Dumbarton Rail Gets a New Look

admin 2019, Transit Systems

The overloaded Dumbarton Highway Bridge extends from Newark to East Palo Alto and is a virtual parking lot during peak commute periods. AC Transit’s feeble attempt to serve transbay commuting needs by using this highway bridge for its buses is completely negated by the fact that harried AC riders get bogged down in the same often unbearable gridlock as everyone else.

DumbartonBridge

To alleviate this intolerable situation, it has long been recognized that a transbay passenger rail connection across the Dumbarton Straits was necessary. Such a crossing would run via a restored or rebuilt Dumbarton rail bridge between Redwood City and Union City. Continue reading →

Excerpts from BATWG Letter to Contra Costa County’s City Selection Committee

admin 2019

Excerpts…..(similar letters have been sent to other MTC counties)

City Selection Committee of Contra Costa County
Secretary Jami Napier                                                    c/o Contra Costa Mayors’ Conference
Chief Asst. Clerk of Board of Supervisors                  Attn. Gary Pokorny, Executive Director
County of Contra Costa                                                  2221 Spyglass Lane
651 Pine Street, 1st Floor, Room 106                           El Cerrito, CA 94530-1883
Martinez, CA 94553

VIA E-MAIL: gjpokorn@Lmi.net; Jami.Napier@cob.cccounty.us; etc.

Re: March 7, 2019 City Selection Committee Meeting, Item 4: MTC Appointment (2019-23)

Dear Mr. Pokorny, Secretary Napier and the City Mayors of the Selection Committee:

Bay Area Transportation Working Group (BATWG) is an all-volunteer organization formed in 2012 to keep up with and respond to ongoing Bay Area transportation issues and events. We are dedicated to finding ways of easing regional traffic congestion by improving the reliability and general appeal of the region’s passenger rail and bus systems. Continue reading →

Capacity on Muni Cars versus Capacity on the Subway Platforms

admin 2019, Transit Systems

SFE-SubwayDelaysThis letter was featured in the the SF Examiner on March 7, 2019

The SFMTA’s incoming LRV fleet of new Siemens cars clearly represents a major step forward. However two aspects of the situation are of concern.

First, it appears that someone thinks that jamming more standees into the new cars will resolve the SFMTA’s Muni Metro crowding problem. Will it?

How about the dangerous crowding that already occurs along all the downtown Muni Metro platforms because everyone is forced to one end of the station to catch his or her one and two-car “train?” (Where else do modern subways operate with trains that are only or two cars long?) Continue reading →

Striving for Good Bus and Rail Connections

admin 2019, Transit Systems

On February 9, 2018 the San Jose Mercury ran a story about the reasons people keep driving, even on traffic-clogged roadways, and why more travelers don’t use public transit. A survey sponsored by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and the Mercury provided an answer to this question.  It showed that for most of those taking the survey the Number One reason for not using public transit was that it “doesn’t get me to where I want to go”.

Public and private transit will never be able to take everyone where they want to go all of the time.  But things can get better. For one thing the many unnecessary gaps between transit services that routinely discourage use of the Region’s vast network of rail and bus lines can and should be eliminated. Continue reading →

The Truth about HOT Lanes

admin 2019, Roadways and Traffic

HotLanesHigh Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes are for buses and carpools. When operated  effectively and with proper enforcement, they work well.   HOT lanes are something else again. HOT lanes allow freeway users of means to pay substantial fees to speed past the rest of us inching along in the adjacent “mixed flow” lanes. While some might regard this as acceptable, here’s the problem.  MTC’s billion dollar ongoing HOT lane program is doing far more than just converting HOV lanes to HOT  lanes.  It is also closing the gaps between HOV sections by adding 300 lane miles of new asphalt so as to create a continuous system of HOT lanes throughout the nine MTC Bay Area Counties.  Continue reading →

The Case for Congestion Pricing

admin 2019, Roadways and Traffic

CongestionPricing-DoesItReallyHaveToComeToThis?Excerpted from Streetsblog LA January 16, 2019: “At today’s meeting of L.A. Metro’s Congestion, Highway and Roads Committee, UCLA professor Michael Manville made a convincing case for implementing congestion pricing”

Excerpted from the Los Angeles Times January 22, 2019: “For years, Southern California lawmakers have tried to steer clear of decisions that make driving more expensive or miserable, afraid of angering one of their largest groups of constituents.

“But now, transportation officials say, congestion has grown so bad in Los Angeles County that politicians have no choice but to contemplate charging motorists more to drive — a strategy that has stirred controversy but helped cities in other parts of the world tame their own traffic. The [LA] Metropolitan Transportation Authority is pushing to study how what’s commonly referred to as congestion pricing could work in L.A….”  Continue reading →