San Jose's Light Rail Network Evolution
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- Опубліковано 20 гру 2024
- From its beginning in 1987, San Jose's light rail network has grown to 59 stations, spanning 42 miles (68 kilometers). This animated video takes you through the timeline of when new stations were opened, forming the VTA network that we know today.
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☑️ Video Criteria:
Population given is the sum of all counties and independent cities with stations in them.
Future extensions are shown only if a construction tender has been awarded for their completion, at the time of video publication. If a construction tender has been issued for a project not included in the video, feel free to leave a comment, and we'll add it to our list to update.
If you find an error, feel free to let us know in the comments. Please include links to any sources that will help us correct the error. Note: comments with links might take up to 24 hours to appear due to UA-cam anti-spam policies.
📸 Image Credits:
David Wilson from Oak Park, Illinois, USA - 20050325 36 VTA 931 930 Alum Rock station, CC BY 2.0, commons.wikime...
David Wilson from Oak Park, Illinois, USA - 20050321 08 San Jose, CA-2, CC BY 2.0, commons.wikime...
xAtsukex - Own work, CC BY 3.0, commons.wikime...
🖼 Thumbnail designed by jacobestrella.com/
🚋 #VTA
San Jose Orange Line light rail
San Jose Green Line light rail
San Jose Blue Line light rail
San Jose Alum Rock bus rapid transit
San Jose BART subway
San Jose Almaden shuttle light rail
Thank you so much for honoring our fallen Brothers. We should be back up and running soon. I hope. The mechanics are being called back now and they're getting temporary replacements for the substation and overhead maintainers. Once that's done, the inspection of the trains and lines are complete , us operators will return. The homeless have damaged a few portions of the tracks by stealing the copper wires. Hope to see you all real soon.
I'm sorry, but what happened? I'm not from the USA so I am a bit lost about the matter
@@portugueseeagle8851 I wondered that too. There was a shooting. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_San_Jose_shooting
@@portugueseeagle8851 There was a HORRIBLE mass shooting at the Depot for the light rail trains.
@@parker6227 oh I see
Hey man…❤ thanks for
It’s so frustrating to see that they didn’t extend the purple line to the San Jos Diridon Station and just abandoned it. Would have definitely gained more ridership.
They could have routed it to Santa Teresa, Winchester, Diridon, or St. James, but they just abandoned it instead
Nobody was riding it. It was one train on about 10 min headway. I agree it could've been handled differently. The tracks are furloughed but not abandoned. They're going to be used for training.
@@AVeryRandomPerson they needed to reroute it to serve new areas
THIS!!!!
The purple was initially proposed to go to Mountain View. Not once has the idea of extending to San Jose Diridon ever been considered
the extra video to donate was a wonderful and fitting addition. great job as always, and thanks for all that you do.
Thank for for the gracious tribute to the VTA employees.
Another great video!
That Almaden line should have been kept and expanded. A transit authority isn't guaranteed good ridership on a shuttle unless it's the New York City Transit Authority!
Omg yes the s train is so good
Oh you brought back good memories.
I went to SJSU and worked in the Silicon Valley for 10 years without owning a car.
The was the best time for me to save money.
One thing I wanted to add was that when the light rail to Almaden was opened in 1991 there was direct service between Almaden and great America. Those trips were discontinued in 1993 due to operational issues
Is it BART or Muni next? The next city that can be cleanly divided if I were to guess is Philadelphia. Seattle should wait until October 2. No idea when the Tempe streetcar will open, but it will be before the end of the year.
Watched the whole video, BART is up next.
2:59 Alum Rock Santa Teresa Line June 2004
3:25 MT View Winchester Line October 2005
They should extend the Blue Line to Milpitas, that should allow riders a one seat ride from the BART station to downtown San Jose
They can’t extend it only to Milpitas because there is no place to turn around and there are no nearby crossover tracks. If the line went to the Milpitas station it would have to go all the way to Alum Rock Station, which was actually planned a few years ago. There would have been blue line and orange line service to Alum Rock. Too bad that didn’t happen. Maybe in the near future?
Yep, superficially that seems like a no brainer. On such a little used system with infrequent service the last they need is another transfer for such an obvious trip scenario.
@@danos2544 That may be the case, but that isn't the way it should be. They should look into retrofitting the station at Milpitas with a crossover track or running on a more creative service pattern there to make this work. They have ridiculously low frequencies anyway. They could just run on the wrong side of the track until the closest crossover track section. If they run with 20 minute headway at best then this shouldn't even be an issue.
People really underestimate how important these transfer opportunities are. We have a lot of low-density, low frequency transit networks so the value of transfers is not as well understood as it should be. But once people get used to it, these kinds of transfer opportunities become instrumental in maintaining strong ridership.
BART will probably end up being a major transit ridership driver for San Jose in the future. But if they don't have good transfers they'll just waste all of that potential.
@@TohaBgood2 I think they might be planning on extending the Blue Line after they finish building the Eastridge extension down Capitol Expwy. If that’s the case it would seem that this would be the solution. An extended Blue line could end at Alum Rock or Eastrridge. My understanding is that the only reason they shortened the Blue Line is the lack of operating funds. If they don’t have the money for it, it’s moot point IMHO.
@@danos2544 Well, then I hope that they get the money for it. Not leveraging that BART connection seems borderline criminal in my opinion.
If only this network could survive for just another decade or so! There is such a ridiculous amount of transit-inducing development all around their stations. If they could just fend off shuttering the network for long enough I’m convinced that it will become successful. Downtown is exploding. There’s all kinds of TOD everywhere. It would be extremely silly to kill this network now.
Thanks, you lit up the VTA's strange transportation developmental movements. Can't wait to see how the Bart single tunnel into San Jose is going to make Mercury front page history.
You people just love it when something goes wrong with transit in the Bay Area. Has it ever occurred to you that the very reason you can still get anywhere on highways in the Bay Area is that a lot of people choose to take transit? I don't understand, do you want more congestion? Is the highway situation not crazy enough for you?
I think Cupertino could use a VTA light rail line. Cupertino has Apple Park and De Anza College. VTA should build a line that travels west of Downtown San Jose via San Carlos Street and Stevens Creek Blvd from Downtown to Cupertino, with the west end at De Anza college, new stations at Wolfe Road, Lawrence Expressway, Kiely Blvd, Valley Fair/Santana Row, Bascom Ave(named San Carlos), Meridian Ave, and Barack Obama Blvd, and the east end at the existing Convention Center station. Maybe that line can also travel south from Convention Center via First street and Monterey Road, and then east on Tully Road and end at Eastridge.
I don't think any of the colleges have Light Rail access except SJSU and Mission. De Anza, City and evergreen are not rail connected.
@@LawAcieIV I think SJCC's closest light rail connection is the green line, and there is bus 31 from Evergreen Valley College to Eastridge which will have a direct link to the orange line after the Eastridge light rail extension is complete, but De Anza does not have one, so that is why a light rail line along Stevens Creek Blvd would be something to consider.
@@y.k.2726 I used to take the bus from Tamien to De Anza it passes through city and Valley Medical. Also they should have rail access to Valley Med since its the largest hospital in the county. I think the new green line goes near City but they should still be connected to Colleges by light rail. The Bus to De Anza takes like an hour. Only West Valley is to out of the way for rail connection.
@@LawAcieIV True, but West Valley has its own bus transit center with buses to the Ames Center, Old Ironsides, Capitol Station, and Eastridge.
@@y.k.2726 yea but san jose is too wide spread for bis service it kinda sucks. West Valley is too out of the way for rail so bus is fine.
Alum Rock was an interurban line stop,back in the early 1900's! Interurban's,(Ira Swett),had a book about San Jose,and environs,well worth looking up! Thank you for the information and educational video!
Great video! Kinda wished it talked about the Baypointe-Santa Teresa express service they had for a bit though.
I found you. It’s Bird.
There will be a few changes on the Orange Line in the next 10 years. VTA plans to build an extension of the orange line two stations south from Alum Rock to the Eastridge Transit Center and plans to open it by 2027, and following the closure of California's Great America by 2033, the Great America station will most likely be renamed, my guess being that it will be renamed to Levi's Stadium.
Forgot to mention the upcoming orange line extension to eastridge !
Has a construction tender been awarded yet?
@@AVeryRandomPerson its probably delayed due to Covid and the May 26th incident. I haven't heard anything on it in a while. They were supposed have started it by now I think. From what I understand, it's going to be all elevated. Two new stops, Story Rd and Eastridge.
@@JediTev it’s been delayed for decades. I’ve heard since 2004 that it was suppose to begin construction sometime in the future
Love this channel! When are we going to see the San Francisco light rail and system. I'm looking forward to the BART video. Thank you very much.
*sighs* it has so much promise...
san jose is one of the strangest cities i’ve ever visited. It definately doesn’t feel like a city of 1 million people- it felt like a larger suburb like bellevue, or mesa in parts. it felt very car centric.
@@urbanpreppie05 Fun fact: San Jose is the only large American city to have a higher nighttime population than daytime, as it is essentially a huge Silicon Valley bedroom community that happens to have a CBD/ downtown
Would be nice to see more pictures of the areas you talk about. It is interesting to see where these trains going.
True, if you live in/near San Jose you can easily see
How’d you miss the yellow express from Santa Teresa to Baypointe?
U should’ve added the future BART extension into San Jose lol
Edit: I meant to say the under construction extensions that’ll open in like 2028
Santa Clara VTA needs to expand, but no new future expansions are announced at this moment.
The next extension has been in the works for a while (utility relocation has been underway): they are adding two more stations (Story and Eastridge) to the Orange line. The line will now terminate at Eastridge Mall. The other extension that was planned to from Winchester to Vasona is currently dead though.
BART's silicon valley extension into Downtown San Jose is using up all of the available political capital for transit funding at the moment. Hopefully this picks up pace soon, so they can focus their planning efforts on other system improvements.
Hey all! I just released a video essay discussing this very light rail system on my channel! Be sure to check it out if you want more context on VTA's light rail system! 😆
The biggest issue VTA light rail has is that it mostly runs through endless suburbia. As San Jose densifies, which it already is, the light rail network will only become more useful and popular. I just hope that some genius doesn't try to replace it with some gadgetbahn gimmick like "autonomous pods" or something similar.
The VTA light rail system has good bones and enormous potential, but is hobbled by the ridiculous San Jose zoning. If they just allowed normal development at stations it would make the system 5x more useful overnight.
Even some of the board members have recently admitted this.
I saw a video recently that showed the extension of the BART line south from Berryessa, then west thru downtown San Jose, and then north, terminating at the Santa Clara Caltrain station. Construction is supposed to start this year and be finished by 2028, all underground. You might want to revise this video to add that.
Correction, construction begin in 2025 and finish in 2030.
great video
Someone forgot about the BART extension down to Convention Center in the future...
Hasn't had a construction tender awarded yet
I wonder what they did with the tracks on the line that ran 28 years? Did they tear the tracks up? Do they leave them in place with possible resumption of service in the future? I hate to see all that track work being torn up and all the money gone to waste over something like that. Or do they just mothball it and use it as a future time? I'm always curious about things like that. Especially in nowadays with the way budgets are made.
They left the tracks for retired light rail cars/ training cars and bus replaced the purple like with 64A route
Evolution of London Tube
When i was 7 and 8 years old the trains were mixed Alum Rock to MT View and Santa Teresa to Winchester😊
will you be doing charlotte? it’s a very small network (one line and a streetcar) but it’s one of the highest quality in the us and they have pretty big plans for future lines
I thought the yellow line was finished and was using the Siemens cars now
@@anareel4562 most of the work is finished on the expansion of the gold line streetcar which is like 10 miles now i believe and they are testing the new cars. there are also plans to extend it much further as well
When does it open again?
After USA could you do UK and European systems please?
When Is the next video
you know I think you can do a video on the evolution of Puerto Rico subway and busway net work or New York City bus way/net work
Rest in peace to the victims of that horrible mass shooting.
When is the next evolution of the network
When are u gonna do a video on the New York City subway?
They are a little odd the extended the green line to downtown. Then a decade latter the change it all up cut it back and reconfigure the orange line on parts of the old green line route.
It’s so sad that the VTA employees had to experience such loss. Mental illness needs more exposure to prevent such disaster. We do see it in the homeless here. But many go under the radar. I hope the system gets up and running soon. I depend on it. I don’t want to drive and add to the horrific traffic coming back. We’ve changed the climate.
Let’s help scale back the damage done and on light rail and BART and CalTrans. We have a great urban system, let’s put it to good use!
Sorry I meant folks I meant to say let’s get on VTA light rail, BART and CalTrans! We can learn from our mistakes and treat our beautiful planet we love and respect.
Thank you :D
Seriously do Portland light rail and commuter rail
The West Valley is underserved. Gotta connect Mtn View to Winchester via Cupertino
I'm sorry, what happened to those VTA employees on May 26th, 2021?
9 of them were murdered in a shooting in May 2021.
Compare and contrast connectivity of the DFW consolidated metro are to the Baltimore -Washington consolidated metro area the San Francisco- Oakland -San Jose consolidated metro areas.
The exessive urban sprawl is the real reason this light rail is not used. Too much reliance on cars that people don't feel comfortable hopping on a train. Also, trains aren't able to stop in highly populated areas because there aren't that many of them :( There's a reason SF has the 2nd highest ridership transit in the US.
Yea the city is too spread out. I used light rail as a teenager. But its still faster by car almost everywhere unless you are going straight downtown. But most people don't work down town. The new developments are getting more high density so hopefully they can solve this.
@@LawAcieIV It's wild to look at how close all the SF businesses are together (downtown SF/fidi/SOMA and how BART and Caltrain effectively funnel thousands of people to work in the city. Then SJ/silicon you have major fortune 500 companies distanced by many miles with their own massive campuses in the middle of random neighborhoods, basically where there was free land not consumed by suburban sprawl. Even look at the new building @ google campus, not by any major mass transit. Only way to get there is by a slow bus or drive your car.
By 2027, the Vta light rail will serve eastridge mall
America's worst light rail system. Tons of slow grade crossings, full of long transfers, it's no wonder ridership is so bad. They need to put the downtown segment underground and add crossing gates to give it priority at the grade crossings, and rethink the slow squiggly aligment of the Mountain View/Santa Clara segment (maybe with brief underground sections).
The only parts of the network that are fast are the freeway segments south of the Children's Museum (complete with loud painful smelly inconveniently-located freeway stations), and the segment from Diridon to Winchester that operates on rail right of way with crossing gates.
The at-grade downtown tracks could be kept for a streetcar loop for short trips, but it's already a fairly walkable area if they just gave pedestrians better priority at the lights.
do you live in san jose? i’m curious to see what people’s experiences are riding it- i rode it for a few days and thought it was just...ok.
@@urbanpreppie05 I don't live there but have taken it many times as I used to go there often. It's bad. There are other cities with similar problems (Portland MAX, Salt Lake City TRAX) but San Jose combines all of the worst issues together.
For instance, like Portland it has the problem of a slow downtown street-running segment, making crosstown trips needlessly slow, but Portland has a sane topology at least.
Plenty of cities have U-shaped lines, but the U is focused on the core area. San Jose commits the cardinal sin of an *inverted* U where the center of the U is at noplace in particular. This has only now been somewhat alleviated with an (awkward) BART transfer in Milpitas.
Cities like Boston, Philly, and San Francisco (SF in particular) have slow street-running segments, but they are at the periphery of a fast core spine. San Jose's Mountain View line has these slow segments between two major transfer points, as well as the aforrmentioned slow downtown segments. Worse yet, the Mountain View line positively *meanders* in the same way slow bus routes do in sprawling suburbs where they try to provide comprehensive bus service with only a few bus routes.
Diridon, the main transfer point to regional service, is connected to the rest of the system by a windey awkward right of way through multiple intersections. If/when the BART tunnel gets built, it will immediately replace light rail as a means to get from Diridon to downtown (though the Santa Clara station will probably be a more popular transfer given the much shorter distance between the BART and mainline rail platforms)
The only high quality segment with no drawbacks is the Winchester extension.
The one overriding feature of VTA light rail is that it bends over backwards to function within automobile infrastructure, aside from the Winchester right of way and a small segment of the Mountain View line. In some parts this is not too bad, but results in deference to cars at intersections. In other parts the line contorts itself to fit into automobile rights of way in some of its most critical sections.
The freeway segments aren't particularly noteworthy as they're the typical American approach to urban rail. Fast travel but abysmal, unpleasant stations with poor walksheds.
@@urbanpreppie05 I used to live in San Jose so I can tell you first hand the experience. It is very slow and underutilized. Light rail seems to lack common core destination outside of Downtown San Jose
@@brtv3058 from what i saw when i was there- it seems like it functions more as a commuter rail- in light rail form.
I think BART will pump riders onto the VTA system when we're going back to offices. I think we'll see it at Milpitas, but this will be especially true when BART cross the light rail lines in Downtown SJ. It's remarkable how many riders go from BART to Muni, for work as well as for events at the ballpark. Sure, it's SF, where people expect to ride transit, but most of these transferring BART-Muni riders are from the suburbs,
Goodbye Almaden! 1991... 2019
It’s been a long time since I’ve ridden the VTA. I don’t see a lot of crazy people on the train. Are there a lot of mental illness people on the train?
Gavin Newsom replaced the VTA with iceberg glaciers, and the glaciers were even faster.
PHILLY
under an hour before someone demanded a new video. new record.
Coming in September
I really wish the Almaden branch line would be extended further south towards actual Almaden. Its terminus was only about a 20-minute walk from Ohlone-Chynoweth, which is the main reason it got so little ridership. If service down south had been extended earlier, it would have allowed for the creation of a much more transit-oriented Almaden as opposed to the car-dependent suburb it currently is.
It makes more sense to connect it to Convention Center via Yellow express.
spoiler alert: still nobody rides VTA
🚈
what about Samuel James Cassidy?He Also Died In The Shooting. This Video Should Be Dedicated To Him Too.
Psych!