Streetsblog San Francisco

Jarrett Walker at Human Transit provides useful ammunition in the battle of reasonable people against knee-jerk transit-bashers.

Walker begins his post by quoting from a story in Canada's National Post headlined "Save the Environment: Don't Take Transit." The article posits that because many buses run empty for much of the day, they are environmentally inferior to private automobiles. Anti-transit stalwarts Wendell Cox and Randal O'Toole are cited in support of this argument. (Ignored is the research that shows how dramatically even a 10 percent increase in US transit ridership could reduce CO2 emissions.)

Human Transit's Walker says that transit advocates can't afford to ignore this line of thinking, infuriating though that may be, and he offers his rebuttal. It's worth reading in full, but here's a sample:

Photo: lantzilla via Flickr

In almost 20 years as a transit planning consultant, I've looked closely the operations of at least 100 bus and bus+rail systems on three continents, and I have never encountered one whose supreme and overriding goal was to maximize its ridership.  All transit agencies would like more people to ride, but they are required to run many, many empty buses for reasons unrelated to ridership or environmental goals. To describe the resulting empty buses as a failure of transit, as Cox does, is simply a false description of transit's real objectives.…

[I]n the real world, transit agencies have to balance contradictory demands to (a) maximize ridership and (b) provide a little bit of service everywhere regardless of ridership, both to meet demands for "equity" and to serve the needs of transit-dependent persons.

One analysis that I've done for several transit agencies is to sort the services according to whether they serve a "ridership" related purpose or a "coverage" related purpose.  Ridership services are justified by how many people ride them.  Coverage services are justified by how badly people need them, or because certain suburbs feel they deserve them, but not based on how many people ride.  I encourage transit agencies to identify which are which.  Once a transit agency can identify which of its services are trying to maximize ridership, you can fairly judge how well those services are doing in meeting that objective, including all the environmental benefits that follow.  Until then, the Cox argument is smoke and mirrors.

More from around the network: Bike Friendly Oak Cliff reports on misguided municipal efforts to stifle the Dallas neighborhood's burgeoning street culture. Tucson Bike Lawyer says that city is gearing up for its own ciclovía. And The WashCycle has the scoop on the University of Maryland's efforts to increase campus bike ridership.

Transportation advocates were caught off-guard last month when the ANSWER Coalition and other leftist groups declared that extended parking meter hours represented an assault on the poor and working class, despite the overwhelming evidence that the poor and working class are predominantly more reliant on transit than cars for transportation. The absence of these organizations in earlier and ongoing struggles against Muni fare hikes and service cuts discredited their umbrage somewhat, but important questions remain: How in touch are local transportation advocates with communities of color, working families, and immigrants? And how can we reach out and improve our connections?

Recent three-day strikes by workers in UniteHere! Local 2 against the Grand Hyatt Hotel near Union Square and the Palace on New Montgomery Street promise a long, contentious struggle for a new contract between the union and 31 hotels in the City. This battle offers an opportunity for transportation advocates to act immediately as well as to lay the groundwork for future alliances. We should support the hotel workers for many reasons. The issues are political, practical, moral, and environmental.

Bus riders, cyclists, and pedestrians who have long been marginalized should find it easy to identify with the invisible workers in hotels and restaurants in their desire to be treated with respect and dignity. The membership of Local 2 reflects San Francisco, with large numbers of immigrants and women, many in positions of leadership in the union. Chants and print materials are cranked out in several languages.

About 60 percent of Local 2 workers live in San Francisco, and another 15 percent live in Daly City. An overwhelming majority, 90 to 95 percent, take public transportation to work, according to Riddhi Mehta, press coordinator for the union. Their shifts, like those of hospital workers, go around the clock, so they must deal with poor service late at night.

Earnings to support a family are in the $30,000 per-year range, compared with the $4,808,961 earned last year by the CEO of Starwood Corporation, owners of the Palace. But healthcare and other benefits the workers do have, as opposed to the takeaways being proposed by management, enable many of these families to avoid being forced to move to far-flung suburbs in search of cheaper housing. Transportation advocates should be singing the praises of such a green workforce.

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Our latest call for photos was inspired by the picture at right,
taking by Streetsblog New York’s own Ben Fried. It’s an all too
familiar scene — transit riders crammed together, waiting for a bus
(or train) that doesn’t come when it’s supposed to (if you
missed the story that went with the picture, it’s here).

Crowding is just one indignity transit users have to face. Others include
inadequate bus shelters, nonexistent or vandalized seating, blocked
entrances — you know the stuff.

Send us your pictures of
crummy transit service and infrastructure where you live and we’ll put
together a new slide show. You can e-mail JPEGs to me at sarah [at]
streetsblog [dot] org, or tag them with "streetsblog" and "transitfail"
in Flickr. Get your submissions in by next Thursday.

Our past slide shows have been on bike traffic, space hogs and work bikes. Check them out if you haven’t already.

When Vice President Joe Biden visited
Minnesota’s New Flyer bus company to tout the economic stimulus law’s
$8.4 billion investment in transit, hopes were high for a boom in
cleaner-burning vehicle production — which made for some bad press when the nationwide transit funding crunch forced New Flyer to lay off 13 percent of its workers.

But
the recession hasn’t dampened the economic potential of hybrid bus
production, as the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) laid out today in a
new report [PDF]
on the industry. In fact, EDF found, transit bus companies share enough
skills and regional foothold with the auto industry — the map of bus
makers pictured above could be mistaken for a map of automakers — to
pave the way for fuel-efficiency advances that would ultimately benefit
all vehicles.

After noting that 32 percent of American transit buses do not rely on gas or diesel to run, today’s report continues:

The
bus industry serves as an important entry point for advanced vehicle
technologies, especially in new vehicles that require refueling
infrastructure and other major changes. For instance, since transit
agencies have a well-defined base of centrally managed fleets, they are
ideal for testing and proving plug-in hybrid and all-electric buses —
thus leading the way for the passenger car industry.

While U.S. bus companies are well-positioned proving grounds for
cleaner-burning vehicles, their export potential remains low, according
to the EDF report. That’s largely because the largest market for
transit buses is China, where demand is expected to grow by 12 percent
annually over the next decade — double the projected growth rate in
North America — and where production standards are markedly lower.

"Emerging
countries’ lower technology levels and standards appear to prevent them
from competing in industrial country bus markets, while industrial
countries’ higher production costs and standards appear to prevent them
from competing in emerging country markets," EDF concluded.

Even so, there is a limited opening for bus supply companies to prosper on a global level. About 12,000 of Indianapolis-based Allison Transmission’s 14,000 sales have come in China, and Firestone, which produces bus suspensions, has operations in China and India.

Yet
it’s the domestic employment and growth potential of bus makers that is
the ultimate subject of EDF’s report, which notes that such potential
"is heavily dependent on the availability of public funding for bus
transit." And at a time when labor unions are pushing the job-creating power
of federal funding for operating costs, EDF’s findings represent the
other side of the coin — the role transit money plays in sustaining
manufacturing jobs many miles away from the cities where local networks
operate.

Stephen O'Brien has been coaxing an oasis out of a most unlikely environment for a long time: the small green patches at either end of the ground level Mission Street frontage of the Transbay Terminal. He started back in 1958, when the old Key System train tracks that used to bring East Bay electric streetcars to the Transbay Terminal were being torn out. The Transbay Terminal in those days was a crucial commuter hub, bringing passengers from all over the East Bay. If you've ever ridden the F bus from Berkeley to San Francisco, you've ridden on the descendant of the same-lettered streetcar that once transported you from downtown Berkeley to downtown San Francisco just a minute longer than BART does today!

O'Brien is having his last day working his gardens at the Transbay Terminal today. His company's contract with Caltrans has ended, and he has been transferred to the State Building or the PUC building grounds. He's almost 80 years old and if he doesn't like his new posting, he'll probably retire soon. It'll be hard to match the half century he's spent cultivating the quiet, almost invisible oases at the Transbay Terminal. I heard about O'Brien from my friend Susanne Zago:

"Every morning I step out of the Transbay Terminal, one of the ugliest places I've ever been, and I notice this small green space as I leave. Sometimes it was completely trashed, but the next day I'd look in and it would be restored to its pristine condition. I looked at the trees, surprisingly mature, wondering what was planned for them as they build the new Transbay Center. I started asking around, and no one knew. One day I met this man who was in the space and it turned out to be Stephen."

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We all know that you don't have to go far from Bay Area cities to find some of the most beautiful mountains and epic beaches in the country, but you might be surprised how easy it is to get to those hikes and natural wonders without a car. Thanks to a beta website called Transit and Trails, hosted by the Bay Area Open Space Council, you can ditch your ride and plan your next adventure taking public transportation to Mt. Tam or Stinson Beach or Briones.

Though the site reminds you that it's still in beta and needs your feedback to make it better, they've done a great job linking you to beautiful hikes and day trips without the need to sit in bridge traffic. By partnering with 511.org, the site uses up-to-the-minute transit information to make your trip planning as convenient as possible. Please check it out and let the site managers know if there are bugs to work out or content they are missing.

Also, if you're headed out this weekend for a hike, why don't you see how well the route planner works and let us know the results.

Data SF App Showcase

Not to be outdone in the cool use of data department, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced a new facet of the city's Data SF website, this one showcasing the various applications that have been created for computers and mobile devices using city data sources.

"We are trying to turn San Francisco’s government into an organizing platform for civic engagement by giving our residents the tools to build the kind of government that works for them," said Mayor Newsom. "This is just the beginning. We hope creative developers will build countless more apps never dreamed of in City Hall."

In addition to faves like Routesy, the app showcase has several applications that map crime data and one that tracks cabs.  Pretty good use of city data so far, though we're still anxious to see a cool application expanding on the city's bicycle map, perhaps featuring user feedback on routes, major potholes, etc. Does that already exist, Streetsbloggers?

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

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

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

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Streetsblog Capitol Hill reported yesterday
that the U.S. DOT would end a Bush-era mandate to reward new transit
projects for using private contractors — but a similar
pro-privatization rule for bus service remains in effect, preventing
local transit agencies from competing with private charter companies.

The rule, finalized last year, has forced Washington D.C.’s Metrobus to stop providing free buses to Redskins football games and blocked Indianapolis’ transit agency from offering lower-cost service to the town’s famed Indy 500 car race.

This
year, it’s Minnesota State Fair attendees who are contending with
privatized bus service that left them waiting for hours and caused
"ugly scenes," as the local Star-Tribune reports today.

The rule was intended to shield "private charter operators from unfair competition by
federally subsidized public transit agencies," as the Bush administration wrote in its initial regulatory justification. 

As
a result, public transit agencies were barred from offering bus
services to special events if a private company was able to do the job
instead. The rule prompted outcries from the American Public Transportation Association, but it has yet to be overturned by the Obama administration.

In
a June letter to senior members of the House transportation committee,
19 lawmakers — three of them Republican — asked for the rule to be
reversed in the next long-term federal infrastructure bill. From the
letter, spearheaded by Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and David Dreier (R-CA):

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SamTrans - the buses and paratransit vehicles that run the length of El Camino Real between Palo Alto and Daly City, traverse the Santa Cruz mountains, and service San Francisco's financial district - is preparing to raise fares and reduce service on some bus lines and eliminate other lines in order to close a $28.4 million budget gap.

SamTrans serves more than 15 million riders annually through its 339 regular buses and its Redi-Wheels and RediCoast (Paratransit) vehicles. Its fixed-route bus system currently consists of 54 routes.

The financial crisis forced SamTrans Deputy CEO Chuck Harvey to present several options to close the gap at a San Mateo County Transit District Board of Directors meeting August 12 and arrive at a preliminary operating budget of $136.5 million for the 2010 fiscal year.

Harvey presented options for achieving 7.5 percent, 10 percent, and 15 percent savings. "To get to 15 percent savings, it's wholesale amputation," he said.

To achieve 15 percent savings Harvey proposed: reducing service on up to 22 lines and eliminating 17 lines; increasing adult, youth, and discounted fares by 25 cents or more; and eliminating the 15 percent discount on the SamTrans pass with the purchase of a Muni sticker.

"It is indeed a cruel twist of fate that brings us here today," said Board of Directors Chairwoman Zoe Kersteen-Tucker. "More than ever, we need to reduce our dependence on cars, yet we are facing a significant crushing deficit, and we cannot look to the state to help us out at least for the next four years."

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With BART's operators' union declaring an imminent strike that will shut down the entire system starting this Monday, Bay Area commuters are scrambling to find other options for getting to work, particularly from the East Bay, where BART and the Bay Bridge are the two primary transportation links across the water.

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.

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