Exhibit CC 01-24-2017 Item No. 19 Written CommunicationsCouncil Meeting, January 24 , 2017
Madame Mayor, Vice Mayor and fellow Council Members. My name is Jean
Bedard and I've lived in Cupertino for over 20 years. I am here to talk about VT A
and the proposed service changes for Fall 2017. I also want to thank members of
the council for their leadership and diligence in serving on the VT A Board as the
voices of Cupertino.
I attended the public meeting here in Cupertino last week, along with about 50
other residents, which is a significant improvement over the 5 or so who attended
last fall. Overall, I feel this plan provides only minimal improvement in service,
and completely fails to significantly improve public transportation within
Cupertino.
Specifically, there is no provision for public transportation along the highway 85
corridor that moves people from their homes in the Almaden Valley to jobs in
Mountain View . As we all know, this corridor has become increasingly
congested, and is now a major cause of traffic backup in our city.
Furthermore, there is no proposal to add on-demand ride services such as Uber
or Lyft to provide badly needed transportation to residents living in low density
areas. This is essential for improving public transportation in our community.
Cupertino is too low density to cost justify traditional buses with driver. However,
on-demand ride services work quite well, and would significantly improve VT A
services in several areas .
Both my husband and I have used paratransit services designed for disabled
individuals, and found them to be quite unsatisfactory. For example Outreach
doesn't work for doctor's appointments because while you can schedule a time
for a ride, the time at which the ride actually shows up is quite unpredictable.
A second area where on demand ride services would be helpful is in providing
transportation between DeAnza College and its sister college Foothill in Los
Altos. Currently, the only way students can take classes at both campuses is to
have a car. The third is creating an additional option for affordable housing. While
many senior home owners rent rooms to students and other employees at
DeAnza, international students and faculty often don't have cars and want to rent
close to public transportation. However, we are losing bus service to homes in
such locations.
Yours is a challenging role, as Cupertino is a small city in the VTA system. On
the positive side , I want to recognize Rod Sinks for his leadership. I also have
total confidence in Savita's leadership in demanding that Cupertino gets a fair
share of public transportation monies to improve public transportation. I'm here
to say "Thank you" and that we are here to support you in your efforts to do
what's best for Cupertino.