Accessibility: Transit Amenities - Passengers Facilities

VTA serves 15 transit centers, 62 light rail stations and over 3,700 bus stops. Bus stops with high usage are often sheltered. VTA’s transit centers, shelters, and most bus stops are fully accessible.

Guidance Surface Tiles

Light Rail Stations have Detectable Warning Surface Tiles on their platforms to warn passengers where the platform edges are. Between Car Barriers pylons are place on the platform edges to alert passengers to the spaces between Light Rail cars when they arrive at the stations.

Directional guidance surface tiles are installed on pedestrians paths at the following transit centers to guide passengers with visual disabilities to bus stops, shuttle stops, rail station platforms and crosswalks.

Alum Rock Transit Center
Gilroy Caltrain Station
Great Mall Transit Center
Mountain View Caltrain Station
Ohlone-Chynoweth Lr Station
Palo Alto Caltrain Station
Penitencia Creek Transit Center
West Valley Transit Center
Winchester Transit Center

The tiles are also used to guide passengers out of a transit center to a crosswalk which will lead them to a major activity center, such as a shopping mall or a college campus.

Directional tiles are used in conjunction with decision tiles and crosswalk guidance tiles. Decision tiles alert passengers with visual disabilities who use white canes that there is a choice that can be made in the direction they are walking to access a bus stop or a crosswalk.

Crosswalk guidance tiles, installed in the center of pedestrian crosswalks, guide pedestrians with visual disabilities using white canes across crosswalks at transit centers and provide them with an indication that they are within a vehicular area. These tiles are thicker than directional tiles to withstand the weight of transit vehicles. Crosswalk guidance tiles are installed across the entire crosswalk and terminate at the bottom of the curb ramp.

Accessible Information

Information at VTA is accessible. At home, at bus stops, at transit centers, on the bus, or anywhere with a laptop computer, customers can access information on VTA’s accessible website. Also, at most bus stops and at all transit centers, bus stop poles are marked with raised letters and Braille that read “BUS”. VTA buses audibly announce the line number and destination when the doors open at bus stops. Inside VTA buses, digital message boards and announcements inform customers of cross-street locations and significant bus stops along the route. Customers may call VTA Customer Service to request other forms of information made accessible by large print, Braille, and audio tape.