Streetsblog San Francisco

BART staff has announced the selection of the Parsons/Flatiron development team for the construction of its Oakland Airport Connector (OAC) and will ask its board today to approve the $492 million dollar contract to build the 3.2-mile elevated people mover. Due to the recession and lower construction costs, the OAC proposal comes in at $60 million less than BART had originally assumed it would cost when federal stimulus funds jump started the then-defunct project early this year.

The elevated people mover will be built by Parsons/Flatiron with technology from Doppelmayr Cable Car, a Swiss/Austrian company known for manufacturing chair lifts and ropeways. The proposal would build a pinched-loop system, where all cars move together in a loop along elevated trussways instead of the taller guideways used in the San Francisco Airport extension and other airport people movers like Newark and John F. Kennedy Airports.

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Cable cars are icons of San Francisco, a draw of tourist dollars far beyond their fare revenue, and living pieces of San Francisco history and transit. They're also protected in the city's charter, just like the Transit First policy, though perhaps with greater force. Like the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars bring visitors to the city, where they spend their money at hotels, restaurants, museums, bars, and other attractions. But while their overall economic value to the city undoubtedly exceeds their operating cost to Muni, their fare revenue does not. And unlike the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars do not ultimately provide a vital transportation link for residents and commuters.

Angela Jackson, a spokesperson for the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau, wouldn't put an exact dollar figure on cable cars' value to local tourism, an industry that brought in about $8.5 billion to San Francisco last year. But they're certainly one of the top draws, she said. "The cable cars for San Francisco are invaluable as far as tourism goes. Cable cars are one of the must-experience attractions for everyone who comes to San Francisco."

"I used to work for one of the hotels that was on one of the cable car lines, and we would get calls once a week from some production company wanting to stage photo shoots because it stopped in front of our hotel. I don't think there's anything that depicts San Francisco, whether it be a feature article in a magazine or in a newspaper, or a travel series that does not include the cable car."

Cable cars are routinely packed, in spite of frequent service and a five-dollar one-way fare for those without a Fast Pass. As a result, cable cars recover roughly half their operating cost through fare revenue, about $24 million in fiscal year 2008, an impressive feat given that they are by far the most expensive mode to operate in the Muni system. In fiscal year 2008, that still left $27 million that the MTA had to subsidize from its general operating funds, a significant sum considering Muni's $129 million deficit this year. Getting rid of cable cars would be killing the golden goose, not to mention a historical atrocity and a violation of the city charter, but could there be a source of funding that more directly harnesses cable cars' contribution to citywide tourism revenue?

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