Author: admin

Transit Talk versus Action

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Lately there’s been much talk about public transit.

  • Some say it can’t work, so stop wasting money on it and build more roads.
  • Others say that we should spend whatever is necessary to double or triple the current ridership.
  • Another group says nothing can work until people are forced to leave their cars at home and start traveling collectively.

None of these options makes any sense because none deals with the overall problem, which is that there is too much traffic congestion in too many places, coupled with financially floundering transit that doesn’t do as good a job as it does in many other advanced countries.

It’s time to zero in on the actions that would work and do work elsewhere. Talking endlessly about this or that piece of the problem gets us nowhere.

First, no more expensive studies. The problem has already been studied to death. Excessive congestion can no longer be allowed to ruin cities and other built-up places. Individual cars and trucks traveling in congested areas during congested hours, including computer-dispatched cars, must be tolled. Tolls should be imposed and collected by the affected towns, cities and counties. Toll revenues should go directly into reducing or eliminating fares or otherwise improving the transit alternatives. Not one dollar of the money raised by tolling should be used for any other purpose than improving the non-automotive means of getting around.

As to transit there’s a great deal to do, so it will take time. Here’s a set of priorities that tries to address the subject:

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Major Flaws in Overpriced San Jose Subway

admin 2024, Transit Systems

See:  https://youtu.be/tJkR7yiQYJY

Please take a few (no more than 8) minutes to watch and learn how the VTA mishandled its BART Subway extension into San Jose. The slides and recording tell an astonishing story of just how dysfunctional a large agency can become. Unless such behavior is challenged at every turn, it will continue unabated. If you want to weigh in write to Board.Secretary@VTA.org and ask that every board member receive a copy of your note. And please pass this message on to your friends.

That Giant Sucking Sound from San Jose

admin 2024, Transit Systems

Unfortunately, large and exotic-sounding transportation projects tend to get far more than their share of attention. As a result, large amounts of tax money are often squandered on huge projects instead of being used to advance smaller and more deserving projects.

Take the current situation in San Jose for instance. BATWG recently sent two letters to the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority’s (VTA’s) new BART Phase II Steering Committee encouraging it to consider all aspects of the BART Phase II program and indicating a number of important questions of long standing in need of straight answers. Here’s an update:

The last official cost of the VTA’s original twin bore tunneling option was $4.69 billion, as set forth in the DEIS released in March of 2017. Since the FEIS was released in 2018, the VTA’s cost of first the 43-foot single bore option and then the 54-foot single bore option has gone from $6.9 billion to $9.1 billion to the current $12.2 billion, an amount that is almost certain to continue to rise.

If, as some believe, the twin bore tunnel option were to come in at $3 to $5 billion less than the five-story high single bore tunnel option, it would necessitate a careful and objective re-evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of both options Unfortunately, in its habitually insular fashion, the VTA has never seen fit to release a definitive capital and operating cost breakdown of the two options. So at this point, no one knows for sure which option would be less troublesome. Current issues:

  1. A bonafide cost comparison of the two, together with an updated evaluation of the pros and cons of each, particularly regarding subgrade and other financial risks, is therefore warranted at this time.

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Tweaking Vision Zero

admin 2024, Roadways and Traffic

On December 19, 2023 the SF Chronicle, in an article by Nora Mishanec, shined the spotlight on the failings of SF’s City Government’s much ballyhooed Vision Zero program.

The program was instituted in 2013 with the objective of reducing the traffic fatalities in San Francisco to zero “within a decade”. Well, here we are 10 years later, and the traffic fatality rate remains pretty much as it did before the program was initiated.

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Level Boarding for Caltrain? Or Stairs Forever?

admin 2024, Transit Systems

Is Caltrain poised to make another big mistake?

Level boarding station platforms speeds things up. BART has level boarding so its riders can enter and leave the trains faster and more safely than if they had to use stairs. This makes it possible for much shorter dwell times at stations and therefore significant time savings for everyone.

Caltrain’s 192 new Stadler electrified cars are equipped to facilitate level boarding. So, when Caltrain’s 2023 and 2024 budgets included allocations directed to getting the level boarding platforms built, people rejoiced, because it was assumed that meant eventual level boarding for everyone. But apparently not. The current plan seems to be that there will be level boarding at only one door per train, to improve wheelchair access. Good handicapped access is fine, but what about everyone else? Instead of action it appears that the Caltrain staff is currently sitting on its collective hands while its spokespeople make excuses. One hears:

“You can’t go to level boarding without shutting down existing train service”. False. Temporary curb-height stations located just south or just north of the construction site would continue to keep the trains running while the new high-level stations were being built.

“There’s not enough money”. There never is, unless an effort is made to find it. The State and federal governments both helped pay to give the Stadler cars the capability of operating with either curb height platforms or level boarding platforms. Chances are they’d look favorably on a request to put this expensive added on-car feature to good use.

Caltrain ridership is now roughly one third of what it was pre-COVID. So, while the trains are shorter, now is the time move ahead with a level boarding construction program. Deferring action would only compound the problem.

Why do Big Public Projects Cost So Much, Take So Long and Yield So Little?

admin 2024, Improvement Ideas

A Compendium of Trouble Spots

When it comes to developing major infrastructure projects, the performance of the Large Bay Area Transportation Agencies has been lackluster at best. It’s easy to write this off as inexperience, too many cooks in the broth, unwillingness to admit error, or plain incompetence. And those factors are unfortunately often present. But that’s not the whole story.

Here are a few of the largely ignored trouble spots:

Outreach: It is necessary to give people an opportunity to respond to proposed public actions. That’s what outreach used to mean. But in recent years it’s become much more than just giving interested parties an opportunity to weigh in. Instead, a great deal of effort (sometimes costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees) is often put into asking everyone in sight what he or she wants by way of new transit. Does someone who hasn’t ridden a bus for 30 years have a good answer to such a question? Does someone worried about his job or sick child or looking forward to next Thursday’s bocce ball match? Probably not, but if the question is asked, people will try to answer it in some fashion. What is the value of this kind of off-the-top “input”? Answer: minimal.

Instead of beating the bushes to elicit as much abstract comment as possible, a better approach would be to first develop concepts sufficient to give people something to respond to, and then reach out broadly to let those who are interested have an opportunity to speak or write their opinions. This kind of outreach would improve its quality and usefulness and likely cost much less.

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