In 2022, AC Transit carried a total of 91,565 weekday riders, down from 175,575 weekday riders in 2013. AC Transit operates 131 bus lines. As indicated in the table below, AC’s top 20 lines carried a total of 75,620 riders a weekday. That means that the remaining 111 lines averaged only 144 riders a weekday. This dismal number explains why one constantly sees virtually empty 40 foot and even 80-foot long AC Transit buses lumbering through the streets of the East Bay.

In an effort to address this problem, AC Transit is currently planning a set of route changes scheduled to be implemented next August. Since those managing the rerouting program are too busy to talk to us, here are several BATWG observations, some of which have been made before.

• 

  As indicated in the Table, Routes 1T, 51B, 40 and 51A are all carrying a respectable 5,000 riders a day or more. What is it about those five lines that makes them do so much better than the rest of the system? What sets them apart? Those engaged in planning the new route changes should take a very close look at these routes and determine what makes them standouts.

• Surveying and encouraging input from only today’s riders greatly reduces AC Transit’s ability to attract new riders.
• AC has always had a tendency to route its buses directly to every potential destination along the way. To achieve this purpose many of the routes have ended up zig zagged. No doubt, those bound for the intended enroute destinations are delighted. However, the zig zagging also strongly detours anyone who wants to get anywhere else with reasonable dispatch. Zig zagging, including the zig zagging that tends to take place in and around “transit centers”, does not help ridership. Buses do not zig zag well.
• People must be able to find both the routes and their bus stops. Across the Bay, SF Muni has many problems. But its routes are easy to find and easy to understand. Many of AC’s routes are not easy to find and therefore not so easy to use. There are many ways, some requiring intensive discussions with various local jurisdictions, that could improve the situation. Returning some one-way streets to two-way streets should not be ruled out. In the heady days of the past when it was thought that automobiles made every other form of surface travel obsolete, many cities including Oakland turned many two-way streets into one-way streets with nary a thought given to how the changes would impact the affected bus lines. It’s not too late to correct the mistakes of the past.

Continue reading →

Absent State and federal temporary bailouts, which are scheduled to run out in 2026, BART is currently operating at a deficit of $300 million a year, in large part because its ridership has dropped by 60%. Yet BART’s $850 million Link 21 design is still chugging along as if the monumental travel changes brought on by the pandemic are irrelevant.

In fact, despite the huge drop in BART’s transbay ridership, the Link 21 focus to date has been on planning a second transbay rail tube between Oakland and San Francisco. As last count, at least $115 million had been spent to that end, with little of substance to show for the continuing stream of BART payments being made to its five Link 21 prime consultants. Nothing that is, unless one counts the multitudinous meetings asking people what they want, the excruciatingly long and endlessly repeated reports about process, the series of “high level” presentations to the BART Board singing the praises of the project and rosy-sounding PR releases.

Despite all this, and despite our efforts, BART has unaccountably failed to answer the most fundamental question of all; namely, does it any longer make sense to spend $45 billion or more on a second subaqueous rail connection between Oakland and San Francisco?

Despite the lack of discernible product and the unanswered questions, Link 21 continues to inch ahead.  If for reasons so far unstated, the project can nevertheless be justified, one can only hope that henceforth there will be a better nexus between the taxpayer dollars spent and useful product than has occurred during the first four years of the project.

On October 16, 2023, Muni Director of Transit Julie Kirschbaum made an excellent presentation before a well-attended Save Muni meeting. During the presentation she answered many detailed questions about Muni’s roughly 70 transit lines and the numerous problems Muni faces every day ranging from maintenance issues to political and constituent demands to repeatedly vandalized bus stops. In spite of  financial shortages, she pointed out how Muni was working hard to improve its farebox recovery and on-time performance, as well as increase the mean time between failures and strongly discourage disruptive passenger behavior.

Here are two of the system-wide issues that were raised at the meeting:

Continue reading →

At its October 18 Board meeting the Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit District [SMART] endorsed staff plans for a marketing communications and public outreach plan to inform residents of Marin and Sonoma counties about the benefits SMART brings to the North Bay community.

“The primary focus of this marketing activity is to inform the community about the benefits of SMART.” The cost for the proposed marketing and communications effort is $302,000.

Continue reading →

On Friday October 20, 2023 the VTA Board of Directors convened a workshop designed to examine the current status of the BART Phase II project.

The Consultant made a lengthy presentation enumerating “unavoidable” factors that it described as having caused the $3.1 billion increase in project capital costs from the $9.1 billion established a little over a year ago by the Federal Transportation Authority to today’s $12.2 billion. Also presented was a substantial amount of detailed information about the project, consisting mainly of the difficult challenges and continuing uncertainties ahead.

The Directors were clearly interested in the subject and raised a number of questions. There seemed to be a general feeling that it was becoming increasingly difficult to explain to constituents the series of cost increases, particularly with respect to the switch to the 54-foot single bore tunnel from the previous and much more common twin bore approach. There was also a general concern over the prospect of still more delays and cost increases.

A new BART Phase II Steering Committee comprised of six members of the VTA Board, including Matt Mahan, Mayor of San Jose and Cindy Chavez, Santa Clara County Supervisor, has been established. The Committee appears to be prepared to delve more deeply and more independently into large outstanding questions, some of long standing. Patrick Burt, VTA Board member and Palo Alto City Councilman has been designated as the Chair of the group, the first meeting of which is scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday November 29^th.