The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority reopened the light rail orange and blue lines Monday, but the rest of the system was still delayed by track inspections after a 17-day workers strike.
The orange line runs from Mountain View to Alum Rock in East San Jose and the blue line connects downtown San Jose to Baypointe.
A VTA spokesperson says that they are conducting necessary track and wire inspections. According to the VTA, which services 16,000 weekday riders, it's taking longer than expected because copper wiring was stolen from one of the lines.
“It was going to take us a little bit longer to get trains running than buses. There was a good amount of copper theft that we found that had to be fixed along the light rail tracks and so that work is being done. Replacements are being made, inspections are being done, test trains are being run,” said Stacey Hendler Ross, a VTA Spokesperson.
The discovery was made last week after a judge ordered striking union members to return to work.
"We understand that for a lot of people, this is their only way to get to work, to school, to their medical appointments. That’s why when the judge gave the order to go back to work, we’ve," said Sandra Bermudez, a VTA spokesperson said.
The VTA said though the orange and blue line were running Monday afternoon, the green line still needed to be repaired and it's not clear how long those repairs would take.
"We’re just asking people to be a little more patient with us because we want to make sure the trains and everything is perfectly fine," Bermudez said.
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The VTA said it will provide credit to monthly pass users who couldn't use the service during the strike.
