BATWG Letter to Solano County Board of Supervisors

admin 2019

Solano County Board of Supervisors
675 Texas Street, Suite 6500
Fairfield, CA 94533

Solano County MTC nominee #1: Mayor Harry Price, City of Fairfield
Solano County MTC nominee #2: Mayor Bob Sampayan, City of Vallejo
Solano County MTC nominee #3: Supervisor James Spering, Solano County

Subject: February 5, 2019 Board of Supervisors’ MTC Appointment (Agenda Item No. 15)

Dear Supervisors and MTC nominees:

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. Our primary objective is to find ways of easing regional traffic congestion by improving the reliability and general appeal of the Region’s passenger rail and bus systems.

SolanoThe Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) is a powerful body that controls billions of dollars of transportation funds and shapes housing policy in the nine-county Bay Area. All 450,000 Solano County residents have a stake in MTC’s decisions. The Board of Supervisors’ appointment to MTC for the next four-year term (2019-23) is therefore very important.

BATWG therefore requests that the three MTC nominees provide brief written answers to the following questions concerning MTC. BATWG also requests that the answers to these and other relevant questions be discussed in detail at your February 5th meeting:

Continue reading →

Report No. 2 from the Southeast Bay

admin 2019, Transit Systems

Here is how things look to a young BATWG activist:

reportfromse2I believe to get bay area residents out of their cars, we need good public transit, a network of safe bicycle/e-scooter trails and more safety for pedestrians.

I think good public transit is a must, but the bay area has a unique challenge because it was built out with low density developments. Frequent service for mass transit needs high density developments for both housing and office space so that ridership can be high enough to make the dense network of stations and routes that run frequently economically viable. We don’t have that and there is also little support for high density developments … and that is where bikes and e-scooters etc. … come in. In essence, e-scooters and bikes turn low density developments into places with higher “effective density” since they increase a person’s non-automotive range. Continue reading →

BATWG’s Response to the Proposed CASA Compact

admin 2019, Regional and Local Governments

Mr. David Rabbitt, President of ABAG
Mr. Greg Scharff, Vice President of ABAG

Dear Mr. Rabbitt and Mr. Scharff:

Your help in making certain that this BATWG position reaches all members of the ABAG General Assembly would be much appreciated. Thank you!

BATWG opposes the CASA Compact in its present form for the following reasons:

The CASA Compact is based upon the false premise that piling high-density housing around bus stops and rail stations will substantially increase transit use and therefore materially decrease freeway backups and urban congestion. Less than 5% of the Bay Area’s total trips are transit commute trips. Therefore, even if housing close to bus stops and train stations caused some commuters to switch to transit, it wouldn’t count for much. The elephants in the closet are a.) the significant  number of commuters who will continue to drive and b.) the non-commuters, which in the Bay Area account for at least 95% of total daily trips,who will most certainly also continue to drive. Will those rushing their kids to pre-schools and soccer matches, or seeing their doctors, or running errands or heading for Big Box stores exchange their car trips for a series of bus and train trips? No, they will not. Transit-oriented housing will neither significantly increase transit use or materially reduce automobile use.  As have been outlined elsewhere in these pages, there are other much more practical ways of achieving these ends. Continue reading →

A Corrupted MTC Board Selection Process

admin 2019, Regional and Local Governments

Bay Area transportation is in a royal mess, due in large part to the Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s failed policies.

With the upcoming appointment of a new MTC executive director there is now an opportunity to improve things. As things stand MTC is little more than an echo chamber for powerful interests. It is not receptive to new ideas and its endless series of “public outreach” meetings are geared more to selling than listening. Perhaps this is in part because every four years the MTC Board members are selected through a weak and secretive process that is again in progress at this time. Continue reading →

An Update on AC Transit

admin 2019, Transit Systems

busonlylaneBecause of the sluggish pace of Bay Area infrastructure development it is estimated that a half a century will slip by before another transbay passenger rail service is up and running. In the meantime it is incumbent on AC Transit to carry a much greater share of the transbay travel load than it currently is. According to AC Transit sources, with the addition of 40 new double decker buses it would be possible to expand its transbay peak period operation from today’s 150 buses an hour to 190 buses an hour. This is still far below the 300 buses an hour that AC’s grossly oversized bus deck in the new Salesforce Transit Center is capable of handling. More buses would help, but the big challenge for AC Transit is to boost its transbay ridership from today’s puny 14,500 riders a day to something closer to the 24,000 riders an hour that the new bus deck is capable of handling. Continue reading →

Providing Adequate Security on BART

admin 2019, Transit Systems

Honorable Bevan Dufty
President of the BART Board

Subject: Providing Adequate Security on BART

Dear President Dufty and other members of the BART Board of Directors:

It is come to our attention that in recent hearings, the BART Board, bowing to intense pressure from people who claim to be privacy advocates, has backed away from previous efforts to ensure security and safety in BART cars and in and around BART stations.

BATWG strongly supports reasonable security arrangements conducted in accordance with established State and federal law. From our review of case law and elements of the Government Code it appears to be quite legal to visually monitor people in legitimately public areas. These would include the interiors of BART trains, the public areas inside BART stations and the BART-owned public areas around BART stations. If BART believes that statutory and/or case law; or contractual or other legal requirements exist that contradict our findings, we ask that we, and the public, be made aware of the specifics thereof. Continue reading →