San Jose City councilmembers discussed the pros and cons of using city funds to build transportation to connect San Jose Mineta International Airport to Downtown San Jose.
The Diridon Station to Airport Connector Project will create a three to four mile transit path between the San Jose Mineta International Airport Terminal B to Diridon Station, according to a memorandum from the city.
Ramses Madou, the city’s division manager of Planning, Policy, and Sustainability for the Department of Transportation, said the city’s current transportation systems are not ready for its future goals.
“San Jose has set some really ambitious goals,” he said. “Becoming a zero carbon city, reducing deaths and severe injuries to zero [and] addressing historical inequities.”
Madou said transportation plays a major role in accomplishing these goals because most residents are unable to live without having “single occupancy vehicles.”
“In certain areas of the city, congestion is snarling,” he said.
He said neither electric or autonomous vehicles will help decrease traffic.
To provide more transit, the city will introduce a combination of different types of mass transit, including building hyperloops, monorails and other vehicles, according to a webpage from the city.
Brian Stanke, the project manager for the Diridon Station to Airport Connector Project, said the city is planning to implement an “innovative new way of connecting Mineta San Jose International Airport and Diridon Station.”
The new transit lines will be electric autonomous vehicles designed for high frequency use and will drive along a fixed path, according to the same memorandum.
Stanke said each vehicle can carry up to four people with luggage.
He also said development and design costs will be covered by Plenary Americas.
Plenary Americas, the parent company of Glydways, is a Canadian infrastructure developer and an investment company, according to the company's website.
Glydways is the transit technology provider that will be building the new transit connection between Mineta San Jose International Airport and San Jose Downtown, according to the same city webpage.
The city currently has around $4 million set aside for the project, while the pre-development stage will cost the city less than a million dollars, according to the same memorandum.
Stanke said the city will also have to cover additional environmental costs, which city staff are still estimating.
Councilmember Pam Foley said understanding the financial component of the project is important.
She said this will help the city understand whether or not it will need to take money out of its general funds, taxation and more.
“Hopefully, to the members of the public listening, I’m not advocating for taxes,” Foley said. “I’m hoping for federal grants and other grants that might work to help us.”
Madou said the city is still looking for sources of funding for the project.
“We are certainly hoping that grants will cover a significant portion of the future costs for us both in project development and of course in the final build,” he said.
John Costa, the president for Local 265 from Amalgamated Transit Union, said he disagrees with councilmembers on whether or not San Jose’s current public transit system can continue supporting the city in the future.
He said the transit union strongly opposes creating a “public partnership for a luxury pod system.”
“You’re going to spend money on this when you’re not serving all the underserved people within this county,” Costa said.
Harun Neil, civil engineering junior from De Anza College, said he thinks building the transit connection with the vehicles from Glydway would be a huge mistake.
“There are lots of other solutions that could be better and much cheaper as well,” he said.
Neil said the city could do a lot of small things to make transit faster.
He said one thing the city could do is to reroute and build more bus lanes.
“That wouldn’t cost an outrageous amount of money and would be generally much more in line with what other cities around the country do,” Neil said. “Without need to be innovative for innovation's sake, which isn’t really innovation at all.”
San Jose resident Matthew Abraham said he is concerned about how small the vehicles are.
“This connector featuring autonomous vehicles I believe is a step in the wrong direction,” he said.
Abraham said most VTA’s buses can seat 18 passengers while VTA’s light rail can seat about 62 people.
He also said he is concerned that the vehicles will help spread viruses in a future pandemic because of how small they are.
Abraham said a better alternative would be to shuttle passengers between Diridon Station and San Jose Mineta International Airport.
Foley said she feels like there’s not enough information to say no to the project, but councilmembers can make a decision once they learn more.
“I want to see this go forward,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s a blanket, ‘yes’.”
