The Clipper Card readers at the Lake Merritt BART Station. Photos: Matthew Roth.

In the February 3rd letter, FTA Office of Civil Rights Director Cheryl Hershey argued that MTC relied on BART's assurances that it had conducted proper equity and fare analysis for the OAC, but there wasn't evidence the MTC had a mechanism in place to check the veracity of BART's claims. Given that the FTA subsequently found BART's civil rights policies inadequate, the federal agency wanted MTC to produce documentation to explain its policy on civil rights adherence by fiscal subrecipients like BART.

Hershey noted that despite public testimony by Bob Allen of Urban Habitat at an MTC meeting on July 8, 2009 and a subsequent letter warning of BART's "failure to produce the required equity analysis for this project," the MTC proceeded with support for the OAC.

In the letter, Hershey wrote:

As you are aware, BART is a subrecipient of the MTC, and, therefore, MTC is responsible for ensuring its subrecipients comply with Title VI, the DOT Title VI regulations, and FTA Circular 4702.1A. Your agency is responsible for documenting a process that ensures that all MTC subrecipients are in compliance with the reporting requirements of FTA C 4702.1A

The fact that BART has not conducted the necessary service equity analysis for the OAC project or fare equity analysis raises concerns that your agency does not have procedures in place to monitor its suprecipients.

MTC responded to the FTA's investigation a month later [PDF] with a long list of subrecipients for FTA grants and made the crucial argument that many categories of FTA funds that go through the MTC, including the $70 million of stimulus funds in question for the OAC, go to recipient agencies (as opposed to "subrecipient") that have to assume responsibility for complying with FTA civil rights guidelines on their own.

At the MTC Commission monthly meeting today, MTC Executive Director Steve Heminger told Streetsblog he stood by his interpretation of the FTA guidelines for the OAC money and a number of other categories, though he said the FTA has yet to respond to the MTC's letter and the review is still open.

"We haven't heard back from them," said Heminger. "So I think the ball is in their court."

Click to enlarge. Map of transit headway, where blue is an increase in dealy between routes and red is a decrease. Image: MTC.

Transit Sustainability Project and the Clipper Card

Heminger also updated his commissioners at the meeting on the launch of the Transit Sustainability Project, a regional study to determine how the MTC could promote the consolidation of transit service among the 26 Bay Area transit operators and make existing service more cost-efficient.

Heminger called the project a "big deal" and noted that the transit agencies he'd met with were not exactly thrilled with the study.

"I think it's fair to say there is a fair amount of nervousness among the transit operators and a fair amount of defensiveness," Heminger told his commissioners.

Heminger also pointed to a new map the MTC compiled that shows transit headways from 2006-2009, where service to customers had declined particularly acutely in the East Bay. The data didn't reflect the last year, as agencies like the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which runs Muni, recently instituted 10 percent cuts.

"What we have found collectively is that we're on an unsustainable path and the purpose is to put these agencies on a stable footing," said Heminger, comparing transit service to an accordion, with increases during good economic times, decreases during bad. "That doesn't do the agencies or their customers much good."

MTC spokesperson Randy Rentschler told Streetsblog the rationale for re-branding the cards had to do with how "technological" the word "TransLink" sounds.

"Many of these cards around the world are kind of whimsically named," said Rentschler, noting the analogous card in London is called the Oyster, in Hong Kong the Octopus and in Seattle the Orca. "Clipper kind of emerged because it has an association with the Bay Area, not just because of the Clipper ships but because of the Clipper planes," said Rentschler.

The overall transition to a replicable smart card across the agencies cost $1.8 million, according to Rentschler, of which the late transition to "Clipper" was $500,000. The cards will be activated on June 16th and some operators, such as BART, had already adopted the new branding in some stations.

The only concern Rentschler had with the new logo was that there are only eight triangles and there are nine counties in the Bay Area. Rentschler wouldn't speculate which county had been left out.

Now, in a speech delivered this week in Boston, Rogoff set off another heated debate among transit advocates and operators about the federal government's role in funding expansion projects when the agencies building them don't have enough operating money to run their existing systems.

Rogoff asked how wise it is of the FTA to put money into new transit capacity, particularly expensive rail capacity, when virtually every operator across the nation has raised fares and cuts service because of lower sales tax receipts and ubiquitous cutbacks in city and state transit funding levels.

"At times like these, it's more important than ever to have the courage to ask a hard question: If you can't afford to operate the system you have, why does it make sense for us to partner in your expansion?" asked Rogoff.

He went on to question some rail expansion projects when a bus rapid transit system would be far cheaper and could achieve similar ridership benefits.

"Paint is cheap, rails systems are extremely expensive," said Rogoff.

Buses already account for 21 percent more transit trips nationally than rail and Rogoff said riders can be happy with buses if they meet their expectations for service and cleanliness. "It turns out you can entice even diehard rail riders onto a bus, if you call it a 'special' bus and just paint it a different color than the rest of the fleet."

"Take that paint can and paint a designated bus lane on the street system," he added. "Throw in signal preemption, and you can move a lot of people at very little cost compared to rail."

Yonah Freemark at The Transport Politic wrote one of the more impassioned critiques of Rogoff's speech, calling his view naive and suggesting that Rogoff doesn't account for the failure in Congress to commit serious money to transit operations and expansion:

The unfortunate reality for Mr. Rogoff is that the federal government’s steadfast unwillingness to help cover operations spending is the primary reason agencies haven’t been able to maintain service levels during the economic downturn. Meanwhile, while he may be right that transit organizations aren’t doing enough to keep their systems in good shape, he neglects to mention that that problem is a reflection of the federal government’s inability to increase spending levels on maintenance in line with needs.

In the Bay Area, the ramifications of Rogoff's speech could be significant for several key expansion projects, including the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency's (SFMTA) Central Subway and BART to San Jose.

SFMTA Chief Nat Ford told Streetsblog that he's not worried the FTA will change its position on funding for the Central Subway, even with the recent 10 percent service cuts at Muni.

"Last year we went through a very vigorous financial audit administered by the FTA to make sure that we had enough financing to run our existing system properly, keep it in a good state of repair, in advance of approving our full funding grant agreement for Central Subway," said Ford. "They gave us a green light to move into final design. That's why we're proposing that the system we operate, we can properly operate from a financial situation."

Unlike the Twin Cities Central Corridor project, which has fully lined up its local funding match, the SFMTA still has to secure $164 million in local funding by the end of 2011 to satisfy the FTA. Rogoff wrote in a January 7 letter that he was concerned about the SFMTA's ability to maintain a state of good repair to the existing system without degrading existing service.

Presumably, if the SFMTA restores some or all of the service it cut this year, which Mayor Newsom and the Board of Supervisors are debating, it will go a long way toward placating the federal administration.

At BART, spokesperson Linton Johnson said his agency doesn't disagree with Rogoff, but argued the FTA was "taking a too simplistic look at the overall picture."

"If an expansion does bring a transit system enough new riders that it both enhances the existing system and gets people out of their cars, resulting in cleaner air, then we can't afford not to do both," said Johnson. "The bottom line is it's not always an either or. Sometimes you have to spend money to make a lot more money."  

BART Board Director Tom Radulovich agreed with Johnson that expansion must be sound and attend to the needs of the core system.

"Sustainable expansion must be built on a sound foundation of reinvestment in existing systems and services, and maintaining service quality while expanding to new markets," said Radulovich. "Expanding service in this new environment of capacity constraints and fiscal constraints calls for planning that is less about delivering trophy projects, and more about delivering value for money."

"BART extensions which make new demands on overstretched operating budgets, compete with maintenance needs for scarce capital dollars and don't address core system impacts are unsustainable," he added.

A proposed alternative to the Oakland Airport Connector. Image: TransForm

The potential relief from this scenario is in the form of $70 million in federal stimulus that the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, at its meeting tomorrow, could direct to the region's transit agencies instead of to construction of the Oakland Airport Connector (OAC), which faces a large hurdle for failing to comply with federal social equity rules.

As reported here yesterday, the complaint filed by several Bay Area groups specified that BART had not conducted the required social equity analysis to determine how the service would impact low income groups, and that if it did, it would find that the project benefits relatively affluent airport passengers at the expense of airport workers and everyday transit riders.

"We see it as Robin Hood in reverse," said Rev. Scott Denman of Genesis, which coordinates a social justice transit collaboration with faith-based organizations. Denman added that the money being proposed will go to BART customers with means who can afford an airline ticket, while general transit service continues to be cut and fares continue to rise.

"I feel like lunch money is being stolen to pay for dessert for people with full stomachs," said Denman.

Advocates also said the OAC was a boondoggle to large contractors when the region needs to maintain current critical transit service jobs. With that calculation clear in Muni riders' minds, the pressure on MTC to direct stimulus dollars to the region's transit agencies instead of to the unpopular airport connector is growing. Rescue Muni today joined the chorus of organizations opposing the OAC.

Despite the fact that Muni passengers have a great deal to lose from this decision by the MTC, the MTA Board of Directors did not mention the possibility of this stimulus funding at their meeting last week with the lengthy discussion over Muni's budget deficit. Let's hope they are pressuring the MTC behind the scenes.

East Bay advocates have been organizing in earnest and have planned a rally before the MTC Commission meeting at 9 am at MTC headquarters, 101 8th Street, Oakland.

"This is not a 'turn people out, even though we are going to lose' moment, this is a 'Grab the brass ring and win' moment," said John Knox-White of TransForm.

UPDATE 8:03 pm: The Mayor's Office released this letter from Nathaniel Ford, executive director of the MTA, indicating the agency's eagerness to spend the stimulus money if the MTC "opts to release its $70 million ARRA commitment to the OAC."

The Mayor's spokesperson, Tony Winnicker, and Ford in his letter, were very careful not to impugn the Oakland Airport Connector. "It's not in San Francisco's interest -- or any city's interest, for that matter -- to [attack a project approved by the regional governing body]." But Winnicker went on to write, "we absolutely need the funding, will put it to good use benefitting Bay Area transit riders immediately and have respectfully requested the money from the MTC."

Image: TransForm

The gravity of the situation has not been lost on the MTC. In a letter from MTC Executive Director Steve Heminger to his Commissioners about BART and the FTA [PDF], Heminger quoted the stern warning from FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff:

If BART were to fail in any respect to make progress or to meet its deadline as established in the action plan, FTA would have to de-obligate the ARRA funds for the Project and would be prohibited by law from re-obligating those funds to alternative projects in the San Francisco Bay Area [emphasis original].

As a result, Heminger noted in the letter, the Commission has several options, including a reaffirmation of its commitment to the OAC, with the attendant risk of losing the money if BART doesn't meet it's obligations to the FTA, or redistribution of the funds to operators according to MTC funding formulas. MTC staff will present its recommendation to Commissioners by this Wednesday's regular MTC meeting.

Bob Allen, Transportation Director of Urban Habitat, said he found BART Board Director James Fang's surprise with the FTA ruling to be disingenous at best. According to Allen, he stood before BART Directors at meetings starting in early 2009 and repeated the same refrain, "If you don't do this analysis, you own the outcomes. You are responsible for any civil rights outcomes that could come from this."

Given the risk that BART won't satisfactorily comply with equity analysis, advocates are organizing a rally before the Wednesday MTC meeting, where they will call on the Commissioners to revisit a plan to redistribute the $70 million to transit operators.

"Wednesday’s vote will decide once and for all whether these stimulus funds are about creating the maximum number of jobs and serving people in a down economy, or are gambled on a disastrously expensive and slow pet-project," said TransForm's John Knox White in a statement. "The Bay Area could lose that $70 million altogether later this spring if and when it is found there is a better alternative to the airport that doesn’t harm low-income commuters. This is not Las Vegas; the Bay Area simply can’t accept a gamble with such bad odds."

If the $70 million were redistributed for transit operations, Muni, for instance, would get enough revenue to cover the agency's current deficit. "With MUNI fare increases and across-the-board service cuts having just gone into effect," said Sarah Karlinsky, Deptuty Director of SPUR, in a statement, "We hope that the MTC makes the most of this opportunity to ensure that more service cuts and higher increases won't have to take place in a couple of months.”

The MTC originally had the option of allocating the $70 million in stimulus funds to transit operators last spring, but decided on the OAC as its first priority. At the time, MTC's Heminger explained to Commissioners that the money could go to transit operators according to established funding formulas should the OAC run into problems. Though transit advocates like TransForm, Urban Habitat, Public Advocates, and Genesis at the time had warned that BART hadn't done proper equity analysis of the OAC, neither the MTC Commission nor the BART Board believed their argument. Public Advocates later filed an administrative complaint with the FTA over BART's minority policies and compelled the FTA compliance review of December 2009 that led to this point.

"The MTC commissioners who voted for the OAC project are the ones that put things at risk and now they have the chance to make sure the funds stay in the region for transit service and jobs, said Allen.

The $70 million could be split among all Bay Area operators accordingly (courtesy, TransForm):

• $17 million to BART, which faces a $25 million budget shortfall and will be voting on January 28 on whether or not to cut 74 positions layoffs and whether to institute another round of fare increases.
• $17.5 million to MUNI, which currently faces a $16.9 million operating deficit and will be voting on March 2 on a proposal to cut 230 jobs and implement service cuts.
• $6.7 million to AC Transit, which plans to cut its service by 8.4% in March and is looking at a possible further 7% cut later this year.
• $12.2 million to VTA, which has depleted their financial reserves and faces a $50 million operating deficit next fiscal year despite recently cutting service by 8 percent and raising fares.
• Another $17 million that would be divided among Caltrain ($2.7 million), Golden Gate ($2.4 million), SamTrans ($2 million), Vallejo ($2 million) and other Bay Area transit systems.

A Muni LRV crash at West Portal station last July. Flickr photo: 2Girls1Queen

The proposal gives states the option of either keeping their existing transit safety oversight bodies, if they meet federally crafted standards, or turning over that authority directly to the Federal Transit Administration. In California, the California Public Utilities Commission is responsible for safety oversight of railroads and light rail agencies, including Muni, VTA, and BART locally. CPUC spokesperson Susan Carothers said the agency wouldn't have a comment until the full proposal is released.

"We'll look forward to reviewing the plan and working with our elected officials on it, and the [U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT)]," said Judson True, a spokesperson for the MTA, which runs Muni. "We're going to be in close contact with our federal partners on these issues and we share their prioritization of safety. The most important thing we do is provide safe transportation."

Major light rail and subway crashes, including the Muni Metro collision at West Portal station last July, already tend to prompt investigations by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). At present, however, the federal DOT cannot direct subway or light rail systems to adopt the NTSB's safety recommendations.

BART spokesperson Linton Johnson said the proposal might be an overreaction to several high profile incidents, when subway and light rail systems in fact have strong safety records. "If you look at the safety records of transit agencies and subways, they're pretty impeccable," said Johnson. "Obviously, one is too many. The number one priority of any agency I know of is safety."

BART, which hasn't had a passenger fatality as a result of a crash in its 37 years of operation, is technically a heavy rail system, not a subway or light rail. Still, it would likely be included in the new oversight proposal, which could eventually include buses as well.

Johnson also questioned a statement by Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and a member of the House Transportation Committee, who said that budget pressure could lead transit agencies to cut their safety budgets.

"Even in the toughest of economic times, nobody cuts back on safety," said Johnson. "It's ludicrous."

If the FTA does take a greater role in oversight, said Johnson, it should focus on inspection, not on analyzing crashes after the fact. "Quite frankly, the real way to protect passengers is to do [safety] inspection," he said.

Johnson also warned that if the FTA takes a greater role in oversight, it would come with greater responsibility, and potentially with greater liability for the federal government. "It's a double-edged sword here," said Johnson. "Obviously, the federal government has the right to come in if they want to be the overseer of safety, but realize that if they put in some sort of legislation and it doesn't work and a passenger gets killed even though the transit agency followed it, then [the FTA] better be ready to answer for it."

The CPUC and other states' transit safety oversight agencies will likely come under close scrutiny under such a proposal, and could be required to increase their staff size and implement new rules.

Jennie Loft, a spokesperson for the VTA, said the CPUC does fairly extensive inspections already. "The CPUC does a good job of oversight of light rail - they perform audits, inspections, and approve plans," Loft wrote in an email. "We don't know the details of the federal proposal, so it is difficult to provide information about it. However, the CPUC does a good job and is a model for other states."

According to Loft, that includes frequent reviews of the VTA system: every week, two representatives from the CPUC are assigned specifically to VTA property. "These utilities engineers are here every week," said Loft. "They review anything related to rail safety as well as interview VTA staff. They also attend the Rail System Review Board, which reviews VTA rail safety."

CPUC engineers also conduct occasional track and system inspections and generate reports about their findings, said Loft. Every three years, a full CPUC team comes to VTA and reviews processes, generates reports, and makes recommendations.

Tom Radulovich, a BART director for San Francisco and Executive Director of Livable City, said he's not sure how CPUC's current oversight compares to what the FTA's proposal would require, but that federal regulation comes with benefits and drawbacks.

"One thing that federal regulation of metros and light rail might do is encourage standards to converge, which would promote greater interoperability, and create a more open market for light rail and metro infrastructure in the future," Radulovich said. Existing Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) commuter and freight rail regulation has done that, he added, "and the US and Canada have a mostly interoperable network of railways."

There are serious downsides to federal regulation as well, according to Radulovich. The main issue with FRA regulation is "crash-worthiness standards that require very heavy trains," he said, a requirement that could hamper the development of high-speed rail.

Thousands gathered to board the new light rail line in Charlotte in 2007. (Photo: Light Rail Now)

With
Oberstar’s six-year transportation re-write bill in limbo for the
moment, however, there appears to be scant political urgency to fix the
program. But a report released today by the non-partisan Government
Accountability Office (GAO) could help change that picture.

It can take as long as 14 years for transit planners to secure
a full-funding New Starts grant agreement (FFGA), the final stage
required before starting construction.

Yet when GAO auditors
set out to break the process down by its stages (which are depicted in
a comically complex chart after the jump) they found the FTA could only
provide complete information for 9 out of 40 New Starts projects
approved since 1997.

"We were unable to obtain complete
and reliable project milestone data from FTA," GAO auditors wrote. An
attempt to confirm records for a random sample of 10 New Starts
projects found the information to be "unreliable and, in some cases,
inaccurate."

The GAO report then outlined the FTA’s explanation for its inconsistent data:

First,
FTA told us that it does not have records on when a project begins
alternatives analysis because this phase is conducted at the local
level, generally without FTA involvement. Second, FTA told us that it
does not record when a project sponsor submits an application for
preliminary engineering, final design, and FFGA because project
sponsors almost never submit complete applications.

The
bureaucratic hurdles that transit planners must clear to win federal
aid stand in stark contrast to road projects’ usually unobstructed path
to approval. But without solid data to make the case for fixing New
Starts, transit advocates’ already arduous political fight for fairer
treatment is likely to get even harder.

The GAO report can be downloaded in full here.

(Photo: GAO)

That sounds good … but how much money are we actually talking about? According to the Federal Transit Administration (FTA):

• St. Louis’ Metro system can spend up to $4.6 million in stimulus cash on operating. When added to the $7.5 million in FTA aid approved on Wednesday, that fills about one-quarter of the transit agency’s $50 million shortfall. 

• San
  Francisco can spend up to $17.4 million in stimulus cash on operating.
  Total size of the local BART’s deficit for next year: $23 million, even after fare hikes take effect.

• The
  New York-New Jersey-Connecticut area can spend up to $118.2 million in
  stimulus cash on transit operating. Total size of the deficit for next
  year at New York’s MTA alone: $1 billion.

• Los
  Angeles can spend up to $38.8 million in stimulus cash on transit
  operating. Total size of the system’s deficit for next year: $200 million, as my colleague Damien Newton has reported.

If your home city isn’t one listed above, check out the apportionment tables available for download here.