Riders Yin while SF BART Board Members Yang

admin 2019, Transit Systems

Last year BART conducted a survey of its riders. The survey results revealed that between 2014 and 2018 general rider satisfaction with BART dropped by 18%, from 74% to 56%. Rider responses were elicited in response to 46 separate elements of BART’s service. The Clipper Card got the highest rating. High ratings were also given to the availability of maps and schedules, on-time performance and the frequency of BART trains.

To most riders it will come as no great surprise to learn that conditions in BART stations, interior on-car noise levels and cleanliness were much farther down the list. And it will come as even less of a surprise that the very lowest ratings included BART’s lax enforcement of its fare evasion problem, and the absence of adequate BART policing at stations, on trains and in BART parking lots. At the very bottom of the list was the riders’ strongly negative reaction to BART’s failure to address its homeless problem.

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DTX Project Remains Entangled in SFCTA Maul

admin 2019, Transit Systems

Here are excerpts from a dialogue that has been ongoing between the SFCTA and BATWG since the October 22, 2019 SFCTA hearing. It illustrates BATWG’s current assessment of the situation:

Excerpts from BATWG’s letter dated October 26th to the SFCTA:

At the October 22, 2019 SFTCA hearing much was made of 2028, the year by which the trains would be allegedly be carrying passengers to and from the Salesforce Transit Center. [Based upon the delays that have already occurred and that are continuing to occur], 2030 or later would be more realistic.

In any event there are two dates of far more immediate importance that were not mentioned on 10/22.

First, when will [the SFCTA let] the Preliminary Engineering and PE cost estimating work be restarted? While [we] believe that Mark Zabeneh is ready and able to do the work we realize that he may be cashiered, unfairly in our view. So the question becomes, when will someone be given the authority and funding needed to commence preliminary engineering? When will the SFCTA get serious about restarting the DTX project?

Empty Transit Center Train Terminal Sits Waiting…

Second, when will a bonafide preliminary engineering cost estimate be available for all to see? Given the uncertainties and confusion created by the past and continuing delays, the potential funding sources have understandably adopted a wait-and-see attitude. Clearly defining the project is an essential first step to restarting the project, and that requires a completed PE.

Excerpts from a subsequent exchange of letters between SFCTA and BATWG: Continue reading →

NO on AB 1487 Coalition Letter to Governor Newsom

admin 2019, Regional and Local Governments

NO on AB 1487 COALITION
c/o Law Offices of Jason A. Bezis
3661-B Mosswood Drive Lafayette, CA 94549-3509
(925) 708-7073     Bezis4Law@gmail.com

September 25, 2019

The Honorable Gavin Newsom
Governor of California
1303 10th Street, Suite 11 73
Sacramento, CA 95814
[VIA https://govapps.gov.ca.gov/gov40mail/ and U.S. MAIL]

Re: Recommendation to Veto AB 1487 with Message to Legislature to First Enact Reforms of MTC

Dear Governor Newsom:

This office represents a coalition of organizations, including the Bay Area Transportation Working Group (BATWG), which urge you to veto AB 1487 with a message to the Legislature to investigate the struc­ture, activities and effectiveness of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and to enact necessary reforms of MTC first. MTC is ill-suited to govern a “Housing Finance Authority.”

AB1487 would give significant new power and taxing authority to a “Transportation Commission” that is not qualified to handle housing. Every four years, the eighteen voting MTC commissioners are “selected for their special familiarity with the problems and issues in the field of transportation.” Government Code §66504. The new four-year term began in February 2019. The selection process did not include ‘housing.’

The MTC commissioner selection process is opaque and undemocratic. Our coalition found legal irregularities in seven of the Bay Area’s nine counties in the 2018-19 selection process. ln many cases, commissioners were appointed with literally nothing in writing: no application, no statement of qualifi­cations, not even an e-mail requesting appointment. The Brown Act violations are too numerous to dis­cuss herein. MTC sent letters to many jurisdictions that explicitly asked them to re-appoint the incum­bent. In one case, a 32-year incumbent was re-appointed to another four-year term during a six-minute “special meeting” held in the backroom of an Italian restaurant four days before the November election.

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Getting Serious about the Market Street Subway

admin 2019, Transit Systems
New York subway train

As has been pointed out before, the Muni level of the Market Street subway is currently operating at less than half its peak-period passenger-carrying capacity. That’s because 20 years ago, instead of coupling the one and two-car trains operating along the Avenues (namely the K,L,M,J, N trains) into longer trains suitable for subway operation, the Muni gave up on the coupling. So now it operates one and two car trains in the subway as well as on the Avenues, therefore sending many fewer LRV’s through the tunnel than needed during peak commute periods.

In an attempt to counteract the resulting overcrowding, the SFMTA tries to push as many of its short “trains” into and through the subway as possible. This has not worked.

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Valley Link Political Juggernaut

admin 2019, Regional and Local Governments

Valley Link seems to be advancing quickly, once again proving that political push seldom relates to validity and cost-effectiveness.

Valley Link is a train project and….provided they make sense….BATWG normally supports train projects. In this case a new, partially single-tracked passenger rail line would extend from BART’s existing East Dublin Station eastward through the Altamont Pass to Lathrop in San Joaquin County, a distance of 40 miles. The line would be diesel-operated, cost upwards of $2 billion and require a projected $26.7 million a year to operate. Its promoters forecast that as a result of Valley Link, BART’s ridership would increase by 13,800 riders a day by 2040. Given the already jammed peak-period conditions in the central part of the BART system, even this tiny increase would not be not good news for BART riders.

          More Mobility for Everyone?

Nor would Valley Link be of much use to the unhappy auto-commuters habitually bogged down in I-580 traffic which, according to Caltrans was, as of 2016, already burdened with a staggering 214,000 trips a day through much of Livermore. That number has significantly increased since 2017 and is projected to reach at least 350,000 trips a day by 2040! Continue reading →

$100,000,000,000 to Fix Bay Area Transportation? (updated Sept 10, 2019)

admin 2019, Regional and Local Governments

On May 30th, the San Francisco Bay Council and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SVLG), assisted by transportation consultant Stuart Cohen, presented a plan they call “Faster Bay Area”, to raise up to $100 billion for the purpose of moving the Bay Area beyond the current transportation morass.

As SVLG VP Jason Baker put it…”we think the time is ripe to work for a world class, integrated transit system that is faster, more reliable, more affordable and more equitable…”

Matthew Lituchy, Chief Investment Officer of the Jay Paul Development Company echoed these thoughts by noting (San Jose Mercury July 7th) that “The traditional methods of commuting have gotten over-stressed. Our freeways are impossibly clogged with traffic. Commute durations are at all-time highs. People are looking to commute by alternative methods. Trains, light rail, Caltrain, bus, BART are the alternatives”.

To make the alternatives to solo driving sufficiently appealing to cause a major change in travel habits would indeed require a major effort, including significant improvements to the Bay Area’s transit systems, a strong new emphasis on carpooling and other measures designed to unclog the Region’s thoroughfares.

If wisely spent there is no doubt that $100 billion could do a lot of good, but getting this ambitious program past a skeptical electorate would be not be easy. For starters the sponsors of Faster Bay Area would have to demonstrate that this time it wouldn’t be just more of the same.

During the past four decades, over 120 billion dollars in State, Federal and Bridge Toll transportation capital have passed through the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s (MTC’s) hands and subsequently been spent by the Region’s transportation agencies, always with rosy promises of improved regional transit and reduced regional congestion. But things have just gotten got worse. The mystery is, how could so much tax money have been spent with so little positive effect on regional transportation?

Could things be different this time? Of course. Here are four prerequisites to a successful program:
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