If you’ve ridden a VTA bus or light rail lately, you may have noticed a “VTA 30th Anniversary” logo displayed across the fleet. It’s a small symbol of how far the agency has come and how much work remains to make our transportation system all it can be.

VTA officially became the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority in 1995 as a result of a merger between the Santa Clara County Transit District and the county’s congestion management agency. However, as discussed in a previous column, Santa Clara County public transit has an even longer history.

That history truly began in 1972 when voters approved the formation of the transit district, and the first transit district buses rolled out on Jan. 1, 1973. What started as a small county operation has expanded to a transit network serving

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