How the VTA Strike Underscores Silicon Valley’s Widening Income Inequality

While higher wages are a key sticking point for the more than 1,500 bus drivers and train operators on strike in the pricey Silicon Valley, tens of thousands of riders could also face increased costs as they figure out how else to get around.

It’s a problem that underscores the growing income inequality and cost of living in the South Bay, both for transit operators and the riders who depend on their service.

“It’s definitely very inconvenient, and it’s going to affect my plans on going to work,” Chris Zin of Union City said of the strike, which ground Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority service to a halt this week.

Zin took BART from Union City to Milpitas, where he was waiting Monday afternoon at a VTA bus stop near the station when he saw an electronic signboard notifying him about the lack of bus and light rail service. Because of that, he said he’ll need to pay to travel one stop farther on BART to Berryessa and then for a service like Uber or Lyft to take him the rest of the way to work.

“It’s going to affect my income as well,” he said.

The sudden loss of transit service is especially a burden on those with limited incomes, who often have few other options.

In a lawsuit the VTA filed to try to halt the strike, the agency said a shutdown in services “especially impacts certain sectors of the population including seniors, people with disabilities and low-income riders.” Nearly 21% of weekday VTA riders earn less than $15,000 a year, the agency said. More than 27% are going to or from school or college, and about 40% are going to or from work.

“We calculate that regular folks are spending $10,000 at least minimally on their transportation costs in our region. These are all really difficult things, especially when most people are now spending more than 50% of their income on housing alone,” said Russell Hancock, the president and CEO of think tank Joint Venture Silicon Valley. “So we’re a deeply burdened region.”

During a strike, the added costs to transit riders can be one more hit to their checking accounts or even drive people away from using transit in the future.

“Very often it’s the people that are in the service professions that are reliant on transit, so this can hurt,” Hancock said.

Raj Singh, the president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 265, the union representing the striking VTA workers, said he empathizes with riders, but he blamed the transit agency for what he called “bad faith” negotiations that ran for more than six months before the strike was called.

“I feel for those people. The best part of our job, being an operator, is getting someone from A to B, whether it’s their doctor’s appointment, grocery shopping, or even the school trips. We take pride in the work that we do,” Singh said.

“It’s unfortunate that the agency has pushed us to this point,” he said. “I hope people understand that this wasn’t something that we intended on doing.”

The VTA’s latest offer to ATU workers includes a 9% pay increase spread over three years, with 4% coming in the first year, followed by 3% and 2%, respectively. The offer represents half of what the union is seeking — an 18% raise over the same time period.

VTA officials have said the agency can’t afford the union’s ask without cutting service and possibly cutting jobs, and believe their current offer is competitive, as it would ensure ATU members remain the second-highest paid transit workers in the Bay Area.

Hancock and some transit riders, meanwhile, said they understand that striking transit workers are also having trouble in an expensive place to live and work.

Sheila Mirrielees, who takes public transit from Mountain View to work in downtown Oakland, was planning on using a VTA light rail train to get home on Monday afternoon from Milpitas BART.

“I didn’t listen to the news this morning. So now I have to take an Uber out to Mountain View,” Mirrielees said.

As long as the strike continues, Mirrielees said she’ll stick to using Caltrain and BART for her commute. Despite the inconvenience, she said she’s on the side of the striking workers.

“This is such an expensive area to live that the wages just don’t keep up in most professions,” she said. “People just don’t go on strike for the fun of it.”

While Silicon Valley was once known for its wealth as a middle-class region, that has shifted dramatically in the last few decades, Hancock said.

“Now, we have the nation’s highest wealth and income gaps where the bulk of the wealth is held by a small number of people and a large number of people are barely getting by,” he said.

In Joint Venture’s recently published annual report, the Silicon Valley Index, Hancock noted that while the region remains an “economic superpower,” it is simultaneously struggling to address critical issues like homelessness, stagnating wages and higher costs for just about everything.

“Most people will tell you that those are the conditions for instability and that those are the conditions where you start seeing blood in the streets,” Hancock said. “It’s just a very difficult place to live.”

Waiting for a ride on Monday afternoon, Preeti Sharma of Milpitas described her day as “not a good one” because she was tired from the daylight saving time shift and wanted to get home quickly, but was caught off guard by the strike.

Sharma was catching a ride that day with her friend Helly Tanna, who takes an AC Transit bus into Milpitas BART, but due to the strike on Monday, the signboard Tanna usually checks to confirm her bus is coming was blank, even though the AC Transit is running.

The confusion added some stress to her day, and she had to coordinate with her husband and their baby’s sleeping schedule to arrange a last-minute pickup.

It’s unclear how long the strike will last, union and agency officials said.

“If it will be long-lasting, then it might cause trouble,” Tanna said. “We’ll see.”