2023

BART Addresses Rampant Fare Evasion, Finally!

admin 2023, Regional and Local Governments

The transit agencies are finally recognizing and beginning to respond to the fact that fare evasion often leads to unruly and criminal on-car behavior which in turn drives paying customers away.

Take BART for instance. Three years ago its board scoffed at the idea of cracking down on fare evasion. As one Director put it, “if someone doesn’t pay it’s because they can’t afford to, so let them be”.

This approach has not worked….anywhere. If there are no consequences for cheating or breaking the law, some individuals invariably take advantage of the situation. That’s just the way it is. Everywhere. In all situations.

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How Not to Approach a Fiscal Cliff

admin 2023, Improvement Ideas

By now everyone who reads a newspaper or listens to a radio knows that major transit agencies across the nation are heading toward a “fiscal cliff”

Large Bay Area public transit operators like BART, SFMTA, SCVTA, AC Transit, Caltrain, SamTrans and Golden Gate Transit have seen their riderships and fare revenues drop precipitously while operating costs increase and tax revenue sources dry up.

If a private business operating in a competitive environment were faced with this situation it would be required to find ways of raising revenues and/or cutting costs, or facing the prospect of having to close its doors. With a public agency, things are different. When a large bureaucracy is faced with the same problem it seldom looks very hard if at all for cost-cutting opportunities. Instead, there is a strong tendency on the part of most agencies, backed by labor interests, business groups, and other advocates, to sit and bewail the situation while demanding more tax money from other levels of government.

In any event, transit has fallen on hard times and the question is what to do about it.

Need for Better and More Prudent Cost Control:  Transit provides an important public service and for this reason needs and deserves taxpayer support. But that’s not the whole story. There is also a need for the transit agencies themselves to look for opportunities to increase their farebox revenues and reduce their administrative and operating costs. As things stand, transit agencies and their Boards of Directors focus too much on “new or additional revenue sources” and not enough on improving existing service, cost-effectiveness, controlling operating and administrative expenses and sound management. But what used to be tolerated may no longer be. Given the State of California’s $31.5 billion deficit and the even greater national fiscal woe, the hoped for State and federal bailouts may not materialize. If so agencies that fail to streamline their operations may be putting themselves at substantial risk.

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Letter to Mayor London Breed

admin 2023, Regional and Local Governments

Letter sent to San Francisco Mayor London Breed and
Supervisor Engardia

Dear Mayor Breed and Supervisor Engardo,

Subject:  https://sfgov.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=11909851&GUID=7962909D-F96A-41CD-BC72-229395819237

With the 1960’s ” freeway revolt” San Franciscans became more focused on protecting their city from crass, politically-motivated development. Many horrible projects, all fully backed by City Hall, that would have been highly destructive to the unique character of San Francisco were stopped: The planned 53-story US Steel Headquarters located on the waterfront next to the Ferry Building was never built. Nor was the 6 story Oceanic Properties Development that would have protruded 1,300 feet out into the Bay. Nor the proposed highway tunnel under Russian Hill. Nor was the International Market Center, slated to be the fifth largest building in the world, wrapped around the east side of Telegraph Hill. Nor did the Scott/Divisadero Freeway proceed. Nor the plan to transform Upper Market Street into an eight-lane thoroughfare. Nor raising the height limits in North Beach to 65 feet. And many more.

And the ticky tacky residential architecture that degraded cities throughout the world was nipped in the bud in San Francisco.

Political tinkering with the San Francisco Planning Code and watering down CEQA are guaranteed to start the same old wars all over again. San Francisco’s housing problems can be addressed without ruining the City in the process.

Please desist.


Gerald Cauthen PE

 

End of June 2023 Newsletter

More Shocking BART/Phase II News

admin 2023, Transit Systems

On March 21st 2023 the San Jose Mercury’s Eliyahu Kamisher provided important new information about the VTA’s grotesquely ill-conceived BART Phase II extension, the projected cost of which has increased from $4.8 billion in February 2018 to today’s astounding $9.5 billion.

Unfortunately, the VTA’s ridership forecasts have proven to be no more accurate than its cost estimates. Back when the BART extension was first being promoted zealots were projecting 70,000 riders a day or more by 2040. The VTA later reduced these rosy early projections to a total of 54,600 riders a day at the four Phase II stations. On April 14th the San Jose Mercury reported that a new federally-mandated forecast had dropped the projected 2040 ridership by another 40% to just 32,900 riders a day.

If this latest ridership estimate is accurate, it would mean that under no circumstances could a project cost of anything close to $9.5 billion be justified.

Time to Shut Down BART’s Link 21 Project

admin 2023, Transit Systems

BART’s Link 21 program envisions a multi-billion-dollar passenger rail network throughout northern California, beginning with a $29 billion second subaqueous rail tube between Oakland and San Francisco. During the last year BATWG spent a considerable amount of time and effort trying to figure out whether or not BART’s Link 21 team was making progress. What we do know is that over the last four years, BART’s small Link 21 team, with five private consultants reporting separately to it, has burned through over a hundred million dollars.

So, what exactly has been accomplished in four years for this large planning expenditure?

Thanks to the arcane structure of the Link 21 management hierarchy, coupled with BART’s obvious reluctance to reveal anything substantive about the project, taxpayers remain in the dark about how their tax money is being spent. In early January some rudimentary conceptual engineering sketches belatedly appeared on the Link 21 website that seemed to indicate progress. On January 14, 2023, after reviewing the sketches, BATWG submitted thirteen questions to the BART Board, which were both timely and deserving of answers.

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BART Moving Ahead with Plans to Reduce Fare Evasion

admin 2023, Regional and Local Governments

BART has sucked up more of the Region’s transit funding than any other agency, but when it gets it right it deserves recognition.

An LA Metro Link Fare Gate

After a long slow start, BART has now picked up the pace and is both accelerating its “station hardening” program (making it harder to evade fares) and making better and more effective use of its police and unarmed “ambassadors”. Combating fare evasion is a tricky business because to be effective a reform program has to address all of the different ways that are used to evade payment.

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