Council members in both Los Gatos and Saratoga said the idea of using shuttles and small buses makes sense from a service standpoint. But several said VTA should focus on reducing costs and managing its debt before introducing new programs.

VTA Chief Operations Officer Matt Tucker made presentations about the program to both councils this month. Details have not yet been hammered out, but that's because the program would be tailored to each participating city. According to Tucker, possibilities include simply replacing the current 40-foot buses with smaller ones, changing the route and adding phone-in pickup service for people with decreased mobility.

"It all depends," Tucker said. "Quite frankly, the community bus concept is a pretty broad concept. We need to narrow it down."

That would be done through a series of workshops, at which community members would tell VTA what kind of service they want in their area. For example: Saratoga could choose to replace its current buses with smaller ones, while Los Gatos could design a system in which large buses pick up and drop off passengers at a central location and shuttles carry riders on more specialized routes.

Some, though, aren't convinced this is the best plan of action right now. A Santa Clara County grand jury slammed the transit organization in a June report recommending that it restructure its board of directors and delay funding of the troubled BART­to­San Jose project.

"A small bus meeting a myriad of community needs—what's not to like about that?" Los Gatos Councilwoman Sandy Decker said. "The thing that worries me is, not only is there no budget, but there's a marketing plan in place. Does this mean that we're going to face a tax hike for an agency that can't pay its bills now?"

Those bills include a $275 million loan the VTA board recently borrowed against tax revenues that will not be collected until 2006.

Saratoga Councilman Norman Kline also expressed concerns about the program. Like Decker, he said it sounded like a great way to address the low local ridership of the buses. But Kline, who is on the VTA policy advisory committee, said the organization needs to make major policy changes before introducing new services.

This program alone might not require any additional funding—Tucker said the program would be funded by existing bus-service budgets in each city—but VTA has also introduced the possibility of other programs such as a bus rapid transit system powered by overhead power lines.

"The service looks interesting, but again, here's another service," Kline said. "At some point, the administrative overhead is going to become pretty high."

Kline also said the transit system's board would do well to look at reducing existing overhead before proposing any service changes or additions.

"Southwest Airlines did a very good job of teaching the airline industry how to reduce costs—using only 737s, eliminating meals," he said. "I don't see that VTA is into reducing costs. They're into rolling out new services."

Tucker said the community bus program should not require any additional funding and may actually help increase fare-box revenue.

He said an exact figure is not available because it is difficult to divide routes by cities, but that approximately $700,000 is budgeted for bus service in Saratoga and $1.4 million for Los Gatos. That money would be reallocated to the community bus service.

"What we have to emphasize is that we're really looking at this as a reallocation of resources," Tucker said.

If those resources are reallocated to a service that attracts more riders, then VTA would be getting more for its money, he said.

Joe Pirzynski, a Los Gatos councilman and the current West Valley representative on the VTA board, said he was a bit frustrated with those who are skeptical of the proposal. He said if VTA officials say the program will not cost any more, their statements should be taken at face value.

"This is just a better utilization of resources," he said. "The difference is that we'll actually see some of this system being used by our people."

Affluent areas such as Los Gatos, Monte Sereno and Saratoga typically don't have much public-transportation usage. Tucker, though, says that a similar program he helped implement in Phoenix has been successful.

"The demographics are very similar, and it's been very successful there," he said.

Ultimately, community members will decide whether the program makes sense or not. If they think it does, Tucker said, the new program could be implemented as soon as early 2006. If not, bus service will remain unchanged. Tucker assured the councils that if community busing did not make sense in any one of the communities, it would not be implemented.