Measure B Prevails; BART To Extend To San Jose

Proponents of a measure that would bring Bay Area Rapid Transit to the South Bay celebrated Friday afternoon as the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters indicated the measure has passed with less than 1 percent of ballots left to be counted.

A celebration erupted as results released Friday show 414,308 votes in favor of Measure B and 206,098 against, a 66.78 percent approval. The measure, which needed a two-thirds majority, will authorize a one-eighth-cent sales tax to fund the 16-mile BART extension.

Voters who approved the measure fell short by a slim margin Election Day, with preliminary results showing just 66.27 percent of voters in approval. However, as thousands of additional ballots, including many provisional ballots, have been counted the percentage has grown.

Silicon Valley Leadership Group CEO and President, Carl Guardino, who also lead the Measure B campaign, opened a bottle of champagne after results announced what proponents are calling a victory.

"We popped the champagne to replace the real pain that commuters face throughout the region because we don't have enough transit options," he said.

Guardino said there are less than a few hundred votes left to count out of 630,000 votes cast on the measure. With Measure B up by more than 2,000 votes, the campaign has succeeded nearly three weeks after Election Day, Guardino said.

The BART expansion will run from Fremont through Milpitas, San Jose and Santa Clara, adding six stops to the line. The $6.1 billion project would also connect BART with Caltrain, the Altamont Commuter Express, Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority lines, Amtrak and the future high-speed rail line.

Funding for the project will come from 2000 Measure A and the state of California, Guardino said. Measure B will provide the operating and maintenance costs for the system, which now allows project leaders to go back to the federal government to secure the last portion of construction funding, he said.

The one-eighth sales tax will only be collected if state and federal funding is also in place. The tax would be in effect for 30 years and construction would begin in 2013, according to the county.

"This extension isn't just for our children and grandchildren, it's for us," Guardino said. "We will be able to bring BART to Santa Clara County probably by 2017. We're talking less than a decade to complete this major, $6 billion transportation investment."

Guardino said the BART extension will complete a rapid rail system around the entire Bay. By extending BART from Fremont, the line will connect with Caltrain in downtown San Jose and across the street from Santa Clara University. Caltrain then travels to the Millbrae station for connection back to BART and travel to San Francisco, Guardino said.

San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed was also among those who gathered in celebration of Measure B's apparent passing this afternoon. He said the passage of Measure B should be considered a landslide victory because it surpassed the hard-to-reach two-thirds mark.

"There's no doubt that the people of San Jose and the entire county that voted very strongly for (Measure B) really do want to complete this rail link around the Bay," Reed said. "

Reed said difficult economic times did not derail Santa Clara County residents on Election Day.

"(Voters were) willing to pay the eighth of a cent in the worst economic times we've had in decades," Reed said. "That's the extraordinary thing, that the whole thing didn't crater because of the economy."

Elma Rosas with the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters said less than 1 percent of votes cast for the measure remain to be counted. She said the votes will be counted between now and Dec. 2, when the election must be certified.