtown San Jose, doesn't directly serve the airport, and didn’t serve Diridon station or the arena until the Westside Line was
built, so it’s no wonder ridership is low.

Posted from iPhone

SP4360 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well Duna said it wouldn't work.

Duna?
C

Carol Voss
Bakersfield, CA

I believe the Almaden branch at one time was going to go either to Los Gatos, or the Almaden valley, which saw big residential growth.  Then it would have made some sense.  Ending it where they did was just dumb.

The Almaden Branch should have gone farther into the Almaden Valley so potential commuters wouldn't have to deal with traffic to get to the southern-most station.

The whole system in flawed because much time is wasted due to slow speeds in downtown San Jose.  If a bypass was built in the Highway 87 median when the freeway was constructed, commuters from South San Jose with jobs in north San Jose would find commute times competitive with driving.

Stan Praisewater

CarolVoss Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> We are natives of San Jose and watched this light rail l system be built, going mostly from nowhere
> to nowhere, very slowlly thru downtown San Jose, and running mostly empty, and not just on the
> Almaden branch. Not surprised to see them close this useless branch. 
> C

San Jose's monument to Norm Minetta???
 

Clearly a case of "build it and they won't necessarily come."

 

sagehen Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Almaden Branch should have gone farther into
> the Almaden Valley so potential commuters wouldn't
> have to deal with traffic to get to the
> southern-most station.
>
> The whole system in flawed because much time is
> wasted due to slow speeds in downtown San Jose. 
> If a bypass was built in the Highway 87 median
> when the freeway was constructed, commuters from
> South San Jose with jobs in north San Jose would
> find commute times competitive with driving.
>
> Stan Praisewater

San Jose was trying to revitalize downtown and wanted VTA to  directly deposit riders onto the transit mall.  Without the city of San Jose's  support, there would have been no light rait.  

KMiddlebrook Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> sagehen Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > The Almaden Branch should have gone farther
> into
> > the Almaden Valley so potential commuters
> wouldn't
> > have to deal with traffic to get to the
> > southern-most station.
> >
> > The whole system in flawed because much time is
> > wasted due to slow speeds in downtown San
> Jose. 
> > If a bypass was built in the Highway 87 median
> > when the freeway was constructed, commuters
> from
> > South San Jose with jobs in north San Jose
> would
> > find commute times competitive with driving.
> >
> > Stan Praisewater
>
> San Jose was trying to revitalize downtown and
> wanted VTA to  directly deposit riders onto the
> transit mall.  Without the city of San Jose's 
> support, there would have been no light rait.  

And ironically, SanJose’s downtown was dying due to the growth of the big malls like Valley Fair, Eastridge and Oakridge and tearing up downtown to build the light rail was the final kiss of death. 
C

Carol Voss
Bakersfield, CA

>San Jose's monument to Norm Minetta???

Really more Rod Diridon, a County Supervisor and railfan who likes to use tax money to support his hobby.

Carol is right, the construction of VTA  killed off a lot of small business downtown, which at that time wasn't much of a downtown anyway. It has revived and grown somewhat, but they have a chance to repeat that process with BART construction on Santa Clara Street which can kill off another generation of business.

The civic boosters in San Jose would like it to be like a big city, so, as mentioned above, they wanted a transit mall (1980's urban planning fad), making the VTA much slower and less useful as a commute option.

Jim B



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/10/19 12:01 by jimB.

Considerable high density housing was constructed at the Almaden terminal with the aim of creating a light rail clientele, and there are a great number of pre-existing apartment buildings within reasonable walking distance, yet statistics show light ridership. I don't know what else VTA could do to encourage more of these folks to ride. As far as the poposition that it would have been more successful had it extended into the Almaden Valley suburbs, proper: AV is a mostly upper middle class suburb. These people do not use public transit.

I've lived in Amaden Valley for the life of the branch, and I honestly doubt that I've availed myself of light rail more than once every two or three years. I enjoy the ride, but light rail generally does not go where I want to go.

Otherwise, there is a trick to holing the volcano at Golfland - I just can't remember what it is.

Ed Gibson

 

rantoul Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Was the right of way a former SP line or WP line?


SP.    It was the their former Almaden Branch which was built in 1886 by Leland Stanford to compete against the South Pacific Coast narrow gauge and, more importantly for Stanford, to gain rail access to the limestone quarries needed to build his university.  Imagine Stanford's embarrassment if he had to pay a surcharge to James Fair, owner of the narrow gauge, for every limestone shipment to Palo Alto.   



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/10/19 13:52 by KMiddlebrook.