Photo: THE Holy Hand Grenade!/Flickr

Measure B, Alameda County’s largest source of transportation funding, is set to go to voters for re-authorization next November, and advocates say it’s crucial that the proposal prioritize investments in fixing transit and improving walking and bicycling conditions.

“The ACTC is preparing to ask voters in November 2012 to double the county’s current half-cent transportation sales tax to one cent, make the tax permanent, and approve a 30-year Transportation Expenditure Plan (TEP),” states a press release from the Community Vision Coalition, comprised of members like the East Bay Bike Coalition (EBBC) and TransForm. “The TEP will determine the spending priorities for the first $7.8 billion generated by the new measure.”

Dave Campbell, the EBBC’s program director, says the measure as it’s currently being drafted puts expensive road and transit capital expansion projects ahead of the needs of the existing transit system, and a strong show of public support is needed tomorrow to convince the ACTC to invest the revenue more wisely.

“Our needs are to fix the potholes on the streets, get BART trains and AC Transit buses running on time, and make our streets safer for walking and bicycling,” said Campbell. “The ACTC has done public surveys, polling, and outreach, and consistently they’ve been told, ‘Fix the system first.’”

Reaching the two-thirds vote needed to pass the measure in November will require all the support it can get, and “more voters are going to vote for it when projects line up with their priorities,” he said.

The ACTC meeting will be held tomorrow from 9:30 a.m.  to 12:30 p.m. at the Newark Pavillion at 6430 Thornton Avenue, Newark.

To learn more about Measure B and the Community Vision Coalition’s agenda, check out the Community Vision Platform at the TransForm website.

Colin Miller of Urban Habitat holds up gravestones in memory of bus lines that have been cut. Photo: Reginald James

Editor’s note: This story is being re-published from Race, Poverty and the Environment, a magazine produced by the social and environmental justice non-profit, Urban Habitat.

Fifty-five years to the month after the start of the Montgomery bus boycott, people of color can sit wherever they want on the bus—when and if one arrives. Bus operators all over the country are slashing routes in response to deepening deficits. This loss of service denies people who depend on transit their civil rights in deep, daily, grinding, unmistakable ways.

Bus riders in Oakland and throughout western Alameda and Contra Costa Counties have lost nearly 15 percent of their AC Transit routes in 2010. Deeper cuts were forestalled by the drivers’ union, Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 192, which refused to agree to a new contract unless the agency postponed further service reductions for at least three months. Now it looks like those cuts will be back on the table in January, and riders and drivers plan to protest at tomorrow’s AC Transit meeting.

“We are the heart throb of this city,” AC Transit driver Lorenzo Jacobs said, speaking at a May 2010 public hearing against the cuts. “When you start cutting service, you’re cutting opportunities out there for people who are doing whatever they’re doing in their lives. When you cut lines, you’re affecting people’s lives, their everyday lives,” he said.

The service cuts directly impact Oakland youth, who need AC Transit to get to school because the district doesn’t run yellow school buses; they hurt seniors and people with disabilities who can’t drive, and low-income families who can’t afford cars. Lack of mobility cuts off opportunities for work and education, enforces inequality and persistent segregation. African-Americans and Latinos are far less likely than whites to own cars. Nationally, around 62 percent of city bus riders are African American and Latino. Nearly 80 percent of AC Transit riders are people of color.

Bus riders and their allies who take on this 21st century civil rights fight confront institutional obstacles at every turn. In their efforts to protect and expand service, they contend with financing policies and decision-making structures that are stacked against them, and they lack access to the courts to seek redress. And few political leaders champion the needs of transit riders in general and bus riders in particular.

Funding priorities from the federal government on down shortchange bus riders while favoring drivers and rail passengers. Eighty percent of federal transportation funding goes to highways, and only 20 percent goes to transit. Virtually all of the  $500 billion in the Federal Surface Transportation Authorization goes to capital costs versus supporting day-to-day operations of buses.

On a regional level, the San Francisco Bay Area’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) privileges costly expansions over core urban operations. It consistently slights bus operators in favor of rail services such as CalTrain and BART that have a much higher proportion of white and wealthier riders. While AC Transit was looking at a $56 million deficit, the MTC was working hard to help BART find an additional $70 million to build  the Oakland Airport Connector (OAC) tram project. That $70 million was needed to replace federal stimulus funds BART lost by failing to follow proper civil rights guidelines when they approved the OAC.

The structure of the MTC itself disenfranchises city-dwellers and people of color. The 19-member commission controls transportation planning and funding for nine counties in the Bay Area. Because each county gets two seats at most, residents in large urban counties–like Santa Clara, which includes the 930,000-person city of San Jose–get far less representation than smaller and less diverse counties like Napa, with its 135,000 people.

Protestors at a Save Our Ride rally. Photo: Urban Habitat

Challenging the unfair distribution of transportation resources in court has been much harder since a 2001 Supreme Court decision barred individuals from filing lawsuits over transportation policies that have discriminatory impacts on the basis of race, color or national origin. By taking away the “private right to action,” the Alexander v. Sandoval decision deprived transit activists of a legal tool that has played a key part in civil rights cases.

After more than a year, the movement centered in Montgomery won the legal end to Alabama’s segregation laws. Today’s transportation justice advocates are pushing for civil rights in transit on many levels. Riders and drivers have joined forces to try save bus service in dozens of cities around the country, as they are doing in the East Bay. These efforts should gain fresh energy with the inauguration of the new national leadership of the ATU, which represents bus drivers in many U.S. cities.

A Bay Area coalition of civil rights, faith-based, community and environmental groups is pursuing legal challenges to discriminatory funding. The non-profit law firm Public Advocates filed the administrative complaint on behalf of Urban Habitat, TransForm and Genesis that cost BART the stimulus funds for the OAC. In a follow-up complaint, they have charged MTC with failing to ensure that agencies and programs it funds are respecting civil rights. In addition, Public Advocates has filed a class action suit against MTC’s funding practices, which is pending before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Undaunted by the hostile climate in the new Congress, the new national coalition called  “Transit Riders for Public Transportation” (TRPT) aims to flip federal transit funding priorities and secure legislation restoring individuals’ right to sue over discriminatory transit policies. TRPT draws together grassroots groups from all over the country who put transportation central to the fight for civil rights, recognizing that low-income communities and communities of color will remain trapped in second-class status until the transportation system serves everyone equally.

Bob Allen is the Transportation Justice Program Director at Urban Habitat. Marcy Rein is a freelance writer and frequent contributor to Race, Poverty & the Environment.

Photos: Matthew Roth

AC Transit riders took solace in the news on Tuesday that the agency plans to restore service that was cut twice this year after a labor arbitrator settled a contract dispute. Transit advocates worry, however, about the agency’s long-term solvency and have called on elected officials to develop significant revenue measures for funding buses in the East Bay.

The arbitration panel in the AC Transit labor negotiation reached a decision on a contract between the transit district and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 192, which represents 1,750 of its bus drivers and mechanics, saving the agency $38 million over three years. The binding decision calls for increased contributions from the members to their health and benefit plans, as well as work rule and holiday changes.

AC Transit had cut service in March by 7.8 percent, or $10.3 million in service hours and in October by 7.2 percent, or $11.4 million in service hours. Fare increases this year amounted to an increase of 25 cents per trip for local riders and $10 for the price of a monthly pass. Transbay riders have been paying an increase of 50 cents per trip and $16.50 for a monthly pass. Youth, senior and disabled riders saw a hike of 15 cents per local trip and 30 cents for Transbay trips.

Because of the arbitration decision, AC Transit also expects to halt an additional round of cuts approved to go into effect in December, including the elimination of weekend service on lines affecting nearly 25,000 riders, what transit advocates and church groups lamented as a “death spiral.”

“There are no winners or losers in this arbitration,” AC Transit Interim General Manager Mary King said in a statement. “Both AC Transit and the union focused on what is best for the riders and taxpayers of this district and what is in the long-term interest of maintaining public transit for the people we serve.”

Mashasin Abdul Salaam, left, of Genesis, looks on as a coalition member is interviewed by KRON.

Though transit advocates were pleased with the impact on service in the near term, they lamented the agency’s inability to improve service above restoring recent cuts and worried similar budget deficits would return imminently.

A coalition of community groups and church leaders rallied this week to kick off a campaign calling on elected officials throughout Alameda County to fight for increased operating funds for AC Transit with the same vigor they stumped for capital projects like the Oakland Airport Connector. Many of the groups in the coalition, like Urban Habitat, Public Advocates and Genesis, fought the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and BART over spending federal stimulus money on the OAC. They’ve created a pledge they hope to get Alameda County elected officials to sign, promising to do everything in their power to improve AC Transit’s financial situation.

“We don’t see [labor concessions] as a long-term sustainable solution to AC Transit’s funding problems,” said Bob Allen, transportation policy director for Urban Habitat. “It gets us out of the latest round of really serious cuts. It doesn’t get us off the trend that we have going forward, with MTC, the state and the federal government not providing adequate operations funding. This is a short term solution that is balanced on the backs of people who work, push the system forward, put service on the street.”

Allen said the MTC had funded “mega-projects” throughout the region to the detriment of keeping buses running. “We want to see the same kind of effort to get funding to put service on the street, to reach our climate change goals, to get kids to school and get people to work.”

At the rally, the coalition got commitments from Assemblymember Nancy Skinner, Alameda County Supervisors Keith Carson and Nate Miley, as well as Gayle McLaughlin, the newly elected Mayor of Richmond.

“We don’t need to keep widening our highways. We realize that only impacts public health with more pollution and only drags us further into the global warming crisis we’re in,” said McLaughlin, to loud applause.”We need it understood that mass transit is the wave of the future, is for the needs of our community and is something that is just. I love the words ‘transportation justice.’ Let’s keep pulling together for transportation justice.”

McLaughlin talked of her own city’s general plan, but said they couldn’t achieve the benefits of smart growth, emissions reductions and improved health without AC Transit.

“What good is it to have transit-oriented development if you don’t have the transit?” she asked.

Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin addresses the crowd on Tuesday.

Mashasin Abdul Salaam, co-chair of the Genesis Transportation Task Force, applauded the politicians who stepped up to sign the pledge, which reads simply, “I stand in solidarity with AC Transit’s ridership. I pledge to do anything within my power to fight continuing service cuts and fare increases. I will continually endeavor to restore AC Transit’s service to its pre-2010 levels and to fight against the gradual diversion of AC Transit’s resources.”

Salaam and the coalition called out the political leadership who were ardent supporters of the OAC, what Salaam called “the skytram,” saying they had not done enough to adequately fund AC Transit. The politicians included Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, Oakland Councilmember Larry Reid, Alameda County Supervisor and MTC Chairman Scott Haggerty, Alameda County Transportation Commission Chair Mark Green, State Assemblyman Sandre Swanson, U.S. Representative Barbara Lee and U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein.

Urban Habitat’s Allen called it the “optics” of press events for new capital construction versus job preservation.

“I think a lot of people feel it doesn’t look as good to stand beside a bus driver in the morning and say this bus driver wasn’t cut. Preserving jobs is not looked at the same as ‘creating’ them,” said Allen.

“It’s a problem of how people operate politically, what things feed what constituencies and ultimately is there enough power in the communities that are affected that they’ll stand up,” said Allen. “I think political officials look at those capital projects as serving people who vote more. If they’re putting up a project that gets people to work but also attracts voters, maybe more middle class voters, more affluent voters, more white voters who tend to come out, that plays better to those people, in their minds.”

Flickr photo: AgentAkit

As Bay Area transit agencies transition from paper passes to the Clipper smart card, operators like the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which runs Muni, are hoping their most loyal customers take the switch in stride. To this end, the SFMTA started selling its November Muni A Fast Passes and disability Regional Transit Connection (RTC) passes online this weekend, and the agency is working overtime with targeted outreach to familiarize the nearly 50,000 A Pass and RTC users how to load their re-usable Clipper cards before the November 1st deadline, when those paper passes will no longer be accepted for Muni service.

“We have more than 40,000 customers who use the “A” pass and more than 7,000 who use the RTC stickers, so it’s critical that they make this transition as early as possible,” SFMTA Executive Director Nat Ford said in a release.

Even before the mandatory switch for A Pass and RTC holders, Muni customers have increasingly adopted Clipper on their own accord. When MTC officially announced the transition from Translink to Clipper on June 16th, Muni realized only 20,000 average weekday boardings using the smart card. As of October 8th, Muni had 108,000 average weekday boardings, a five-fold increase and half of total Bay Area Clipper usage. Of the slightly more than 40,000 current A Pass users, roughly one third already use Clipper. RTC pass holders will automatically be given Clipper-compatible cards when they renew, either online or in person at vendors or SFMTA customer service centers.

The SFMTA began deploying customer service ambassadors in August along with the Clipper street teams that have been providing information and customer service since the end of 2008 in Muni Metro stations. According to the SFMTA, since December 2008, the Muni Clipper street teams have distributed more than 70,000 adult cards and accepted more than 20,000 seniors and youth applications [sample Clipper outreach schedule pdf here for this week]. The SFMTA also noted it has undertaken an aggressive internal campaign to inform SFMTA employees, especially frontline Muni personnel, of the Clipper transition and how to assist customers. This campaign includes an orientation and multiple update videos as well as in-person training, of note after Muni operators on cable cars had reportedly been unable to work hand-held Clipper card readers.

Clipper use across the Bay Area is on a steady rise, but because Muni carries so many passengers, the transition from older fare media to the reusable card will be the bellwether for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), which administers Clipper. MTC had come under fire for its early outreach in Chinese and concerns about staffing the Clipper customer service center with Cantonese speakers, but MTC spokesperson John Goodwin said they were working to resolve the concerns.

Goodwin pointed to the selection of the Chinese name for Clipper “Lu Lu Tong,” which essentially connotes “the go everywhere card” in translation, as an indication of MTC’s progress. Goodwin explained the name selection process, which involved a focus group of nearly 100 people across the Bay Area and in China, where they narrowed down approximately two dozen names to three finalists. BART Board President James Fang made the final decision, according to Goodwin, given his central role spearheading the translation process.

Overall, Goodwin said the MTC was pleased with the Clipper transition, noting across all agencies they are seeing an average increase of 10 percent each week. Acknowledging there have been “growing pains,” Goodwin called Clipper “a great success.”

Asked if he’s concerned with the looming deadlines at Muni and AC Transit for complete transition from paper passes (AC Transit Adult 10 ride and 31 day passes will no longer be sold in their old format after October 31 and no longer accepted after December 31st), Goodwin said, “I can’t characterize my feelings as being worried about it, but I recognize at the same time that a lot of people are resistant to change and accept it grudgingly,” he said.

Ultimately, Goodwin added, “they’ll be glad they did.”

Bay Area Clipper Card Stats

Average weekday Clipper boardings through October 8th:

• 215,124 – Total
• 2,124 – Caltrain
• 4,400 – Golden Gate Ferries
• 8,150 – Golden Gate Buses
• 32,550 – AC Transit
• 59,900 – BART
• 108,000 – Muni

Monthly “A” Fast Pass customers can get their Clipper cards from any Clipper retailer, by visiting clippercard.com or by calling 877.878.8883. Please tell us about you experience with Clipper in the comments.

Photo: Matthew Roth

As the Bay Area’s larger transit agencies transition away from paper passes to the universal fare payment smart card, Clipper, transit operators and planners insist the card will lead to greater convenience and simplicity, which they hope will increase ridership and enhance the attractiveness of transit. At its simplest, in theory, a transit passenger would pair a credit card with Clipper, set it to auto-fill whenever the balance on the card goes below a set dollar amount and never again have to consider how to pay or when to pay for a transit trip.

Despite these hopes, transit advocates and neighborhood groups have decried problems with Clipper’s early outreach and implementation, and they fear the complete roll-out of the program will be mired further.

“The promise of electronic payment technology is huge. I’m really happy to see it moving forward, but the implementation so far is pathetic,” said Dave Snyder of the Muni Transit Riders Union.

Snyder said there were already too many problems with unreliable readers, which he said degrades the public’s perception of the transit operators and the program in general. He said even when Clipper works perfectly, it will be slower than flashing Fast Passes to Muni operators, so transit delays could increase if the readers malfunction. He argued that all-door boarding would help address potential delay.

Despite those concerns, and considering the large capital expenditures and net annual expense to operators participating in Clipper, representatives from various transit operators believed Clipper would prove, on balance, to be superior to the current array of fare instruments at each individual operator and would hopefully entice new riders to the systems.

“For a lot of people, their life is just going to be a lot better. That’s the win,” said Randy Rentschler, spokesperson for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the regional transportation planning entity administering Clipper.

“We want to make transit as simple and easy and friendly as possible,” said BART spokesperson Linton Johnson. “Carrying 16 different tickets is ridiculous. I think this is a wonderful idea and certainly is going to benefit our riders.”

“We certainly think it’s worth it. There are some real clear benefits to using a card like this,” said Clarence Johnson, AC Transit spokesperson. Among the benefits Johnson listed were reductions in fraud, faster boarding times and ease of payment. Johnson noted the only complaint they had heard was the need for more Clipper vendors in North Richmond.

AC Transit is nearly finished rolling all of its old passes over to Clipper. According to Johnson, youth passes have already been converted, while adult 10 ride and 31 day passes will no longer be sold in their old format after October 31 and no longer accepted after December 31st.

“It’s good for our customers. It makes riding our system easier and allows for a better regional commute,” said Muni spokesperson Paul Rose. “Our number one goal is to look out for our customers and this does just that.” Rose said Muni will begin phasing out paper A Fast Passes by November, followed by student and senior passes and finally all Fast Passes by March 2011.

Convincing the riding public that Clipper is as beneficial as the operators believe will require hard work, particularly those who don’t have easy access to computers and those whose primary language isn’t English. Advocates in San Francisco’s Chinatown and Visitation Valley have been upset and disappointed with the limited outreach in Cantonese. They also note the Clipper customer service center hasn’t had a full-time Cantonese speaker.

Marlene Tran of the Visitation Valley Asian Alliance said Muni and MTC were failing her constituents by not providing more information in the language their customers understand. She said she was upset the “Chinese” line through Clipper’s customer service number was in Mandarin, not Cantonese. Given the large senior population, who she said wouldn’t be able to access the Clipper website, a customer service line had to be intelligible.

“If you don’t have the key, how are you going to get inside to know what you’re looking for?” she asked. “I feel this is very disrespectful. They should provide the language needs for the people.”

A new Clipper ad near the MTC offices and Oakland Chinatown. Photo: Matthew Roth

In addition to the language concern, which MTC has said it is addressing, advocates in San Francisco’s Chinatown were upset with the reduction of vendors in Chinatown selling Clipper cards versus Fast Passes.

“I think there is a distance between what they’re saying and what we’re seeing,” said Deland Chan, a planner at the Chinatown Community Development Center (CCDC). Chan noted the MTC and Muni had met with CCDC, but she was concerned they were not fully addressing the effect the transition will have on Muni customers in the neighborhood. After raising concerns with Muni in a previous Streetsblog post about the agency’s failure to reach out to the Chinese language media in the area, Chan said they had advertised in some papers, but the translation “has been really terrible.”

Chan was pleased to note the MTC planned to set up a booth at the August Moon festival in Chinatown this weekend to conduct demonstrations of Clipper fare machines and card readers, but CCDC’s request that Muni pilot all-door boarding on Stockton corridor buses as Clipper is rolled out has not been addressed. She said given the early concerns, the full transition to Clipper in the beginning of 2011 had the potential to be very problematic.

“I want to express appreciation that we’ve met,” she said, “but I want to see more action.”

Snyder of Muni Transit Riders Union echoed Chan’s concerns and further argued the MTC and operators were not thinking about the longer term benefits that could be realized by smart card systems. Snyder said if the region were serious about convenience to the customer, operators should figure out a better fare policy for riders who use multiple systems. Clipper could, he argued, lead to a regional fare system that did better to facilitate increased transit use.

He also said Clipper should copy London’s Oyster Card price capping policy, whereby operators charge only the equivalent of the cheapest ticket option over a given time period. For instance, if  a Muni customer decided not to buy a Fast Pass in October, but traveled more than expected and spent the equivalent value on single rides, Clipper would automatically default to the Fast Pass and stop charging for additional rides in that period.

Though none of the transit agencies interviewed for this story were actively considered such fare options, all agreed they could add convenience (because BART doesn’t have a monthly pass, Johnson said it was hypothetically interesting, but politically much more challenging). MTC said Clipper technology could facilitate such a policy, but each agency would have to adopt such a business model independently.

As to the criticism, Rentschler acknowledged the concerns and said characterized them as growing pains. He also acknowledged that issues like the proper translation were being addressed. “It’s a new thing for us to be running this big retail fare instrument,” he said, but he argued the customer would ultimately be pleased with the result. He also pointed to the sharp uptick in Clipper usage over the past few months and said it would continue.

“We’ve had a great deal of success on Clipper so far.”

Use of Clipper for transit boardings over the previous year. Source: MTC.

How Much Does Clipper Really Cost?

Coming up with a comprehensive price tag for Clipper is difficult and some depends on the volume of users projected over the length of the contract. According to documents provided by MTC, the capital costs of Clipper (and Translink, before the re-branding) from inception in 2003 to the terminus of the current memorandum of understanding (MOU) in 2019 is expected to be $141 million. To date, the region has spent more than $100 million installing fare equipment with the participating operators. Most of the funding comes from regional toll money, coupled with some federal and state grants, though the MTC didn’t provide a more specific breakdown detailing the sources.

In addition to capital costs, the system will require a net annual outlay from participating transit operators, even after the savings associated with the elimination of printing paper passes, vendor payments, fraud, etc. MTC holds a design-build-operate-maintain contract with Cubic Transportation Systems, Inc. that lasts for 13 years, concluding in November 2019. According to MTC, under the contract, Cubic provides system operations and maintenance services and MTC oversees Cubic’s performance. The contract calls for two types of payments to Cubic, fixed and volume-based. The fixed fees cover basic operations of the system, such as ensuring that the customer service center is open for business no matter what the customer volume is, though payments to Cubic increase as a result of volume-based fees associated with customer use of the system.

MTC and the participating transit operators will divide the costs of operating and maintaining the Clipper system, but essentially, MTC pays all of the fixed monthly costs and operators pay the volume-based costs. Operators will divide the total volume-based costs according to formula: Each operator’s share is based on one third of the dollar value of revenue collected by the Clipper system for a particular operator and two thirds on the volume of transactions processed by the Clipper system for a particular operator.

Thus, for Muni, operating costs in 2010-2011 are expected to be just over $2.5 million, rising to nearly $6 million by 2018-2019 [pdf]. For BART, the costs it bears this year will be $1.8 million and nearly $4.8 million in 2018-2019. Adding all the operating costs together, participating transit agencies will pay more than $115 million over the term of the MOU.

Still, this total doesn’t include cost savings from switching over to the new fare media. While BART and AC Transit didn’t have analysis of the overall cost savings, Muni prepared a report for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in July that detailed costs and savings from the transition [pdf]. According to the report, over the course of the MOU, Muni will save over $17 million in expenditures due to Clipper efficiencies, while expending over $43 million. The net $26 million over ten years will be paid out of Muni’s operating budget.

Photo: /\/\ichael Patric|{

"ATU's members will be subject to work schedules that require them to be behind the wheel for longer times, to be at work for lengthy hours, and to drive unfamiliar routes without training on those routes," Judge Judith D. Ford wrote. "All these factors not only disrupt the employees' lives and expectations, but also have the potential to result in conditions that are not safe for the drivers or the riding public."

The ruling followed a two-hour court hearing Friday in which lawyers for AC Transit and Amalgated Transit Union Local 192 locked horns over who is suffering the most irreparable harm. In her ruling, Ford called AC Transit's claims that it will be harmed "speculative."

"While it is clear that AC Transit is in financial straits, it is not apparent from the evidence that making immediate changes to employees' run schedules, and the other changes AC Transit has undertaken, are necessary to avoid service cuts, schedule changes or layoffs."

After more than three months of negotiations between ATU and AC Transit failed to produce a new contract (the old one expired June 30), union officials were successful in getting a judge to order both sides into binding arbitration. The dispute intensified when AC Transit's Board of Directors decided to go ahead and implement the new contract, which included changes to work rules and route assignments and a hike in health insurance contributions.

The agency, which is facing a two-year $56 million deficit, said it needs about $15.7 million in concessions from drivers, as labor costs account for 75 percent of its budget. It claims without the new work rules, the shortfall increases by $300,000 a week.

Last week, the transit agency said hundreds of drivers staged a sickout, disrupting service for riders, but some drivers have disputed that claim, accusing AC Transit of exaggerating the numbers. A union rep told the Chronicle that the drivers chose to stay home, rather than face dangerous conditions caused by new assignments which they had no training for.

Claudia Hudson, the president of ATU Local 192, said today's ruling means that AC Transit has until August 10th to restore the changes.

"I am just overwhelmed and glad that the judge ruled in our favor for the workers and the riding public," said Hudson. "Things will be restored and from day one I've been here, ready, able and willing to negotiate."

AC Transit, however, issued a press release saying the ruling could result in more service cuts and job losses, quoting General Manager Mary King as saying "the future sustainability of the district is in serious danger."

"Without the savings from the work rules, the district now must find $15.7 million from somewhere. We need to go back to the drawing table to see if we can sustain more layoffs and service cuts to address our deficit. The fear is that to close the gap the cuts will have to be draconian," said King.

The agency is already scheduled to implement service cuts August 29th and "with this new financial blow," King added, " the service levels could be disastrous for transit dependent populations."

AC Transit's Board of Directors was scheduled to meet this evening to consider an appeal. 

Photo: Susan Decker

At issue was the union's request for an injunction to prevent AC Transit from enacting new employment rules while a new contract is under arbitration. Although the union rejected what AC Transit called its best and final offer, AC Transit's Board of Directors went ahead and implemented the offer's terms earlier this month.

Amalgamated Transit Union officials are seeking to restore the terms of the old contract, saying legal precedent prohibits a "unilateral imposition of conditions of employment." AC Transit lawyer Raymond Lynch disagreed, claiming that precedent, Amalgamated Transit Union International v. Donovan, does not apply since it concerned a more extensive change to work rules.

The dispute has caused a significant disruption for the agency's 236,000 riders. Changes to routes and assignments have left passengers and drivers scrambling to stay up-to-date, and AC Transit claims drivers are exacerbating the situation by staging an unauthorized sick-out.

The district has warned that it is considering cutting weekend service altogether as a cost-saving measure, but it will continue this weekend, according to AC Transit spokesperson Clarence Johnson.

"We will continue on with business as it has been for the past week. Hopefully for our riders it’ll mean that they will get service. They may have to show a little more patience but because if the kind of labor strike we’ve had this week and the previous weekend some of the buses might not show up on time," he said.

In court, AC Transit's arguments hinged on the claim that the union is not irreparably harmed by the new work orders, and that an injunction would cause irreparable harm to the transit agency. Further, Lynch argued, "an employer at an impasse can make changes from an expired arrangement."

Although AC Transit and ATU have entered a period of arbitration, the union objected to the imposition of new terms during that period. "There has to be a law that governs the conduct of parties at impasse," said ATU attorney Beth Ross, describing AC Transit's behavior at times as "a free-for-all," "a vacuum," and "a netherworld."

Lawyers for both sides sparred over which party was suffering the most harm.

"The irreparable harm is that drivers' lives were upended," said ATU attorney Margot Rosenberg, referring to a scheduling overhaul of routes that left some drivers reassigned to routes and times that they were unfamiliar with or not qualified to drive.

"Any alleged harm to the Union has to be balanced against the harm to the district," countered AC Transit's Lynch.

"These members are not going to get their time back," said Rosenberg. But when pressed for specific examples of irreparable harm, she admitted that they haven't found any cases among their members.

Meanwhile, AC Transit spokesperson Sam Singer claimed that drivers are staging a sick-out, citing recent absentee rates that are double the average. But drivers contested that a sick-out was occurring.

"I don't know what numbers they're using," said 10-year veteran James Cornelius. "They haven't shown any proof." He added that the absentee rates were artificially inflated by AC Transit by counting people on family, medical, or military leave.

Adjusting to the route changes have been difficult, Cornelius said. "I don't know where some of these routes go, and I've been here ten years," he said.

AC Transit gave drivers an opportunity to sign up for routes, but the union refused to participate because such a process would fall outside the previous contract. "Nowhere in our contract does it say there's a signup in July," said ATU negotiator Claudia Hanson.

Attorneys for the union argued that an injunction is required under the notoriously complex Section 13(c) of the Urban Mass Transportation Act. Section 13(c) requires that transit agencies offer certain employment protections to employees.

"Section 13(c) prohibits changes until arbitration is completed," said ATU attorney Beth Ross. "It's for the arbitrator to decide what the terms are, not the District."

Lynch defended its imposition of new contract terms, claiming that the cost savings were vital to the agency's continued existence. "We need to do the rescheduling. The harm to us is great. The harm to the union is self-inflicted."

Singer elaborated on the harm that an injunction could cause. "If the judge rules in favor of the Union, the District would lose almost 60 million dollars," he said, potentially forcing the agency to cut weekend service.

ATU's Ross was unsympathetic. "The rules of collective bargaining mandate that the status quo be maintained."

Tension was high in a courtroom that was clearly unprepared for the hearing. With only 24 seats, approximately 40 additional onlookers were forced to stand for two hours in the tiny chamber, packing it like a rush-hour bus. Air conditioning was weak, and the building lost power twice, plunging the windowless room into darkness.

Some union onlookers were pessimistic. "The workers aren't going to win this one," said David Fokes, a retired AC Transit employee. "Public's against 'em."

At the close of Friday's hearing, Judge Ford stated that she hoped to rule on Monday.

"If the District loses on Monday, it will seriously consider an appeal," said Singer. "It would lead this district into significant disaster."

ATU negotiator Claudia Hanson wasn't sure if she'd appeal a loss. "I have not planned for that," she said after the hearing. "We've already won... we're going to arbitration."

Bus Rapid Transit in the East Bay cleared an important hurdle yesterday as the Oakland City Council cast a unanimous vote in support of adopting a "locally preferred alternative" route.

The route through Oakland would travel primarily on International Boulevard and Telegraph Avenue as part of a future AC Transit BRT corridor through Berkeley, Oakland and San Leandro. As a full-featured BRT line, it would include dedicated travel lanes for buses, level boarding, and fare machines at stations for pre-paying.

Compared to the existing 1R Rapid bus line that runs along the same corridor in Oakland, the proposed BRT line would offer more rider amenities and much faster travel times. Traveling southeast on International Boulevard from downtown Oakland, for instance, riders could make it to Seminary Avenue in 20 minutes, a 5-mile journey. On the 1R today, a 20-minute ride from downtown only reaches Fruitvale Avenue, a 3.2-mile trip. Overall, travel speeds are expected to increase by 18 percent compared to AC Transit Rapid buses.

Click to enlarge: Bus Rapid Transit would mean big travel time savings in Oakland.

"Last night's vote at the Oakland City Council meeting shows that AC Transit has effectively listened to the community and come up with a plan that really works for Oakland," said AC Transit spokesperson Clarence Johnson. "Oakland's community leaders understand that BRT is good for local traffic concerns, businesses and the environment."

The vote yesterday was to endorse a locally preferred alternative route for further study, which allows the project to move towards the Final Environmental Impact Report stage. Bruce Williams of Oakland's Transportation Services Division said the vote was "critical," but not final.

"We're not asking for endorsement of the project to be constructed at this point -- that will be at the conclusion of the environmental review phase," he noted. "We fully understand the proposals before you have substantial parking and traffic impacts that would need to be mitigated before the project would be acceptable to Oakland."

Several of the Oakland City Council's eight members voiced particular concerns about the loss of parking and traffic impacts.

"It's questionable whether that much parking can be eliminated without affecting the businesses, unless they make a commitment to replace that parking near those businesses," said Councilmember Jean Quan.

Councilmember Pat Kernighan said she wasn't ready to fully endorse the full BRT plan, but supported moving forward with studying it. "Some people are worried this will be like putting the freeway through the middle of the neighborhood. I think this is really quite different," said Kernighan. "I look forward to the study identifying both the positives and the negatives of these various alternatives."

One such option is the so-called "Rapid Bus Plus," which would add some of the amenities of BRT -- level boarding, station fare machines, NextBus displays along the line, and full signal preemption -- but without dedicated lanes. That option will get a full evaluation as part of the environmental review process, said Williams, but would be a big step down from true BRT.

AC Transit officials were heartened by the news of the vote.

"Our local leaders in Oakland have really stepped up to support this innovative and cost-effective project, which is now one step closer to benefiting the region," AC Transit Board of Directors President Rocky Fernandez.

Berkeley's City Council is expected to vote on a locally preferred alternative on April 27, followed by a San Leandro City Council vote on May 17. AC Transit planners hope BRT construction will start by 2012 and BRT will be up and running by 2014.

AC Transit announced today it plans to cut service on 108 of 113 lines across the East Bay on March 28th, amounting to an 8 percent overall reduction.

Despite the broad cuts, the agency is pitching the change as one that will spare its most transit-dependent riders. By making changes based on thorough demographic analysis and public outreach, the agency claims the cuts will not adversely affect the communities that most depend on bus service and that service may actually be enhanced as a result.

The agency has conducted over a dozen public meetings about the service cuts and has modified its changes based on rider feedback at those sessions, according to AC Transit Spokesperson Clarence Johnson. "What we tried to do was maintain as much service as possible for the people who need it, with the understanding that some cuts needed to be made," he said.

Johnson also noted that AC Transit had spent over nine months reaching out to the public, explaining the agency's predicament and asking their riders what service they considered most essential.

Ultimately, the changes on the 108 lines will save the agency approximately $9.5 million annually, chipping away at the $56 million deficit looming in fiscal year 2010-11. The agency has also instituted hiring freezes, raised fares, and asked every department to cut its budget by 15 percent. The only lines that won't be affected by the cuts will be the 1-1R, 11, 40, 72R and 97,  along with the 800 late night services.

Perhaps surprisingly, some of the advocates most concerned with transit viability backed up the agency's assertion. "It's tremendously sad to see AC Transit added to the long list of transit agencies that have cut service," said Carli Paine, Transportation Director for TransForm. "No one wants to cheer service cuts, but there are definitely going to be some operational benefits that emerge as a by-product of the changes."

"They dug into data on transit dependency and did their best to ensure that those riders who rely on AC Transit bus service would suffer least," added Paine.

Unlike Muni, AC Transit didn't have the benefit of data from a recently completed transit overhaul program to inform the cuts, meaning it had to start its process from scratch.

"We think our effort was unprecedented, certainly for this agency, but for transit agencies in general," said Johnson. "We haven't heard a lot of other agencies doing similar outreach."

As an example of what came out of the public meetings, AC Transit cites Line 51, a 13-mile route which previously ran from Berkeley's estuary to Alameda's southern shore. On-time performance was "spotty," with "severe bunching," the agency said. As a result of the outreach, staff came up with a plan to split the line in half, with one new line running from Alameda to the Oakland Rockridge BART station and another from the Oakland Rockridge BART station to the Berkeley estuary. That's made it easier to manage and has resulted in fewer delays, according to the agency.

Even after the deep cuts, AC transit still faces a difficult financial future. Johnson said that the return of some state transit aid might be the only way to avert future cuts.

"That's potentially the best news we've seen on the financial front," he said. "It will help quite a bit in maybe not making further cuts and further layoffs. We just hope it materializes."

OAC image: BART

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."

Reid also urged his colleagues not to put the entire responsibility of funding one or two intermediate stops on BART, but suggested they levy development impact fees within the Coliseum Redevelopment Area to supplement BART. He even referenced an unnamed developer he had been lobbying intensively over the past nine months to site a large commercial development along Hegenberger, one he suggested would benefit greatly from the stop.

Councilmember Kernighan said she was swayed by TransForm's arguments for a lower-cost bus alternative, but was concerned that delaying the project now to study an alternative would set the timeline back by five years and result in the re-allocation the OAC's multiple sources of funding to other counties in the region. According to Kernighan, who said she checked her numbers with the MTC, BART, the Alameda County Transportation Improvement Authority (ACTIA), and TransForm, in the best case scenario, Alameda County could only hope to retain a maximum of $115 of the more than $500 million of project dollars, of which only $7 million could go to funding bus operations at AC Transit (for basic funding numbers click here, scroll down).

"Some people have said the Oakland Airport Connector is a really bad project. I don't think it's a bad project, it's just an expensive project," said Kernighan. "It's a little bit wishful thinking to say that, 'if we don't build this over-priced connector, the East Bay is going to have oodles of money.'" 

Council President Jane Brunner went further, calling MTC Spokesperson Randy Rentschler and ACTIA Executive Director Christine Monsen to the lectern, where she ran down each line item of OAC funding and asked where the money would go if they didn't build the connector. In almost every case, argued Rentschler and Monsen, the money would be reprogrammed elsewhere and would not benefit the corridor.

Ultimately, the Oakland Council's provisions were not formally agreed to by BART and the resolution does not have statutory authority over the operator. BART Spokesperson Luna Salaver confirmed that BART is not compelled by the resolution, but said they wanted to maintain good relations with the city:

We do seek to partner with all the local entities that we serve.  I know that [BART Director] Carol Ward Allen made a commitment to make sure that many of the jobs that were created would go to Oakland residents and under-served contractors.  In terms of a fare, there has always been this issue by the opponents of the connector.  $6 was never set in stone. The board is the entity that would have the final say on what the fare would be, not an engineering estimate. It would be based on the realities of the economic situation when the connector opens.

As for the intermediate stop, Salaver said that has always been on the operator's radar and has been the intention should funding be secured. When asked whether BART would use the balance of the up to $150 million in TIFIA loans it has sought from the FTA if construction bids come in significantly lower than $500 million to build an intermediate stop, Salaver said should would have to consult with the project manager. BART would clearly have a competing incentive to return the FTA loan and keep its debt obligations lower.

Although the OAC is now closer than ever to moving forward, opponents are pinning their hopes on a Title VI lawsuit filed by Public Advocates against BART for failing to analyze the impacts of the current OAC project on minority and low income residents of Oakland. The FTA received the lawsuit in early September and has until early December to respond. For a detailed account of the case, read Transbay Blog's excellent coverage here.

Muni has lost $180 million over three years because of PTA fund raids. Flickr photo: skew-t

"The Supreme Court has affirmed once and for all what we always maintained was true: that it's illegal to shift dedicated state transit funds away from transit agencies and their riders," said Joshua Shaw, Executive Director of the CTA. "This decision validates our position that this practice has been illegal since even before 2007, and that the definition of mass transportation adopted by lawmakers since then to mask these diversions is illegal."

As we've written, the governor has repeatedly raided the Public Transportation Assistance (PTA) fund while in office, to the tune of $1.19 billion in 2007-08 alone, while touting himself as a green governor who's leading the fight against global warming. Had Schwarzenegger not touched the fund, the MTA would have received nearly $180 million over the last three years, BART would have gotten $30 million last year, and AC Transit upwards of $26 million in 2008.

Said MTA Chief Nat Ford: "California has made a strong commitment to be in the forefront of environmental leadership, and properly funding public transportation is crucial to building a sustainable future. The state Supreme Court's decision should help transit agencies like the SFMTA better serve existing customers and make our services more attractive to Californians who are looking for ways to make healthier, more environmentally-friendly transportation choices."

The CTA, in partnership with other transit agencies, said it now hopes to work with the Schwarzenegger administration and the Legislature to restore the funds.

"We're very hopeful that the high court's decision will now enable us to work with lawmakers to restore these funds and help us to meet the ever-increasing demands for transit services in California," said Michael Burns, the general manager of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority.

H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for the governor's Department of Finance, said he was disappointed with the ruling but that it is the end of the legal road. He said the issue will go back to the lower court to "determine a remedy" and added "there will be no hard and fast ruling." Palmer said it will likely mean "we'll have to figure out how to come up with an additional billion dollars in budget solutions by the end of the year." 

It's unclear how soon transit agencies could see the funds replenished. The CTA's Shaw was quoted in the Mercury News as saying it's possible the repayment could be spread out over several years.

Image: AC Transit

The AC Transit Board of Directors will meet tonight at 6 pm to discuss a proposal by General Manager Rick Fernandez to divert over $80 million from a future Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor running from Berkeley through Oakland to San Leandro, a move that still faces legal and political challenges and that advocates fear could kill BRT in the East Bay.

Fernandez, in a detailed memo to his board members [PDF], called for moving $35 million in Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) federal funds that have already been obligated by the MTC and the FTA for the BRT project, as well as $45.6 million in Regional Measure 2 (RM2) funds, in order to cover the huge operating shortfall the agency is anticipating over the next six years. AC Transit staff estimate that the shift of $80 million would avert more than 50 percent of the planned service cuts and line eliminations over that time period.

"The idea is to try to fill this huge budget hole that we find ourselves in and we're trying to leave no stone unturned to do that," said AC Transit spokesperson Clarence Johnson. "Subsequently, the BRT money, if it can possibly be redirected, it would certainly be a good way to use it given our current financial situation.  In terms of discussions with MTC to re-obligate the money...we have merely notified MTC that we would like to engage in those discussions. How difficult they will be, we don't know."

No matter how difficult it may be to re-obligate the regional and federal money, a move AC Transit staff believe is within the parameters of the law, the MTC was circumspect, citing the federal rules that often prevent capital funds from being used for operations. "We have some ability to convert capital money into operating funds but that ability is limited," said MTC spokesperson Randy Rentschler. "Voter approved RM2 had both operating and capital funds but the dollars in question here are capital funds.

 On the CMAQ side, CMAQ funds can be used for operations under certain circumstances."

Rentschler did not elaborate on those circumstances, saying only that they needed to study the matter further, assuming AC Transit's board directs staff to move forward with the proposal. MTC boss Steve Heminger and AC Transit GM Fernandez would not meet until mid-October at the earliest, according to the memo.

Proponents of the BRT project are understandably concerned with the proposal, noting that the shift of local matching funds (RM2) could jeopardize the "High" rating the FTA has given the AC Transit BRT project and make it even more difficult for the project to secure the balance of the $237 million required for completion.

Sarah Syed, a commissioner of the Berkeley Transportation Commission, said they had passed a motion opposed to delaying the BRT project because of the risk it would pose to its completion. In an email to Streetsblog, she wrote: "BRT has been a local and regional priority for over five years and AC Transit is less than a year away from obtaining federal approval of their environmental document. Diverting capital funding from BRT at this time will make this project far less competitive at the federal level, and the years of delay may cause AC Transit to have to restart the entire environmental process."

Steve Gellner, a member of Friends of BRT, said that he was opposed to shifting funds for innovative future transit service to fill a temporary budget shortfall. "It's really just as bad as the Governor taking the STA funds or the MTC taking the stimulus funds (to give to the [Oakland Airport Connector]). Personally, I strongly favor implementing BRT and at the same time, reducing downtown parking and/or increasing parking fees."

BRT opponents were supportive of the proposal. Michael Katz, a member of Berkeleyans for Better Transportation Options (BBTOP), which has proposed an alternative to full-format BRT that would not remove a vehicle lane of travel on Telegraph Avenue, said:

It seems a no-brainer that AC Transit's board should support this proposal. The agency's general manager estimates that it would prevent about half of the crippling service cutbacks reductions now on the table, protecting that level of service over the next six years. And by redefining its Telegraph/International Blvd. project to meet real community needs and requirements, AC Transit could still meet funders' restrictions and avoid leaving federal money on the table. Our group's 'Rapid Bus Plus' evolving proposal is one step in that direction.

Some advocates suggested that moving RM2 funds from BRT was tantamount to contradicting a public vote, given that the BRT project was part of the measure, a contention that AC Transit's Johnson denied. "I would say based on a series of some twelve public workshops and forums and hearing literally from hundreds of people... we believe that the public mandate is for a reliable and vital public bus system... In fact, in many respects, we are adhering to the public will because one of the questions that has constantly been put forth is 'why are you pursuing a BRT in the face of this current economic crisis?'"

John Knox White of TransForm said his group will call on AC Transit's board tonight to take action only on the CMAQ funds in the short term, while simultaneously convening a task force to further analyze other options before trying to divert RM2 funds.

"This changes how this money was moved by the voters and it deserves more than a few days of discussion.  If this is a short-term problem because of the economy, then they should have a short-term solution. We don't need to be gutting long-term improvements for riders."

The original and a new temporary structure will be swapped this weekend. Photo courtesy of Caltrans.

While the bridge is closed, from 8 p.m. Thursday to 5 a.m. Tuesday, crews will cut and roll away a 300-foot-long section of the east span of the bridge. In its place, a new section will be moved in, which will connect to a temporary half-mile-long detour. The detour will allow crews to complete work on a permanent replacement structure, which will eventually be used to connect the new east span of the bridge to the Yerba Buena Island tunnel. The Bay Bridge website has an excellent video explaining this weekend's construction work.

BART will be running trains hourly overnight on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday to 14 stations. There will be no overnight service in the early hours of Tuesday, even though the bridge will still be closed. There will also be additional ferry service across the Bay during the bridge closure, and AC Transit will reroute its transbay routes to meet the BART stations at Coliseum/Oakland Airport, MacArthur, North Berkeley, and West Oakland after making the regular East Bay stops. Muni's route 108 to Treasure Island will operate regular service. The Caltrans Bicycle Shuttle, which normally runs only on weekdays, will add weekend service during the closure, via the Golden Gate and Richmond San Rafael Bridges. A complete list of transit options during the closure is available at 511.org.

For some livable streets advocates, the bridge closure is inspiring a certain curiosity about the impact it will have on the burgeoning Rincon Hill neighborhood in South of Market, which has grown significantly over the last decade, but which is also stifled by streets designed for Bay Bridge traffic. "It's going to be interesting to see what the Bay Bridge closure means for South of Market streets - will the Bay Bridge traffic be replaced by Peninsula traffic or Marin traffic," Cheryl Brinkman of Livable City wondered. "And why are the streets South of Market designed to handle peak rush hour traffic with little or no consideration given to the other 22 hours of the day?"

"The bridge is a permanent fixture; the design of our streets is not," said Brinkman. "We've got the space; we just need to re-allocate how we use it."

On Friday, Brinkman is organizing an alternative Critical Mass of sorts, with a ride through South of Market that will take advantage of the calmer streets while Bay Bridge traffic is absent. The ride will start at the southwest corner of Spear Street, at Folsom. Riders will meet at 5:30 p.m. and depart about a half hour later. In the spirit of calmer, more livable streets, the event will be a mellow ride to the AT&T Park area. "Aggro types need not apply," said Brinkman.

There has been no shortage of proposals from livable streets advocates to improve the Bay Bridge's impact on pedestrians and bicyclists, including adding bike access to the bridge and calming the streets around the bridge's western touchdown. If rerouted traffic doesn't spoil it, Friday could offer a glimpse of what a calmer SoMa would look like.

Have your own plans for taking advantage of a calmer SoMa over the next four days, or other ideas about what impact the Bay Bridge closure will have? Let us know in the comments section below.

Flickr photo: b3nda

One of the positives to come of the high drama around the BART strike was the public dialogue it engendered among riders, the media, transit geeks, and transit operators. How were those hundreds of thousands of people going to find a way to work, particularly given that more than 60 percent of BART's passengers are suburban commuters who use the system to get to and from work, most of them in San Francisco, and there are few other options to get across the Bay from the east?

The number of stories on the strike were legion, though most of them covered little more than the back and forth of the negotiations and included the man-on-the-street interview about how greedy the union was. One thing that wasn't covered, but which was important to BART, was the concern that a strike would compel many people away from the system to their cars or other means of transport, and the fear those riders might not have readily come back.

"People can form new habits fast," said BART Director Tom Radulovich. "Our ridership is already declining, so even a brief work stoppage of a few days could have accelerated that decline, putting the whole district, labor and management, into a worse position financially."

Radulovich also wished the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), or another entity that could coordinate the many transit operators, had a reserve of buses to use for these types of situations, so that the options weren't between a strike and horrible traffic. If there were more buses that could be operated while BART was down, then the impetus for a transit-only lane across the Bay Bridge would have been greater.

The MTC argued that it wasn't in the position to stock a reserve fleet. "It would cost a great deal of money to have a huge reserve capacity and maintain that huge capacity and the public is not going to put up with that," said MTC spokesperson Randy Rentschler. "They are going to put up with the temporary inconvenience before that."

Although there are many transit operators spanning various modes, like ferries and buses, there is no immediately sufficient replacement for BART's service. Because of spacial efficiency, a couple hundred thousand drivers compelled to go underground (think MacArthur Maze fire or Loma Prieta) fit a lot better on BART than a couple hundred thousand riders coming above ground to find a seat in crowded buses and ferries, to carpool, or to sit alone in a car in epic traffic.

"One thing about the Bay Area is that we have very linear travel patterns because of our geography," said Rentschler.  Add to that the "confusion of having many operators, and [the Bay Area] suffers from the sense of not being cohesive."

The MTC had been planning contingencies for a BART strike for months, but a labor action, said Renstchler, unlike a natural disaster or a large fire, doesn't command the same kind of response from the other transit agencies. "My agency doesn't have the power to reorder the priorities when these things happen to upset regular service.  When you have an earthquake, you can say we have this problem that people understand.  When you have a strike, that isn't the case."

One of the priorities Rentschler referred to is the very nature of transit operators with county-wide constituencies: operators do run more frequent service on the most-used lines, but they also consider their geographic base, even if that means far-flung buses might run at less-than-full capacity for segments of service. MTA's farebox recovery hovers around 20 percent, AC Transit's recovery is below that, and VTA's is less still.

With so little of each agency's money coming from the farebox and so much of it coming from taxes, there isn't a direct incentive to cut redundancy for efficiency, except when the overall budgetary picture is as bleak as it is now. Even then, without a mechanism for making smarter cuts, like the MTA's Transit Effectiveness Project, there is no guarantee that efficiency will be improved by shrinking funds.

"There is a societal obsession with efficiency," added Rentschler. "But efficiency and redundancy don't always go hand in hand."

Flickr photo: schlick33

Despite gridlock expected on the roads as hundreds of thousands of BART riders move to other transit operators or their cars, Caltrans doesn't plan to alter its traffic management across the Bay Bridge.

"At this point we're going to operate within our standard traffic management. We're going to adjust metering lights as is necessary," said Caltrans District 4 spokesperson Lauren Wonder. She noted that Caltrans engineers would be out monitoring traffic throughout the day starting on Monday and for the duration of the strike in order to gauge the traffic impacts as they arise. "We are looking at possibly changing hours on HOV lanes, but if you make it too restrictive, you might alienate a portion of the community and make those other mixed flow lanes even more crowded."

While she didn't rule out the possibility of converting a mixed-flow lane into a transit-only lane if deemed appropriate by Caltrans engineers, that option is not expected, said Wonder, in part because AC Transit and other transit operators are running at near-capacity conditions and don't have that many more buses to put into service.

"You have to look at the big picture and if a transit-only lane would result in more overall traffic," she said.

AC Transit spokesperson Clarence Johnson said his agency expects to beef up its service and put every available bus and driver to work, particularly along BART corridors and the Transbay route, to "help commuters cope with the paralyzing impact of the walkout." The agency has worked with Caltrans, the City of Oakland, and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) to temporarily convert the West Grand Avenue on-ramp to the Bay Bridge into HOV and bus-only, thus facilitating buses on their entry to the bridge past the horrendous back-up expected at the toll plazas.

MTC spokesperson John Goodwin echoed Wonder's concern that converting a whole lane across the Bay Bridge to transit-only might not have the desired effect of expediting travel given the dearth of buses to use it. Goodwin also said there was no way they would convert a vehicle lane to a bicycle lane, suggesting instead that cyclists use the various ferry services to get across the bay. All ferries can be found at 511.org, though Goodwin noted that East Bay Ferries and Baylink Ferries had already committed to adding service during the strike.

Goodwin and Wonder both encouraged riders to make use of formal and casual carpooling options, which can be found at 511's rideshare page, as well as Park and Ride and BART parking lots, which will be open and free in various locations and will be served by AC Transit.

When asked if a mandatory carpool option would be considered, as was done in New York City after the September 11th attacks, Wonder said no option was off the table, but she highly doubted any such action would be taken. "I don't think that a mandatory carpool has ever happened before, even with Loma Prieta."

In San Francisco, where traffic will be untenable if BART riders choose to drive in large numbers, there are no plans to create additional temporary transit-only lanes.

"We're going to be working closely with our PCOs and the traffic deployment to keep crucial transit corridors open," said MTA spokesperson Judson True. "For us, it's all hands on deck and we're going to do the best we can given the challenging situation."

BART Director Tom Radulovich said he had heard some talk of BART running shuttles through the Transbay Tube with managers at the helm, but that there were no concrete plans. He said he had also heard BART could consider paying for private bus companies to transport customers across the Bay Bridge. BART spokesperson Linton Johnson had not responded to our requests for clarification by the time of this writing.

Radulovich stressed that San Francisco's downtown will be a mess if agencies don't coordinate to manage the streets intelligently. "The worst outcome would be everyone drives and clogs downtown streets, then the limited transit that is running won't be able to move.  Unless there's proactive management of our streets and the Bay Bridge, that's exactly what's going to happen."

MTC's Goodwin said his agency has been working for months planning for a strike, which could have come when BART's contracts expired at the end of June. "I wish there was more that could be done, but in light of the budget squeeze, there's only so much. In the past, we might have been able to make up the difference for the transit operators with the State Transit Assistance Fund, but that was slashed in the last state budget negotiations."

"This is going to be an inconvenience for a lot of people, but it's not going to be a catastrophe," he added. "People in the Bay Area have proved over and over again, from the fire on the [MacArthur Maze] exchange in 2007 to the Loma Prieta earthquake, they are resilient. My advice is: plan ahead, pack your patience, you're going to get where you're going."

Click to enlarge: A map of Muni lines that displaced BART commuters can consider taking during a strike. Photo courtesy SFMTA.

AC Transit spokesperson Clarence Johnson said the BART strike could be "a real nightmare" for people who need to cross the Bay. Unlike nearly every other agency in the Bay Area, AC Transit does plan to provide some additional service, depending on how many extra buses and drivers are available. Johnson said the agency doesn't have "a whole lot of extra buses" or drivers though, and it won't be adding any new routes to substitute for BART service. Johnson said he isn't sure how long AC Transit could handle the extra strain caused by the BART strike.

While it won't be providing extra service, Muni will prioritize service along routes that duplicate BART service, including the 14 Mission, 49 Van Ness-Mission, J Church, and N Judah (to and from Caltrain at 4th and King.) This will mostly be limited to making sure these lines run on schedule and runs aren't missed, however, so these routes are still likely to be packed.

Caltrain, VTA, Golden Gate Transit, and SamTrans will all operate regular service.

Bicyclists who need to cross into the city from the East Bay may be best off taking a ferry. Most ferry providers will operate additional service, and some already have extra capacity available, so East Bay commuters may want to consider the ferry over other means of travel. AC Transit is also an option for bay-crossing bicyclists, but their buses will likely be full to capacity, and only carry two or four bikes per vehicle (though additional folding bikes are welcome on board if there is space.)

Randy Rentschler, spokesperson for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, said residents should plan ahead, since the capacity provided by "BART can't be replicated" by other agencies, especially given current budget constraints.

A BART strike will test the region's ingenuity, especially given that BART has 85,000 more daily riders now than it did in 1997, when its last strike occurred. "The people of the Bay Area have shown to be resourceful and resilient," said Rentschler, who also encouraged telecommuting, carpooling and flexible work hours.

If bicycling or walking to work is not an option, we wish you luck navigating a BART-less Bay Area. 511.org has more exhaustive information about each transit agency's plan and other commute options during the strike.

What have we missed? Please add it in the comments section. And how do you plan on getting to work Monday morning without BART?

The lights on Market are timed so that Muni's buses and streetcars stop at red lights, load and unload passengers, and move on when the light turns green. But when cars stop in front of them on a red light, buses can't pull up to the island, and must wait until the light turns green to pull into the transit island. By the time they've finished loading and unloading passengers, the light is red again.

Such violations are rampant in San Francisco, based on interviews with Muni bus and streetcar operators, who insisted on anonymity, and observations by Streetsblog San Francisco.

Driving in a transit-only lane is an offense subject to a $60 fine, according to the city's traffic code. But ask a Muni driver whether they ever see cars in the city's 17 miles of transit-only lanes, and you'll likely hear an unequivocal response: "Oh yeah, all the time." That, more or less, is what nearly every Muni driver surveyed for this story said when asked whether private automobiles get in their way on stretches of streets like Market and Mission that have transit-only lanes. "That's the norm," said one operator.

Cars are in the transit-only lanes on "every run," said another Muni operator, who drives the 71-Haight and uses the transit-only lanes on Market Street. "People want to go on time. How we going to be on time? How can you be on time when all these people are in the bus lane?"

Many of the drivers attributed the rampant violations to a lack of enforcement. "There's no police around. They're supposed to be taking care of that, especially the motorcycle police," said one bus operator.

The San Francisco Police Department's Traffic Company and Muni Response Team are in fact responsible for enforcing transit-only lane violations by moving vehicles.

A bus trails a driver on Mission Street who has ignored the transit-only sign.

Muni operators we spoke to are split on whether they've ever actually seen a motorist ticketed or warned for driving in transit-only lanes. Many F-line historic streetcar operators said they had witnessed occasional stings on Market Street. Nearly all Market Street and Mission Street bus drivers said they had not witnessed officers giving tickets for such violations.

The SFPD does conduct "focused enforcement" operations "several times per year," in areas that receive the most complaints, said Sgt. Wilfred Williams, a police department spokesperson.

Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable City, said Muni is dependent on the SFPD to enforce cars driving in the transit-only lanes. "Those are moving violations, and we don't know how big a priority the police make of enforcing those lanes."

The Municipal Transportation Agency, Muni's parent agency, is not authorized to ticket moving vehicles, but it has taken steps to crack down on vehicles parked in transit-only lanes. In January 2008, it began a pilot program that allows Muni to place forward-facing cameras on the fronts of its buses to detect parking violations in transit-only lanes, and issue $250 parking citations based on video evidence.

"The authority of the pilot is granted only until January 1, 2012 and requires that the City and County of San Francisco present an evaluation to the transportation committees of the Legislature on or before March 1, 2011," MTA spokesperson Judson True explained in an email to Streetsblog. As of June, 636 citations had been issued.

The MTA could not provide statistics on transit-only lane enforcement or violations, but former SPUR transportation director Dave Snyder said it isn't hard to see there's a problem. "Just based on what I see out there, I think it matters a lot on the street, like enforcing transit lanes on Market Street, where you can sit there and watch buses not get a chance to pull into the bus stop because there's cars illegally in the transit lane. That's obviously a problem."

In 2004, as part of its Market Street Action Plan, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (TA) recommended the bus-mounted camera pilot program, which is now underway, as well as transferring responsibility for transit-lane moving violation enforcement directly to the MTA by February 2006. That would require legislative action, and has yet to happen.

The good news for enforcement is that, as Streetsblog reported recently, the MTA and the SFPD recently came to an agreement giving the MTA more control over the SFPD's Traffic Company, meaning the MTA could prioritize transit lane enforcement, though it still cannot enforce moving violations directly.

Will transit-only lane enforcement become a genuine priority for the SFPD's Traffic Company? Flickr photo: Thomas Hawk

Tony Parra, the SFPD Deputy Chief and director of Security and Enforcement for the MTA, said he's given instructions to the SFPD's Traffic Company to regularly enforce transit-only lanes. "I have given direction to [Traffic Company Commanding Officer] Captain Gregory Corrales, that our officers, throughout their daily patrol and when traveling to their assignments, are to keep the transit-only lanes open for Muni, and to enforce it as often as possible."

"What I'm trying to achieve here is regular maintenance. So not just the focused, or a canvassing of certain areas one time a year. I would like this year-round type of coverage. This should be a regular portion of the traffic enforcement's duties, and not just some type of enforcement blitz, and then we lax up on it in between."

Parra said he hopes to improve the Traffic Company's record-keeping on transit-only lane enforcement. "I oversee the Traffic Company as of July 1st this year, so we're just starting this, and their statistical personnel are looking at some of the specific requests I've made and I'm waiting to do some comparisons, 30, 60, 90 day comparisons, prior to my taking over the unit."

Though transit-only lane violations clearly remain widespread, Parra said he's received some positive feedback. "I have heard some compliments from some of the bus operators that they have noticed a difference."

As a model for enforcement, San Francisco might look to the East Bay. The Alameda County Sheriff's AC Transit division has gotten attention lately for aggressively enforcing no parking rules along AC Transit routes, and issued over $2 million in tickets last year.

For now, bus drivers are not optimistic that cars will be consistently kept out of the transit-only lanes any time soon. Asked whether more consistent enforcement might keep the transit lanes clear, a 14-Mission driver on his break near the Ferry Building laughed and patted the reporter on the shoulder. "That will be the day," he said.

Yesterday: San Francisco's transit-only lane network is an incomplete vision. 

After reports of fare inspectors and drivers telling Muni passengers they can't take photos on Muni's buses and trains, the MTA is being forced to craft a photo policy and make it public. The San Francisco Appeal and WHAT IM SEEING both have stories today about Muni's elusive policy, which MTA spokesperson Judson True told the Appeal will be posted online soon, and "will say that non-commercial video and photography will be OK as long as it doesn't disturb transit."

If that's the case, it will put Muni in the middle or front of the pack nationally, depending on the specifics. New York City's MTA may be the leader in that regard, since its policy states that photography is always okay, and ancillary equipment such as tripods can be used by members of the press. The CTA in Chicago has a similar policy, though it's less clear whether members of the press require special credentials.

Boston's MBTA may be the most draconian. Citing terrorism concerns, its policy states that while non-commercial photography is okay, transit police will ask all photographers for identification, and will escort photographers off the premises if they refuse to provide it. According to a post from a local blogger, Boston transit police have gone beyond the policy's bounds in some instances.

Read about other local agencies' policies after the break.

Locally, BART is happy to allow amateur photographers to snap away, but requires anyone engaged in "commercial, educational or non-profit activity" to obtain a $250 permit, in addition to paying a "location fee." It's not clear whether that applies to members of the press, but passengers who wish to document their ride don't need a permit.

Other local agencies, including AC Transit, Caltrain, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, and SamTrans, do not have photo policies posted online. Most agencies don't publicly post photo policies, it seems, until they start having well-publicized incidents like the one shown in the above video.

Let's hope Muni leans towards the more liberal end of the photo policy spectrum, and clearly states that all photography is okay without any license, as long as it's not disruptive and isn't going to show up in any commercials or TV shows.

C.W. Nevius. Photo: dumbeast

Let's start with Chuck Nevius's column, which tries to argue that San Francisco will never be bike friendly. Forget the fact that San Franciscans are riding in greater numbers than ever before despite the fact that the city has implemented only one positive bicycle infrastructure component in three years. Forget the data that show one of the major impediments to increasing bicycling is lack of infrastructure. San Francisco will never be bicycle friendly because Chuck Nevius says so.

It's really that simple. There are more words in the column, but they don't make a better point.

Chuck: "At the core of it is a simple proposition: the wishes of the few versus the needs of the many. There are a lot of bicyclists in San Francisco. But there are far more drivers and public transit commuters."

It's been a long time since that logic class in college, but this argument sounds a lot like the fallacy of the appeal to common practice, which says that if most people do something, it must be right.

Nevius ignores nearly a century of policies that have promoted the state of automobility we find ourselves in now and makes it sound as if the needs of drivers were protected civil rights.

Trouble with cars is we now know that congestion won't go away by widening roads and the stuff coming out of those tailpipes is not good for the planet. We have to get smart about how we use our streets and bicycles are one component (as are private vehicles) in an integrated transportation system.

In cities around the world, when bicycle infrastructure is added, more people ride. The question for San Francisco is whether the city wants to build infrastructure and make policy decisions that support bikes and multi-modalism. And the answer has already been enshrined in the city charter as the Transit First policy.

The problem is that traffic managers haven't done what's needed to make the city Transit First. Bus-only lanes are routinely blocked with cars, signal prioritization efforts have not been executed well, bus spaces need to be consolidated on many lines around the city, pre-pay boarding should be the standard to reduce dwell times, and of course the Bike Plan should be implemented (we know the injunction, the injunction). When MTA brass give up their personal parking spaces at 1 S. Van Ness or when the Mayor and the Supes give up their free parking around City Hall and in the Performing Arts Garage to ride a bicycle or actually get on Muni, then we'll see changes. So long as they see the world from behind the wheel, we'll have more of the same.

You're sitting comfortably in the majority position, Chuck. If you've ever ridden in that small crevice between the door zone and speeding traffic and wondered why a mode of travel you've chosen should feel so fraught with peril, you'd empathize with the need to make cycling safer.

It's going to look like you're losing something because you are. The cars have the space, so if the city is going to make room for bicycles (and transit), cars are going to lose the space. This is the San Francisco of the future, not the suburbia of the past.

There are other gems in Nevius' column, starting with his trashing of bicycle sharing in far-away places like Montreal, Paris, and Washington DC. He apparently uses Streetsblog's stories critical of SF's bike sharing proposal (has anyone else has written negatively about it?) as evidence that it won't work. Not the details of the proposal, but the fact that it "is being mocked for being too timid and small."

Phil Matier. Photo: KCBS

You could probably shoot a few more fish in that barrel, but I want to move along to Phil Matier and his outrageous piece on how AC Transit and the Alameda County Sheriff's Department have the gall to enforce no parking laws in bus zones. This "drivers-are-victims" story is so deeply buried behind the windshield perspective, I'm surprised Phil didn't report it from his car.

In a welcome move, the sheriff's department has assigned 20 special units to enforce no parking laws in bus stops, an initiative coordinated with AC Transit to keep buses moving smoothly along their routes.

So how in the world is it news that deputies are enforcing the law? I guess only if the law is so routinely flouted that busting scofflaws would shake up the status quo.

Matier feigns outrage during his report that drivers stopping in bus lanes, even if they're in the vehicle, could be slapped with a $250 ticket. He finds a stop that has a broken sign and then wonders aloud how the poor driver could possibly know that they are breaking the law?

Hmm, how about because you're theoretically supposed to know basics like that to pass driver's ed and get your license? How about because there are signs at every bus stop saying the same thing, in most every city around the country?

When a transit operator actually works with the enforcement entity in a city (hello MTA and SFPD?) to keep bus lanes clear, they get trashed by morons with microphones. Thanks Phil!

Mock funeral for transit today in Oakland. Photos: Matthew Roth

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.

With no help from the state budget, and judicial remediation for transit operators at least a year off, speakers at the funeral encouraged support of HR 2746, introduced by Rep. Russ Carnahan of Missouri and co-sponsored locally by Rep Barbara Lee and Rep Jerry McNerney. The legislation would give local transit systems the ability to use anywhere from 30 to 50 percent of their federal capital grants to pay for local operations.

"Transit service is a critical part of our transportation network," said Carli Paine, Transportation Program Director for TransForm. "And, by keeping our buses, trains and ferries running, operating funds accomplish a triple bottom-line: they provide access to people who rely on it, create jobs, and help meet climate and health goals."

Given the sorry state of California finances, it's clear advocates have turned their efforts to Washington. Unfortunately, even if the house bill is passed, it could get caught up by California's own Senator Barbara Boxer, who has already delayed the re-athorization of the transportation act for at least a year and a half.

"To cut congestion and pollution and restore our economy, we need Congress to give Californians more transportation options by investing in our local bus and rail services," said Emily Rusch, State Director for CALPIRG. "This week's disappointing state budget deal cutting roughly $1 billion from California's public transit agencies demonstrates that the solution lies in Washington."