Streetsblog San Francisco

Among the many strategies to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and attendant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from private vehicles, Bay Area smart growth advocate TransForm has developed a new certification called GreenTRIP to encourage architects, developers, and municipal officials to build transit-oriented development and implement transportation demand management (TDM) solutions for future tenants [PDF].

"What we strive to do with GreenTRIP is create something that is very easily implementable so that it can be done early in the development process," said Jeffrey Tumlin, Principal of Nelson Nygaard Consulting Associates and a member of GreenTRIP's advisory board. "We want to focus on the key things that developers and municipalities can do to have a positive impact on greenhouse gases."

Tumlin added, "GreenTRIP tries to change the regulatory process."

Developed explicitly to complement areas where the LEED Neighorhood Development (LEED ND) green building certification falls short of being prescriptive, GreenTRIP rewards projects that reduce traffic and make a strong connection between sustainable development and pollution from the transportation sector, which accounts for more than 40 percent of California's GHG emissions. Funding for the new certification comes from grants from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

Using the URBEMIS emissions model developed by the California Air Resources Board, GreenTRIP gives developers credits for reducing overall driving relative to the average regional VMT. GreenTRIP attempts to impact developments at the beginning phases of design, encouraging developers to situate near transit and take steps to reduce driving [PDF].

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Transportation advocates were thrilled last week when the nine-county Bay Area regional transportation planning and funding body, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), established a fluid pot of money for innovative transportation projects, from Safe Routes to School programs and bicycle educational campaigns, to parking policies and demand management strategies meant to reduce the over-reliance on automobiles [pdf].

"This is the first program in the country dedicated to sustainability through travel demand management, not more capacity," said Stuart Cohen, Executive Director of TransForm, a smart growth and transportation advocacy organization.

The MTC allocated $80 million over the next three years, including $28 million that had previously been earmarked for highway ramp metering lights. Cohen said the MTC had received more than 500 letters from constituents around the region clamoring for the climate money and that senior staff had been refreshingly receptive and committed to dialoge.

"They were quite open in letting us help shape what the project will look like."

Long a priority for TransForm, the sustainability funding will focus on four key components:

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As the Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA) continues its regional public hearings, including one tonight in San Francisco, the various options the agency is proposing for increasing bridge tolls are generating a number of debates and proposals, including the funding of the long-discussed pedestrian/bicycle/maintenance paths over the west span of the Bay Bridge.

The toll increases and changes would take effect on the seven state-owned Bay Area bridges, (Antioch, Benicia-Martinez, Carquinez, Dumbarton, Richmond-San Rafael, San Francisco-Oakland Bay and San Mateo-Hayward bridges), and the additional revenue would go primarily to finance the $750 million that BATA estimates is needed for seismic retrofits to the Antioch and Dumbarton bridges. The new tolls could be voted on as soon as the January BATA meeting.

The three toll increase scenarios are:

• Option 1: $5 toll for autos and motorcycles, $3 for carpools and $6 per each additional axle for trucks
• Option 2: $5 toll for autos and motorcycles, $0 for carpools and $10 per each additional axle for trucks
  
• Option 3: Same as Option 1 for six bridges except for San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, which would charge $6 for autos and motorcycles in peak hours and $4 for autos in non-peak hours (M-F), and $5 for autos on weekends

Of all the options, number 3, which essentially works out to congestion pricing on the Bay Bridge, is generating a good deal of debate. TransForm, which advocates for smart growth and alternative transportation funding, would like to see the increased congestion fee during peak hours, but would like the fee during non-peak hours on the Bay Bridge to be $5, like the baseline that would be adopted at all the other bridges.

"If BATA's proposal is to increase the base toll to $5, then they should use the base to be the non-peak toll at the Bay Bridge, not a number that's lower than any other bridge," said Transform's Carli Paine. Paine also said her organization opposes Option 1 because it would discourage carpooling. "Simply put, let's not try to raise the revenue on carpoolers, who are doing what people should be doing."

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California residents living in sprawling suburban developments could save billions of dollars every year if they lived in denser, urban zones and along transit corridors, according to a study released today by smart growth and transit advocates TransForm. Analyzing four metropolitan areas--Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, and Sacramento--Windfall for All found that shifting populations in those regions to denser development along transit corridors would save save $31 billion per year, or $3,850 on average per household [Report Summary PDF].

In the Bay Area, where annual car ownership costs on average over $8,000 per person, individuals spend roughly $34 billion every year on personal transportation costs, compared to only $4.6 billion spent by public agencies on transit and roads combined. Households with poor access to public transit not only spend double the amount per year on transportation when compared to those with good access to transit, they produce more than double the amount of CO2, a greenhouse gas.

"The most astounding thing is that agencies pinch their pennies on transit and cut back and we feel like we can't afford not to save that service," said Stuart Cohen, Executive Director of TransForm. "We're already spending more than seven times as much as our agencies spend on public transit and roads just on buying and operating our vehicles."

What's more, the report points out that fuel costs represent a small minority of the cost of owning a car, so the craze for electric and other low-emission vehicles will not dramatically reduce the transportation costs for those living far from their jobs and far from transit. The best solution to combating climate change, the report notes, is to build walkable, vibrant communities where residences are situated close to job centers. 

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Transit advocates, community groups, and faith-based environmental justice organizations made another plea to Oakland and regional policy makers to kill the half a billion dollar Oakland Airport Connector (OAC) with a resolution sponsored by Oakland City Council members Nancy Nadel and Rebecca Kaplan at their monthly meeting last night. Citing a significantly more expensive project from the $130 million dollar proposal supported by voters in 2000 without intermediate stops along Hegenberger Boulevard and with fares three times those originally promised, the groups argued in vain that the council should not support the existing proposal but should seek a surface Bus Rapid Transit option at one-fifth the cost.

Most of the political class lined up in opposition to the council resolution and in favor of completing the OAC as an elevated people mover under the current design. A late letter of support from Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums urged several provisions, including intermediate stops and hiring requirements, but did not set up parameters for their inclusion in the project. Most speakers honed in on the need for job creation in Oakland, which is suffering from more than 17 percent unemployment, though disagreement raged over whether or not the construction jobs (estimated from 689 to 15,000, depending on the job creation metric used by the speakers) merited the public outlay of funds.

After testimony from more than 100 public speakers late into the night, at 1:15am this morning Nadel and Kaplan conceded they didn't have the votes to carry the resolution opposed to the OAC and the council approved an alternative resolution introduced by Councilmember Ignacio de la Fuente to support the OAC with three provisos mirroring Dellums':

• Bind local job requirements (50 percent of hires from the region, 25 percent from Oakland) with penalties for non-performance, versus BART's current non-binding hiring objectives
  
• An intermediate stop funded by BART out of project funding that is allocated, but may not be needed for the project if construction costs reduce the contractor bids below the expected $522-552 million price tag
  
• An analysis of the OAC Fare with regards to social equity impacts, particularly if bids come in lower than expected

Councilmember Larry Reid, who has been a proponent of OAC for more than 20 years, argued that rejecting the fixed rail connector would prevent Oakland from maintaining its regional competitiveness with other airports. "This is a regional airport," he said. "If we are going to be competitive with San Francisco or San Jose, we need this to be seamless.  San Francisco has always been one of our competitive modes."

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During another raucous staging of political parking theater at last night's Oakland City Council meeting, where more than 90 speakers often shouted their opinions on the city's parking policy, the council reversed its position from July, scaling back the 8 pm evening time limit until 6 pm and assenting to a dynamic, citywide parking study. To make up the approximately $1 million in lost parking revenue, the council will look to new advertising deals, including nearly $500,000 in billboard revenue from Clear Channel. Only Councilmember Nancy Nadel of Downtown and West Oakland voted against the roll-back.

Oakland City Administrator Dan Lindheim, despite his own admission it would contradict an existing city ordinance, instructed staff to make the changes immediately after the vote, while the council meeting was still in progress, prompting a hearty applause from an audience overwhelmingly opposed to the extended meter hours and increased meter rates. 

Angry residents and business owners as well as several chambers of commerce and business associations lined up one after another to decry the initial changes, suggesting that the increased rate and hours were the death knell to commerce in Oakland.

"We have heard enough from our merchants about the impacts of this parking to their businesses," said Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce Board President Sugiarto Loni. "I'm here to urge all the citiy council members, please don't defer any more your motion to roll-back parking meters from 8 to 6.  It's going to help the small business a lot."

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Transit advocates and community groups have filed a complaint (PDF) with the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), charging that BART has not complied with federal civil rights obligations in its planning of the Oakland Airport Connector (OAC). The move by Public Advocates Inc. on behalf of TransForm, Urban Habitat and Genesis, comes after concerns over the controversial project fell on deaf ears at both BART and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. 

In its current form, the 3.2-mile OAC is projected to cost between $522 million and $552 million, with a six-dollar one-way fare, and no stops between its start point at the Oakland Coliseum BART station and its terminus at Oakland International Airport. 

Since BART will be using federal dollars to pay for the project, including stimulus funds, it is required to comply with the FTA's civil rights regulations. The complaint argues that BART has not properly considered the financial impact the project will have on low-income residents near the proposed airport train, and has not adequately reviewed alternatives, including a proposal by TransForm to run a bus rapid transit line through the corridor instead, at a capital cost of $45-60 million, with a low fare or no fare and one intermediate stop.

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Transit advocates, transit riders, politicians, and religious figures mourned the continual underfunding of transit operations by staging a mock funeral for public transit above the 12th Street/Oakland BART station today. The event was tied to a national campaign led by Transit Riders for Public Transportation (TRPT), the Transportation Equity Network and Transportation for America to pressure Congress to provide funding for transit operations.

"Operating funds are desperately needed," said Rev. Scott Denman, Rector at St. John's Episcopal of Oakland and President of Genesis, which helped organize the Oakland event with Public Advocates, Urban Habitat, TransForm, CALPIRG, and BOSS. "It's time to understand and remember the grief that is in our communities because of what is happening to transit, the impact that transit cuts are having on our poor, the impact that it's having on our economy, the impact it's having on our environment."

As the recession deepens, public transit operators struggle with declining public funding and revenues, a situation that has led to fare increases (SFMTA, BART, AC Transit and East Contra Costa County buses) and expected increases (VTA, SamTrans, Caltrain) throughout the Bay area. According to press material from Public Advocates, operating deficits this year exceed $350 million regionally.

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The Senate Transportation Committee met earlier this week to consider AB 744, a bill that would authorize the MTC to convert carpool lanes to toll “express lanes” and use the revenue to expand the regional carpool and bus express lane network. To its critics, the plan is the last gasp of suburban highway expansion. To its proponents, it’s the beginning of road pricing and a substantial enhancement for regional transit.

The bill would allow the MTC to charge a toll for single occupancy vehicles to access the 500 miles of existing carpool lanes and use the revenue generated to build 300 miles of new carpool lanes on suburban freeways. The Sierra Club and most other environmentalists support the conversion of existing HOV lanes to HOV/toll lanes, as long as fast speeds in the carpool lanes are preserved and the funding generated is used for transit, as is the case with the lanes currently in operation in Santa Clara and Alameda Counties. It’s the creation of 300 miles of new highway lanes where urbanists and environmentalists object to the MTC’s plans.

“There are some environmentalists for whom the outcome they’re seeking is not to have the network at all, and that’s unfortunate,” said Randy Rentschler, Legislation and Public Affairs Director for the MTC. Rentschler says the network will provide connectivity in the express lane that will provide “significant benefit to public transit,” especially the important kinds of transit that city residents such as San Franciscans might not appreciate: vanpools, corporate shuttles, and regional express buses.

Urbanists counter that the plan only contemplates express lanes on suburban highways. Creating express lanes close to San Francisco or Oakland would require converting existing multi-purpose lanes to express lanes, something MTC staff assumes is politically impossible. That assumption was buttressed by an amendment to AB 744 offered by Senator Joe Simitian and “accepted” by the MTC expressly prohibiting the MTC from converting existing multi-purpose lanes to tolled express/carpool lanes. If, as planned, the express lanes will stop at the edge of urban Oakland and San Francisco and the revenue generated from those lanes stays in the corridor where it’s generated, urbanists contend the network will induce sprawl by improving suburban freeway efficiency and throughput while urban areas get no funding, just more traffic.

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We were excited to welcome two dynamic Oakland, CA, groups to the Livable Streets Community this week: Walk Oakland Bike Oakland (WOBO) and TransForm. Inspired by the success of San Francisco's Sunday Streets, WOBO wants to launch its own East Bay version and is asking for input on what to call the event. Shannon T. writes:

So we took the “Sunday Streets” issue to the streets -- literally -- at last Thursday’s Uptown Unveiled! event at 19th and Telegraph, which itself provided a dramatic illustration of how sweet it is to block off the streets for community entertainment. Hundreds of Oaklanders filled the streets to enjoy performances, people-watching, and other free activities. WOBO’s table drew a stream of walkers and cyclists, and we tapped their creativity to gather suggestions for a name. Together with the ideas generated at Tuesday’s Volunteers Meeting, we’ve got quite a list.

Ideas include "Open Roads," "Streets for People," "Walkland" and "East Bay Easy" -- leave a comment to put in your vote!

Elsewhere, PA Walks and Bikes brought up an opportunity to participate in updating the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Pedestrian Guide; Upper Manhattan residents gave the MTA their suggestions for better routes for the Bx20 bus; and a member in St. Louis Park, MN is looking for advice about a local bridge.