Sonoma County Transit Integration Pilot Project

admin 2022, Transit Systems

Sonoma County has 490,000 residents and five separate transit agencies. Before the coronavirus hit, these agencies attracted a total ridership of just 15,000 riders a day, which amounted to just 0.8% of the total daily trips in the county. Sonoma County Transit, the Santa Rosa City Bus, and Petaluma Transit provide local transit service while the SMART commuter rail line and Golden Gate Transit serve inter-county and regional trips.

While BATWG has never joined the chorus chanting for a single humongous bureaucracy to take over and operate all of the Bay Area’s 27 separate transit agencies, we do recognize that there are opportunities to effectively combine some services and the small systems in Sonoma County definitely qualify.

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Does this Research Lead to Action?

admin 2022, Regional and Local Governments

Using the incoming federal and State funds effectively to step up the pace of improving the non-automotive forms of transportation and taking other steps to improve air quality will require hard and in some cases controversial decisions, followed by well- lead and well-coordinated implementation programs. Here are excerpts from a letter that BATWG sent on December 19th to the California Air Resources Board expressing concern over a common public agency preference for studying a problem rather than addressing it.

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Transparency at BART

admin 2022, Transit Systems

On December 9, 2021 BATWG sent a letter to BART citing the lack of transparency in three key elements of its program; namely, the ongoing redistricting process, its Police City Review Board and its Auditing Committee.

BATWG has major concerns about public transparency and lack of easy access to these and perhaps other BART Board Committee meetings, especially during the pandemic when many meeting are held “virtually.” This problem requires immediate remedial action due to the rapidly-moving BART Board redistricting process. Following are three examples of the kinds of problems produced when relevant public information is kept from the public. Of particular concern right now are the backroom redistricting processes now ongoing, apparently all over the Region.

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Union City’s December 2, 2021 Presentation to the BART Board

admin 2022, Transit Systems

Here are excerpts from BATWG’s  December 12, 2021’s letter to BART Director and ACTC Vice President  Rebecca Saltzman as well as to other members of the BART Board warning against the diversion of Measure BB Intermodal Funds needed to improve walking and bicycle access to the Union City BART station to the City’s ill-conceived Quarry Lakes “Parkway”,  previously called the East-West Connector (EWC) highway.

Subject:  Union City’s December 2, 2021 Presentation to the BART Board

Dear Honorable Rebecca Saltzman,

Since you are BART’s representative on the Alameda County Transportation Commission and since it appears that on December 2, 2021 BART was not given the whole story, please keep the following thoughts in mind:

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Well-Founded Projections by a Seasoned Expert

admin 2021, Regional and Local Governments

Mr. Alan Pisarski is an internationally acclaimed transportation expert. At the October 21st BATWG meeting Pisarski provided an insightful analysis of the short and long term effects of changes on transportation and the economy of metropolitan areas like the Bay Area that have been brought on by COVID, and the resulting demographic and societal changes. During his presentation he stressed the “iffiness” of the data at hand and the consequent high degree of uncertainty inherent in today’s forecasting efforts. From his remarks it was clear that he thought the dogged determination of some local and regional agencies to proceed assuming that everything would soon “get back to “normal” was most unwise.

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Here are Mr. Pisarski’s “Five Steps to Guide Transportation Spending and Planning during the Coronavirus Pandemic” and its aftermath, as published in the Reason magazine last August:

First, he calls for a “moratorium on all expansion-based transportation investments—for the obvious reasons.” The COVID pandemic is remaking transportation demand, for commuters, households and freight logistics. “While being willing to accept some absolutely clear and verifiable capacity needs, we must place a hold on transportation expansion investments, at least until the dust settles”, he says.

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Leveling the Transportation Spending Boat

admin 2021, Regional and Local Governments

The passage of the long awaited federal infrastructure bill with $45.5 billion earmarked for California comes as welcome news. (While this may sound like a large sum, it isn’t. With only $9.45 billion of this amount earmarked for transportation statewide, there is none to be wasted)

For this and other reasons it is necessary to make optimal use of the transportation resources we have, which tend to be scarce most of the time. Making this happen will take effective regional leadership as well as commitment on the part of transit agencies, local politicians, regional and State officials to ensure that incoming transportation funds are always intelligently distributed and prudently spent.

This will take some important changes to the current way of doing things. The boat needs leveling:

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