SAN JOSE, Calif. — Light rail service in the San Jose area may be suspended for months as a result of last week’s mass shooting that left 10 Valley Transportation Authority workers, including the shooter, dead.
That is the word from an agency spokeswoman, the San Jose Mercury News reports, as VTA determines how to restore service in the wake of the shooting at the Guadalupe Yard that is both the center of light rail maintenance and a crime scene.
With employees coping with the funerals of coworkers, and potentially reluctant to return to the scene of the shooting, VTA spokeswoman Stacey Hendler Ross told the newspaper there is “no consideration” of restoring service. Its return will be a matter of “weeks or months, and not days,” she said.
Law enforcement remains in control of the yard, and the agency currently does not know how much damage there is and what will be necessary to repair or change the facilities as a result of the shooting. No employees have been allowed inside the facility since the shooting, other than to retrieve their cars.
The light rail system moved up to 25,000 passengers daily prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, but ridership has dropped 70%. Hendler Ross said the agency is working to “balance what we understand are important needs from our passengers … with the needs of our employees, which are taking priority right now. People are still grieving.”
I don’t understand why it should take so long for law enforcement to investigate this shooting. It’s not like they’re looking for clues of who the shooter was — he was killed at the scene — or cataloging evidence for a trial — the shooter will not be standing trial.
What? 25,000 people are to be inconvenienced because some idiot went nuts? You have GOT to be kidding me.
I guess the buffoon won.