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Minority owned businesses could play a bigger role in BART expansion

A BART train at the North San José station
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Wikimedia Commons
A BART train at the North San José station

The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (or VTA) signed a pledge on Monday to hire contractors from more diverse backgrounds.

The VTA is currently working on expanding BART service into downtown San Jose and the city of Santa Clara. According to the transit agency, it has worked with 72 minority-owned businesses and 25 small businesses on the BART expansion project, to date.

This new commitment is part of the Equity in Infrastructure Project — a national coalition of groups who want to increase opportunities for historically marginalized businesses. But this isn’t the first time that the VTA has pledged to diversify the contractors it’s working with on the BART expansion project.

Last time, in 2021, it did not meet the goal it set to have at least 20% of the project’s budget go to minority owned contractors.

This time, the VTA doesn’t have a specific quota.

Hanisha Harjani is the Community Journalism Director