A rendering of CPMC's proposed 555-bed hospital and medical office building at Van Ness and Geary. Image: Rebuild CPMC

Nearly 10,000 additional cars [PDF] are predicted to travel every day to the gigantic Cathedral Hill California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) at Van Ness and Geary after it opens in 2016. While the city is negotiating how much the institution will pay to help mitigate the impacts those cars will have on Muni and pedestrian and bicycle safety, some advocates argue that won’t make up for a fundamental flaw: The medical center will include too much parking.

The 555-bed hospital and medical office building will include more than 1,200 parking spaces. CPMC projects half the visitors and employees to come by transit, foot or bike. But based on CPMC’s track record at three of its existing sites in the city, Marlayne Morgan of the Cathedral Hill Neighborhood Association doesn’t think that’s likely.

CPMC’s transit incentives for employees aren’t enough, says Morgan. “Even with giving $100 to take public transit, they can’t get 50 percent of their employees out of their cars,” she told the SF Board of Supervisors at a four-hour hearing last week on the transparency of CPMC’s negotiations with the city. “There’s no way to mitigate the impact of this facility unless you take it down in size.”

Cathedral Hill’s staff will be comprised largely of current CPMC employees at its other San Francisco locations, just under half of whom live outside the city, according to the transportation analysis in the CPMC’s Institutional Master Plan [PDF].

“They’re taking three hospitals and putting them in one location,” said Morgan. “It’s hard to believe that this is going to change the patterns at Cathedral Hill.”

Trip mode share at three existing CPMC campuses, from the Institutional Master Plan PDF

CPMC spokesperson Kevin McCormack said employees can get “up to $230 a month in pre-taxed pay to buy commuter checks for use on all Bay Area mass transit from MUNI and BART to Caltrain and van pools,” seemingly a reference to federal tax benefits that also provide incentives for employees to drive to work. (In fact, as of January 1, 2012, the maximum monthly pre-tax benefit for parking will be $240, while the maximum benefit for transit will drop back down to $125.)

“We also have shuttles that run between campuses and to and from Muni and BART stations so staff don’t have to bring their cars into the city or into downtown,” McCormack added. He couldn’t provide information on the parking benefits CPMC offers.

Ultimately, to reduce traffic generated by a specific facility, sustainable transportation advocates say that planners must reduce the amount of parking. “Parking spaces – particularly commuter or visitor spaces – are like magnets for cars,” writes Jeffrey Tumlin, a principal at San Francisco-based Nelson/Nygaard Associates, in his upcoming book Sustainable Transportation Planning.

The Cathedral Hill center would be more transit-accessible than the existing CPMC sites. Its location at the intersection of two BRT lines set to open on Van Ness and Geary in 2016 could lure more employees to take transit. But that also makes the high volume of parking all the more superfluous and the traffic generated all the more harmful to transit performance. As Livable City Director Tom Radulovich told Streetsblog last year, “If you’re going to maximize damage to Muni’s network, that’s where you would do it.”

While no bicycle improvements have been promised, CPMC could help fund an SFMTA study under the agreement being negotiated with the city. But unless protected bikeways are added to streets like Post, Sutter, and Polk, few commuters are expected to bike to the center.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, which is pushing for a protected bikeway on Polk Street in its Connecting the City campaign, said in a statement that it “is looking to the CPMC Cathedral Hill to really embrace bicycle transportation for its staff and visitors. Supporting the creation of a top-notch bikeway on Polk Street will benefit the hospital, the neighborhood and countless destinations and people throughout the city.”

The Cathedral Hill center is set to begin construction next year and open in 2016.

Photo: sfbike

Groundbreaking legislation introduced by Supervisor and mayoral candidate John Avalos yesterday would allow the thousands of people who pedal to work in San Francisco to bring their bikes into the office.  The “Bicycle Access and Safety Ordinance” [pdf] would require the owners and managers of all commercial buildings to allow bikes in the building if there is no secure bike parking.

“Creating a safe, secure place for cyclists to store their bicycles while at work will help to promote alternative modes of transportation and contribute to the City’s effort to cut emissions, improve air quality, maximize public transportation and ease congestion,” the legislation reads. “Allowing bicycles in office buildings is an effective way to encourage cycling.”

The legislation is an improved version of a 2009 bill passed in New York City, the only U.S. city with a bicycle access law. One big difference is that SF’s version wouldn’t only apply to buildings with freight elevators. Bike commuters would not be forced to enter work through dark, garbage strewn alleys and could roll their bikes into front lobbies along with strollers, wheeled briefcases and all the other belongings workers schlep in on a daily basis. If approved, San Francisco would have the country’s strongest bicycle access ordinance.

“I think this is a great step toward ensuring more secure bike parking for the growing number of people riding to work in San Francisco. It’s sorely needed,” said Leah Shahum, the executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. “We’ve heard a lot of unfortunate stories from people who would bike to work if they had secure bike parking at their office, and there’s a lot of buildings that don’t allow it.”

San Francisco law already requires secure bike parking in all new commercial buildings. Shahum said a growing number of employers and building owners are recognizing that more and more employees are biking to the office and that it translates into a healthier, more productive workforce. That’s why many companies are negotiating bike parking into their leases, realizing that attracting the best and brightest means providing a safe, convenient place to park your bike.

Building owners could still opt out under a few exceptions, but only after a city inspection. Saying no triggers a comprehensive Bicycle Access Plan. The exemptions would be granted only if:

(i) the building’s elevators are not available for bicycle access because unique circumstances exist involving substantial safety risks directly related to the use of such elevator; or
(ii) there is secure alternate covered off-street parking or secure alternate indoor no-cost bicycle parking available on the premises or within three blocks or 750 feet, whichever is less, of the subject building sufficient to accommodate all tenants or subtenants of the building requesting bicycle access.

Dave Snyder, the executive director of the California Bicycle Coalition and an occasional Streetsblog contributor, was happy with the proposed ordinance but suggested it be strengthened to add language ensuring that the alternate bike parking requirement listed in the exception (ii) complies with the city’s bike planning code.

Image: SFMTA

Squeezing onto a packed N-Judah train during rush hour is an all too common challenge for many riders of Muni’s busiest line. The SF Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), hoping to provide some relief, launched an express bus pilot program this week to supplement rail service. Dubbed the Nx Judah Express, it carries Outer Sunset commuters to the Financial District and back.

“The Nx Judah Express Bus Pilot aims to reduce crowding on the N-Judah for customers along the entire length of the route,” said SFMTA Transit Service Planning Manager Julie Kirschbaum. “It also provides an additional service choice for Outer Sunset customers traveling during commute hours.”

The dedicated fleet of buses is scheduled to run every ten minutes, but only during morning and evening peak hours. It stops only between 48th and 19th Avenues before streamlining riders to a final stop in the Financial District near Montgomery Station, traveling along some the city’s motor expressways [pdf].

Forty percent of N-Judah riders board west of 19th Avenue in the morning rush, said Kirschbaum. By the time trains reach later stops like Carl and Cole Streets, they are often already overfilled, leaving commuters stranded.

“We believe that providing the express service in the outer avenues will be the most successful because the long express portion of the route maximizes the travel time benefits of the bus relative to the train,” she said. “Further east, the subway portions of the N-Judah make the bus travel times less competitive with the rail.”

The Nx is scheduled to take passengers to their destination about as quickly as the N-Judah would. Car congestion seems to be a potential obstacle on routes like Lincoln Way and Park Presidio, but Kirschbaum said they’ve already been tested. “We will be evaluating travel time throughout the pilot and will shift to an alternate routing if needed,” she said.

The project was created by the Service Restoration Task Force, which seeks to find ways to effectively improve Muni service following cuts made in recent years. “It comes from an examination of the ridership and loads on our busiest rail line,” said Kirschbaum.

SFMTA staff will be evaluating the effectiveness of the pilot in the coming weeks.

Obama is a "breath of fresh air," according to APTA President William Millar, but Congress needs to step up. WMATA via APTA

Around the country, Millar said, voters have chosen again and again to raise their own taxes for increased service. And, he added, “it’s a breath of fresh air” to see a U.S. President get behind infrastructure investment the way Obama has.

After Millar, a panel of officials from HUD, DOT, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Portland Development Commission gave another reason for hope: the very “unnatural” action that federal agencies are beginning to take cooperating with each other.

DOT’s Beth Osborne said it’s easier for each agency to stay in its silo – and the challenges to collaboration are often surprising. “It’s not getting your high leadership agreeing to pool money or to relinquish some control over the decision-making process,” she said. “It becomes, your budget systems are different, or your computer systems don’t coordinate and communicate.” But as the TIGER II and HUD Sustainable Communities grant programs show, agencies are beginning to address those challenges and work together.

Rocco Landesman, chair of the NEA, whose stated goal is to infuse the arts into every federal agency, said that people choose homes based on access to high-quality education and access to culture. And, he said, the cause and effect of developing vibrant communities is understood differently today than it was in the past.

“It used to be thought that people followed businesses,” he said. “We now know that it’s the opposite. Businesses want to move where there’s an educated, committed, enlightened workforce. Businesses follow the people. It’s the Field of Dreams in reverse. If you come, they will build it.”

Erin Flynn, Portland’s Urban Development Director, agreed. She said businesses are moving back from the suburbs in to the urban core because “all of our creative talent lives in these close-in neighborhoods – and they want to bike to work.” It becomes a competitive advantage for employers to allow their workers to maintain the walkable, bikeable, transit-based lifestyle they want.

Evidence of this trend can be found even in small cities like Dubuque, Iowa, which just rebuilt its downtown and attracted 1,300 IBM jobs.

With Bay Area public transit languishing, market forces have evolved a "shadow industry" solution: fleets of shuttle buses, operating outside of any agreement with public transit agencies, carrying employees between work and home with greater efficiency and comfort than Muni could ever hope to offer.

Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Genentech, Adobe, and Advent are among the companies offering shuttle services. An estimated two thousand people are transported on private shuttles around the city, spanning as many as fifty different stops.

Recently, Supervisor Bevan Dufty asked the San Francisco County Transportation Authority to conduct a first-of-its-kind study into the local shuttle industry. The Strategic Analysis Report: The Role of Shuttle Services in San Francisco makes several important observations about the augmentation of public transit with private services, and suggests innovative solutions to problems like idling, conflicts at transit stops, and cross-company collaboration.

Among the recommendations are coordinating shared stops with transit agencies, or establishing dedicated shuttle zones. Shared parking at bus yards is another possibility, as is a "Muni Partners" program, whereby shuttles would coordinate operations and schedules with public transit. Such a collaboration could benefit shuttle operators by facilitating access to grants and public infrastructure such as charging stations and battery-swaps.

The advantages to shuttle services are clear: faster than public transit, more comfortable, and with stops customized to riders' needs, shuttles relive congestion on roads and in parking lots. They're particularly attractive to employers, serving as a powerful recruitment tool. The SFCTA's study also shows that over the course of a year, the region's WiFi-enabled shuttles are responsible for a cumulative 322,000 additional hours of productivity (and 246,000 hours of leisure).

Without these shuttles, many professionals would drive to their jobs on the Peninsula, said SFCTA Executive Director José Luis Moscovich. "Silicon Valley is not providing the quality of life or entertainment or recreation or cultural choices that they would like to have available to them," Moscovich told Streetsblog. "I think that transportation is fundamentally an activity that derives from economic activity. To the degree that people continue to make locational decisions based on those factors, we're probably going to see a growth of private shuttles as employers mold themselves to the needs of their employees."

According to the study, shuttles save 327,000 solo round-trips per year. That's a significant portion of the 1,600,000 solo intra-regional trips that San Francisco's Climate Action Plan seeks to eliminate. Carbon dioxide emissions are reduced by several thousand tons thanks to shuttles; and most shuttle riders patronize merchants near their stops, contributing an additional $1.8 million to the local economy.

"There's no question that these folks taking shuttles are actually providing a benefit from the standpoint of environmental impact," said Moscovich. The study indicates that without the shuttles, 63 percent of riders would have driven -- and 14 percent would seek employment elsewhere.

But because shuttle services are run by competing companies, service is often redundant. During the course of the study, many shuttle operators expressed an interest in consolidating operations. There's been limited headway on that front: the Emery-Go-Round started as a Caltrans-funded project of a business improvement district, and is now privately funded by businesses with 3,000 riders per day. Similarly, Golden Gate Transit works with "bus clubs," wherein riders pay monthly fees and GGT handles procurement and covers 30 percent of costs.

"Just as with taxicab companies or limos, sometimes the market will not be quick enough to determine an equilibrium for the mix of services that are actually needed," said Moscovich. "The study found that a lot of these vehicles are not operating at full capacity. They have a sizable chunk of idle capacity -- they're not operating full -- that would argue that there's some consolidation that would yield efficiency."

Shuttles can also provoke complaints from residents regarding noise, safety, and idling. In addition, the private vehicles are known to illegally block Muni stops while boarding, the fine for which is $254. Enforcement has so far been limited, and the SFCTA's study sought to address residents' concerns.

One surprising finding: complaints about safety are overstated. "We looked at the claims related to safety," said Moscovich, "and found that they're not nearly as significant as they may be perceived in the neighborhoods. We did field observations, and found that what we have is pretty safe."

The study lays out several recommendations for managing relationships between shuttles and neighbors. Among them: hiring a single point of contact for shuttle complaints, information, and coordination. The SFCTA is currently in talks with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the SFMTA about funding such a position as a 3-year pilot.

Planning for smoother shuttle operations is crucial. "I think growth is pretty much a given in the next decade or so," Moskovich said. "I am not a bleeding-heart regulator. I am not interested in getting in the middle of things that are working well. But it can't be a wild west approach, either. It's appropriate for the government to have some role in looking at the overall picture and helping maintain a balance, and do things like we suggest in the report: sharing information, some form of local certification program, and opening and maintaining a dialogue on the use of curb space and enforcing weight restrictions."

San Francisco has an opportunity to take the lead on creating successful programs for shuttle operation. In coming years, Moscovich said, we're likely to see more employers offering such services, so scalable planning now is a high priority.

"These shuttles are an organic response by the private sector to the realities to public transportation in the 21st century," he said, citing service cuts and regular service that fails to meet some riders' needs. He went on, "these shuttles are like a glimpse of what the future might be, or how the resources of the private sector might be recruited to generate a more balanced picture of what public -- or at least shared -- transportation might look like later in the century. We've been limited in this country to looking at public transportation as public-owned and operated, and there are other models."

Photo: Bryan Goebel.

What does San Francisco's retired top traffic engineer think about Market Street, Muni and global warming? We sat down with Jack Fleck recently for an extended interview. The 62-year-old retired last week after more than 25 years with the former Department of Parking and Traffic and the current San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA).

Fleck expounded on a number of topics and his answers offer some insight into his thinking over the years as the city's lead traffic engineer.

On cars and driving:

As a student I started connecting all these problems with the automobile and the first one was related to the urban riots, I mean the fact that at that time equal housing laws didn't exist. So, African Americans were pretty much confined to the inner city, at the same time the freeways were crisscrossing the cities and making them much less livable, destroying neighborhoods and creating noise and pollution and all of that, and they became like pressure cookers and they exploded, and so the inner city blight and the white flight were something I paid a lot of attention to in the '60s. But then also reading Jane Jacob's book, "The Death and Life of Great American Cities," and how she contrasted Robert Moses, who was the big freeway builder. His vision of how the freeway was always good versus the reality, and not just freeways, but parking lots and widening streets and all the things that she talked about to create the fabric of a city and the way that the automobile was part of the problem. It wasn't like that was the only problem, but that was something she talked a lot about and I learned the word 'livability' I think from Don Appleyard when I took classes at Berkeley. I went to grad school in City Planning at Berkeley.

So that sort of struck home as that's what I want to do, make cities livable and I don't know that it was really a word that was used a lot until more recently, but it does make sense. That's from all the days that I've been involved in this is trying to make this city a better place to live. But then there were other problems with cars obviously, the wars for oil and I think I learned the word ecology in about 1969, it was the first time I heard that word. I was like 'oh, that's a good one', because air pollution, oil spills which obviously are still a problem. So all of that sort of compounded to make me much more anti-automobile, but still, I was like 'yes, cars are still convenient and people love cars.' I was never a person that loved cars like they were my baby or something, like some people their whole identity is caught up in their cars and that's still true today, but they are very convenient to get around and so it's a love/hate thing.

On getting more people out of cars:

I think all the things that we do. We try to dedicate the space for bike lanes, for bus lanes. I'm not one to punish the drivers. I'm not really trying to do that, but I'm trying to make it attractive for these other modes, and if it comes down to a choice where you can't do both, then I would favor the other modes. I don't really consider myself anti-automobile in the sense that, just pragmatically speaking, you could get yourself in a lot of trouble politically if you try to take on all the drivers, why go there? You don't need to do that. That's why I was a little frustrated, or very frustrated, when the bike injunction happened, because we have been very careful to put in bike lanes that we felt didn't really cause any negative impact on the traffic. Almost all, we knew that there were some that were going to be more controversial and we were kind of putting off doing those, so the ones that had been put in, we thought were relatively non-controversial. So the fact that an injunction happened when we'd only done things that we thought were pretty safe was frustrating.

On Muni:

On bikes:

I grew up in Peoria and all the kids rode bikes. I mean everything we did. We rode bikes to school, we rode bikes to go visit each other. We rode bikes to Little League. I mean that was how we all got around and I was thinking about Ray LaHood, you know, he's two years younger than me but he's from Peoria, I'm sure he did that too, and he's a pretty big advocate for bikes right now, and that's pretty cool, you know? I was just thinking 'yes I can see how he would be advocate because we just all rode bikes.' Then at the University of Illinois I always rode a bike and when I lived in Berkeley I always rode a bike, but I don't really ride a bike in San Francisco that much. I mean we have city bikes here that I'll sign out if I want to go to a meeting and it's convenient, I am definitely very comfortable riding bikes, but I don't do it as much as I used to.

On Market and Octavia, the city's most dangerous intersection for bicyclists:

We've had a lot of problems at Market and Octavia. It's actually gotten a little better lately. We are keeping our fingers crossed. I'm wondering if it's because there are so many bicyclists now that the drivers are just finally becoming aware. I know Europe has made that argument that they can have bike lanes to the right and the drivers just learn to look, because there are so many bikes. Now it's an illegal right turn, I don't know whether those people making those right turns have now all of a sudden realized 'we really have to be careful', but we've done everything we can to try to make it very difficult to make those turns. So whatever, it seems like it's been a little bit better, cross my fingers, on that one

On Market Street:

Market Street would be wonderful to fix. My theory on Market Street is that it was designed in the '60s at a time when nobody rode bikes, and now we are trying to make it work for bikes. It's been really, really been fun to watch the increase in bikes on Market. So the problem is, I think, because of the position of the stairwells, there's not really room to widen the sidewalk. I mean if we could just widen it by a few feet we could put a bike lane in all the way down, but that's a very big if, because of the stairwells. Now some people had some good Market ideas I thought about, maybe moving the MUNI platforms so they aren't right next to a stairwell, in which case maybe you could widen the sidewalk. The problem is you have a platform and you have a stairwell and those are two pretty big objects, and there's only so much space in between them. So that's a big challenge. I thought a lot about it and haven't really been able to figure out how to solve it, but wish everybody luck on that one.

On making Folsom Street a two-way street:

I really don’t like to get hung up on the one-way street stuff but with Folsom I know people want to make it a traffic calmed Street and two-way and all that, but that’s where I get into this arterial argument.  I mean, we don’t want them on Mission.  We don’t want the traffic on Market. The parking garages downtown are really the key.  San Francisco did a brilliant thing by not allowing new parking garages, since like the late ‘80s or whatever.  If we had parking garages in all those high-rises the streets would be gridlocked.  I mean they just can’t handle any more traffic, but by not building the parking garages, most of the downtown streets really aren’t that congested and we could get even less traffic if we got rid of whatever parking there is.  So to make Folsom into a two-way street I think you’d have to figure out some way to get rid of the traffic that does exist, which like I say isn’t that much, but it’s enough to be needing some arterials and that’s kind of my thought about it.

On global warming:

I guess the main point I drive home is that the atmosphere can only absorb about 8 billion tons of CO2. In about 15 years there'll be about 8 billion people, so really our goal should be no more than one ton per person, whereas our current level is about 20 tones. So I think what I try to drive home is, how big the reduction has to be and we really just have to get off of fossil fuels, and there was a good quote from Ken Caldeira, do you know who he is? He was a speaker at SPUR, and I was curious about him. He's from Stanford, he said 'I think we need to more or less make it illegal to produce devices that emit CO2 into the atmosphere. Our target should be zero emissions.' Because realistically going from 20 to one is the same as getting rid of it completely, and of course the argument that just the oil spills and air quality and the wars for oil, I mean all those things alone would be good arguments for getting rid of fossil fuels, but the global warming is by far the strongest one. We just really need to get rid of the CO2.

San Francisco is more like Europe, maybe 10 tons per person, but still we are just way, way over what we could be sustainable. I think the world average is about five. So India is like pretty close but they have got a big coal-fired plant and they are growing fast. They really need to figure it out too. I think the main thing that we can do with all these things is to stop the growth in vehicle miles travelled. In-fill development, like they are assuming that all the future development will be in-fill, no further sprawl. So I think doing that is necessary but it's not sufficient to stop global warming. So that's when I get into just a further argument along these lines.

So San Francisco, what if we built all the cities in the country like Peoria and everybody else to be as dense as San Francisco? I mean we'd have to have people give up their yards and gardens and move to downtown Peoria? I don't think they are going to do it to be like San Francisco. But even here, 62 percent of our trips are by car, so you know, I mean there's a lot of cars out there, and so what if we were even more successful? What if we became like Copenhagen? Copenhagen still has four times as many kilometers by car as it does by bike, even though they have a 50 percent modal split, people use their cars for longer strips. So even Copenhagen would have to get rid of all those fossil fuels from all those cars and so the argument is then I really think that we need to go into electric cars, plug-in hybrids and that electricity has to be generated by renewal sources. And the good news is that there are all these manufacturers coming out with electric cars and plug-in hybrids. There's a lot of competition now to see who is going to get the one that really gets the popular response.

Of course the danger is that they will be so successful that we'll have more sprawl, more automobile-oriented development. It does solve the problems of wars for a while, it does solve the problems of air quality and hopefully can make a dent in global warming. It doesn't solve the problems of obesity and it doesn't solve the problem of urban life quality, all that kind of Jane Jacobs stuff. So it's not the ultimate total everything solution, but I think given the danger of global warming and being underwater kind of makes everything else moot. We can fight about all of the other things that we want to do, but if we are under water it's not going to matter.

Then here's a positive thing. The cost of solar power today is just barely above the cost of natural gas, generating electricity and if you look at the trend, it could be by 2020, at least this person from MIT seemed to think it could be cheaper than coal. That would be huge if we could get solar power down to that level then we could generate the electricity for these electric vehicles with basically no CO2. So there's hope. We don't need to, everyone in Peoria doesn't have to rebuild the city completely. It would be nice if we did all in-fill development and more density, and I think San Francisco, the relevance here is that we are a high density city that is a great place to live and that's what the rest of the country has to learn, is that density doesn't mean poor quality of life, we can make it a really good place and it's much more environmentally, ecologically sustainable to have high density than to have this sprawl.

Then there's another point of politically what we have to do. These federal subsidies are right now overwhelmingly for fossil fuels, exactly the opposite and we should not only be subsidizing, we should be taxing them and we should be subsidizing the renewables which there are some subsidies of, but not a lot and a lot of the subsidies are for corn ethanol which is probably the worst of the biofuels. There are some biofuels that are pretty good in terms of CO2 emissions, but not corn ethanol, that's like one of the worst ones. So it's got to politically completely turn around in terms of where the government puts its resources because it's all backward now.

On working with the advocates:

Actually, I was more of an advocate when I was in Berkeley. My first job there was to do citizen participation and we sort of construed that to mean community organizing.  So we were out there trying to get the neighborhoods to advocate for things.  So I really personally identify with the advocates and I also feel that it’s impossible to get things done without political support.

If it’s just city staff with a few opponents it’s very difficult to get anything done.  So the advocates are essential and having them there speaking in favor of the changes. With the whole Bike Plan obviously the Bike Coalition was very central to making that happen.

So by and large I’m totally comfortable with the advocates and the role they play.  I remember that Betsy Thagard was the founder of Walk San Francisco, I don’t know if you know her, but she moved to the East Bay.  I don’t know if she’s still around, I haven’t seen her for a long time, but I do remember she would complain about pedestrian safety and beat up on us and you know, and then afterwards, she said ‘well, what do you really need?’  And that was great because she was willing to support hiring staff, getting funding, making improvements and I think that kind of relationship with the advocates is really what I’ve always seen as a good thing.  

I don’t know, I’m not sure if there might be people who are just prejudiced against traffic engineers.  I mean engineers have a stereotype that we are kind of like stodgy or something, and people might just have that fixed in their mind and not be able to get past it, but I haven’t encountered too much of that.

Next: Who will be San Francisco's next top traffic engineer, and will he or she be the innovator we need? 

States where more people drive to work
face an even worse obesity crisis. Graphic: Noah Kazis and Carly Clark

Transportation
is a public health issue. As profiled in the recently released report
from the Trust for America’s Health, "F as in Fat,"
obesity rates continue to rise across the nation, increasing the risk
of serious health problems like diabetes and hypertension. To solve the
obesity epidemic, the data suggest, we need to rethink our dependence on
the automobile. 

"F as in Fat" breaks out obesity numbers state by state. After
glancing at their
map, it seemed like transit and pedestrian-friendly states were
doing better than the national average. To get more precise, we decided
to compare adult obesity rates, as gathered in the report, to commuting
statistics in the U.S. Census. You
can download our spreadsheet here. 

The result is the scatterplot shown above, which clearly shows that
states where more people drive to work have higher obesity rates.
Caveats abound — correlation isn’t causation and state-level data can
obscure important patterns visible only through a closer microscope –
but the result is provocative. The two outliers are D.C. and New York
State; they imply that while a large shift away from driving can make a
big difference, it can’t solve the obesity crisis on its own.

Although "F as in Fat" doesn’t analyze transportation behavior
itself, the authors agree that moving away from a reliance on the
automobile is a critical component in curbing obesity. Their
recommendations include: passing
legislation supporting non-motorized transportation, such as an
expansion of the Safe Routes to School program or a national complete
streets bill; building more safe pedestrian space and bike paths to
encourage active transport; and supporting mixed-use, walkable, and
transit-oriented development.

Yuck. Photo: izahorsky

Lilian Chan, a Transportation Demand Management Coordinator for the San Francisco Department of the Environment, said the goal is not only to get employers to sign up and engage in friendly competition to reduce greenhouse gas emission from employee commutes over two months this summer, but to engage with them in longer-term education campaigns and ultimately alter commute patterns. 

"We're hoping to get larger employers involved to get their support in encouraging alternative transportation for their employees," she said.

The employers will compete with similar-sized companies in each county and the winners will receive a special commendation by county authorities. Though this is the first year the event will be held, the various resource teams in each county hope the Great Race catches on and becomes an annual tradition.

Be sure to sign up before the July 15th deadline and encourage your employer to promote the event if they don't already.

TransForm's annual Car-Free Challenge is coming up in a few weeks and they've produced this video to get you in the spirit. If you'll remember last year we profiled several inspirational participants who demonstrated that you don't need a ride to raise a family and the mystique of a driver's license as personal ticket to freedom doesn't hold sway for some teenagers in the East Bay.

If you're already car-free or car-lite, they still want you to sign up and give inspiration to those who might not think it's possible to drive less or not at all.

As TransForm's Susanna Handow noted, the "walk-bike-transit-athon" was a real inspiration last year for participants and they expect a larger pool of challengers this year. Beyond a week of reduced driving, said Handow, they hope the event inspires year-long changes to habits that encourage better health and a lower carbon footprint. We'll be tracking the stories and highlighting some of them on Streetsblog. Hopefully you'll be among them.

Whether you're a transportation geek or just curious about the psychology and behavior of drivers, Tom Vanderbilt's "Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)" is one of the most fascinating books you can pick up.

Tom sat down recently for an hour conversation with OpenPlans founder Mark Gorton about his vast research into the world of car and driver. The chat - which we think we've edited down to an entertaining ten minutes -  covered topics as diverse as an Invisible Gorilla to intense DriveCam footage of automobile crashes to H.W. Heinrich's Industrial Accident Pyramid. From texting-while-driving to noise-canceling technology, Tom gives us the skinny on everything traffic.

Tom also writes the very popular blog How We Drive.

Image: MTC

The report rightly points to endemic land-use and auto-centric development problems in the Bay Area that make transit less attractive for many than driving: "The Bay Area's transit system operates under the difficult combination of unpredictable revenue sources and unsustainable cost structure on the one hand, and underpriced auto alternatives and insufficiently transit-supportive land uses on the other."

One of the more troubling aspects of the report, as KALW's Nathanael Johnson wrote on the Bay Area Transit blog, is that the picture is only going to get worse without a significant change in course. Operators have already cut service and raised fares, but new capital costs will add additional burden and farebox recovery rates aren't going up.

The report also contends that transit operators have fallen short in performance. Since 1997, after adjusting for inflation, transit costs in the Bay Area have increased by 52 percent, while revenue hours of service increased by only 16 percent and ridership increased by only 7 percent.

"That is a terrible return on our regions' transit investment and it should cause us to think long and hard before committing future funds to such a low-yield strategy," the report concludes.

The report compares Bay Area transit systems to a patient with chronic illness, and the most recent two-year difficulties as a spike in the fever: "When the fever passes, this patient will not be restored to good health. Unless fundamental changes are made, the underlying, chronic conditions will reappear, and all energies will be channeled into the struggle to cope, with no real hope of thriving."

While the report is negative and cautionary, the MTC states rightly that while the current system is unsustainable, it is not "on a path of irreversible decline" and transit is vital to the health of the region's economy.

Furthermore, the growing imperative to combat climate change, according to the report, "means that our growing population must learn to drive less -- and to take transit more often."

"Both have pointed the way to a more rational system," according to the report.

Though the report's authors acknowledge they "have more questions than answers as to how the region's transit system can be repositioned to achieve higher levels of efficiency and service effectiveness," they make repeated reference to a solution that has come up numerous times at recent MTC meetings: Consolidate some of the 28 transit agencies that currently operate in the Bay Area with the goal of attaining efficiencies and reducing redundant service.

Without a transition from the current unsustainable course of action, the report says, "we will fall short of the resources our regional transit system needs by a cool $1 billion a year over the next quarter-century."

Last year, 11.9 percent of all trips were on foot or by bike, while 4.2 percent of trips were on transit. Both figures signify major increases.

The National Household Travel Survey, the source of the new stats, is the gold-standard for transportation data. As Mobilizing the Region reported, while the Census only tracks how people get to work, the NHTS gathers data on all trips taken. It also distinguishes between, say, driving to a park-and-ride bus area and walking to the local bus stop.

The downside to the NHTS is how infrequently the survey is conducted, which makes it difficult to determine how much the 2009 data reflects a larger trend, and how much may be due to temporary changes brought on by fluctuating gas prices and the recession.

Disney's Magic Highway USA is one of the more extraordinary examples of the myopic devotion to automobility and its infrastructure I've ever seen. It's probably also required viewing at the Reason Foundation and among Senator James Inhofe's staff in Washington DC.

"As in the past, the highway will continue to play a vital role in the progress of civilization," the narrator tells us. "It will be our magic carpet to new hopes, new dreams, and a better way of life for the future."

If you don't have nine minutes to watch, I can tell you it proffers some choice gender-role limitations characteristic of the era and it predicts some of the more deleterious development patterns that would result from the completion of the Interstate Highway system, which had begun only two years before the film aired in 1958. Rather than the Le Corbusier-inspired decentralized urban centers depicted lovingly in the film, we've got Atlanta and Phoenix.

Magic Highway USA also predicts that highways of the future will automatically light up the roads at night and radiant heat in the asphalt will keep the surfaces dry through ice and snow. "When visibility is poor, our windshields become a radar screen," says the narrator. "Fog may be eliminated by 'dispelling devises' along the right-of-way."

And how about "preserving the beauty and candor of mountain travel" with the cantilevered roadways stapled to the side of Monument Valley sandstone monoliths?

The only mention of walking in this unfortunately familiar dystopia is a snide joke, when the narrator quips: "From his private parking space, Father will probably have to walk to his desk."

The animated film was directed by Ward Kimble, the Academy-Award Winning Disney animator who gave us Jiminy Cricket and many of the characters in Peter Pan and who worked on numerous Disney classics.  Ironically, Kimble was a collector of train ephemera and owned a 3-acre train track circuit on his property in San Gabriel, California, nicknamed the Grizzly Flats Railroad. He is even credited for inspiring the Disneyland Railroad at Disneyland.

Of course, with no walking or any other unnecessary physical activity, the characters in the film turn out to be far too hale and trim. The people of this future should probably look more like those from this recent Disney animated film:

H/T Matt Baume

(Photo: Portland Ground)

Ecology Action, a local non-profit, has begun offering
a program that guarantees taxi transport for non-car-owning commuters
who experience a family emergency, a personal crisis, or the premature
departure of an office carpool.

The service costs $24 per
year and has a cap of four rides annually, or $100. Ecology Action,
which also helps local businesses collaborate on shared ride insurance
for transit- or bike-riding commuters, sees potential in the new
product. From today’s San Jose Mercury News:

Coordinators
expect the insurance program to resonate with those who fear leaving
the car behind in the event they need to pick up a child unexpectedly
or deal with an unforeseen emergency.

"It’s a little more incentive not to drive," Bustos said. …

"This is a new
concept, absolutely," said Tegan Speiser, a senior transportation
planner for the Regional Transportation Commission, a partner in the
RideSurance program.

Speiser said such individual ride insurance
plans could come to play an equally viable role in commuting life as
roadside assistance plans, like AAA.

The program is now funded by grant money from the area’s air pollution control district, though its goals would make it a good match for green transportation benefits under consideration for inclusion in the Senate climate change bill.

Standing in front of union headquarters in downtown Oakland this afternoon, leadership for BART's Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1555 announced that their rank and file would walk off the job after the last trains finish their run this Sunday night, effectively shutting down BART across the Bay Area.  ATU 1555 represents train operators and station agents and is the second largest union working for BART, representing roughly 900 employees.

ATU 1555 President Jesse Hunt said that after four months of negotiating, his members turned down a contract proposal and took the members concerns to BART's negotiating team, thinking the negotiations were fruitful, so he was upset and surprised by the unanimous vote by BART's Board of Directors to impose a one-year contract on them after an executive session this morning.

"The contract that the BART Board has decided to impose is far worse than the contract that was in front of our members this week.  It's a regressive proposal that will net a seven percent pay cut as well as eliminate what is our social security to members. Regrettably, they have taken action to end negotiations."

BART Directors announced they would force the work rules on the ATU's members after an executive session this morning. 

Hunt said the other BART unions would honor the picket line and that ATU was being asked to shoulder too much burden. "The BART Board's imposition of this contract calls for cuts, only from the members of ATU,. in ways that have not been discussed at the negotiating table."

Asked why ATU rejected the contract while the two other largest unions, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1021 and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 3993, signed, Hunt said their members voted based on its unfairness.

When asked about the characterization by BART management of the unions as receiving too much overtime under the contract they sought, Hunt bristled, replying that ATU had come to the table early in the year with an offer of a wage freeze, but that BART management had rejected it.  On overtime, he said forcefully:

Overtime is our members working to ensure the trains run beyond their eight hours, beyond their twelve hours in some cases, on their weekends seven days a week.  We have employees that don't see their families very often because they're running the trains or manning the stations to ensure sure that BART maintains its 95 percent on-time rate.  That's what overtime is. We don't just show up and they have to pay us, it's to make sure the trains run on-time.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a statement calling on both sides to come back to the bargaining table and said the State Mediation & Conciliation Service, under the Department of Industrial Relations, would be standing by to facilitate negotiations and help both sides reach an agreement.

“I urge both parties to get back to the negotiating table and reach an agreement before any strikes or other job actions are taken. Both sides need to resolve their disputes and come to an agreement before taking drastic action that will have an immediate effect on the daily lives of so many Californians.”

Unless BART's Board calls for further negotiations before Sunday night, riders across the Bay Area will have to find other means to get to work. Though several riders interviewed by Streetsblog said they thought the unions received a fair salary and good benefits, a surprising number of riders were supportive of the strike, despite the difficulty it could mean for them getting to work on Monday.

"I think it's their right to organize," said Brook, a resident of Oakland, as he wheeled his bike out of the Lake Merritt station.  He said he would ride his bike to work on Monday. "Just because times are tight, management always gets to ride out hardship on the backs of the working class.  They always use this excuse to pull back benefits."

"I support them.  I support their strike," said Sharon Rose, a resident of Oakland, who said she would take the Transbay bus to work on Monday. "They shouldn't have to give away givebacks for four years.  If they're going to give any givebacks it should be for less time."

Image: transit.511.org

I'm not trying to downplay the utility and convenience of 511 Transit, but I think that's the first time I've heard "interagency cooperation" and "heroic" in the same sentence, at least for transit. Of course, it's also the first time I've heard of Government Computer News magazine.

But the site is a great utility for those of us who have regular commutes and you can find a whole lot of information for transit operators you might not be familiar with when making those non-routine trips around the Bay Area.

Tom Spiekerman, 511 Transit project manager for the MTC, said the site's recent redesign makes it “faster, smarter... and easier to use. Even the quality of the information is improved, thanks to new data collection and aggregation processes — and a lot of valuable customer feedback from website visitors. As a result the online trip planner is now among the best of its kind anywhere.”

According to the MTC, the 511 Transit page registered nearly 1.7 million individual user sessions in July 2009, a 47 percent increase over the monthly average in 2008. And the online trip planner at the 511 Transit page generated more than 1.5 million itineraries last month, compared to a monthly average of about 1.1 million in 2008.

What do you think, dear readers? How useful is 511 Transit for you and do you use the site often or prefer other outlets?

This fall, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (TA) will release a Strategic Analysis Report outlining the impacts of these shuttles, which Supervisor Bevan Dufty has called "a whole other world of transportation" outside of Muni. Margaret Cortes, a senior transportation planner with the TA, said the companies have been very cooperative during the study, which she says will be ready in September.

In the past, news coverage of the shuttles has focused on their luxuriousness, their impact on real estate values, their contributions to gentrification, and their occasional noisiness. Less dissected has been their impact on livable streets issues and sustainability. Suburban corporate campuses may be inherently unsustainable, but are heavily-used shuttles at least mitigating the problem?

According to Google spokesperson Sunny Gettinger, Google's shuttle service has allowed at least some employees to live car-free. "We definitely have people who've gone car-free, or people who never bought a car," said Gettinger. "I know folks who leave their cars down here, if they have cars, and live in the city car-free more or less, and people who've moved here from other places and not gotten cars because of the shuttle."

Though Google hasn't conducted any surveys, Gettinger said anecdotally, "there's a fair amount of people who would choose to live in the city anyway … and would then have to drive."

In total, Google shuttles over 1,600 people every day throughout the Bay Area. They do not disclose how many of those riders are in San Francisco specifically. Apple estimates that its various shuttle, transit subsidy and carpool programs have taken the equivalent of 4,500 cars off the road, according to its 2008 Environmental Update, part of its Facilities Report (off-site PDF.) Further statistics from other companies that provide shuttles, such as Yahoo, Apple, and Genentech, will be available as part of the study.

The Google Maps icon on the iPhone home screen is a subtle reminder that Apple's headquarters are located just off I-280, over three miles from the nearest Caltrain station. Apple offers its employees direct shuttles from San Francisco. Flickr photo: bindermichi

"I think people are generally supportive of the shuttles. It's got to be done right," said Rosen. "They don't just have carte blanche. Like any other form of transit, they've got to work to be low-impact. You know, we have to keep after Muni on some things."

Like Muni, the shuttles have the potential to bring more people to the neighborhood without increasing private auto congestion. "It's keeping cars off the street. Whenever you put a bunch of people on a bus, rather than an individual car, that's a good thing," said Rosen. "It's making it nice and convenient for people to live in Noe Valley and be able to commute down the Peninsula, rather than having to live down there. We'd rather have them in our community and being vital and interested members of the community. We believe in transit. We believe in cars too, you know. The less cars on the street, the better."

Rosen said Upper Noe Neighbors and other neighborhood groups got a presentation from the TA and Google, Apple, Yahoo, and Genentech on the study, and the companies have been responsive to concerns about things like idling and speeding.

Amandeep Jawa, an Apple employee since 2002 and a transit activist, says he used to bike to Caltrain to get to work, but reluctantly switched to the shuttles about a year ago. "A lot of people who were driving are now taking the shuttle," said Jawa. "The shuttles are doing pretty well with picking up people who were driving otherwise."

For his part, Dufty said he's concerned about whether companies use vehicles appropriate for the neighborhood, but ultimately welcomes the service.

"For these private shuttles, the driver is the cost," Dufty said. "One of the things I want to understand is, are these companies, both the companies hiring the bus services, and the bus services themselves, making the best choices in terms of the equipment that they're using, because it's fungible between having a Gary Bauer Greyhound limo versus something that's smaller that might have a little less of a neighborhood impact."

Dufty said the shuttles have become a part of the neighborhood fabric in ways that commuters who drive to work outside the city sometimes don't. "There used to be a complaint, 'All these people live in these live/works and they just get in their car and they go out,'" said Dufty. "No, this is a better choice that people are making, and it's a more part-of-the-neighborhood-fabric choice that they're making to participate in a shuttle service."

Another question the study could touch on is whether the employee shuttles are siphoning riders from Muni and Caltrain. Muni has not historically catered to Caltrain riders commuting out of the city in the morning and back at night, and for now, Caltrain is nearing peak capacity during rush hour commutes. But with the eventual electrification of the Caltrain line, it should be able to run more trains and carry more passengers.

Jawa, who now rides the Apple shuttle daily, said public transit riders are more likely to stand up for Muni and Caltrain, but private shuttle users are still taking a step in the right direction.

For transit riders, Jawa said, "there's a more natural pull for them to become advocates for that transit, because they have a stake in it. Whereas people who ride Apple shuttles, the thing they have a stake in is Apple's shuttles."

"I do think disengaging people from cars does actually help, either if it's on a private shuttle, just getting used to the idea that, 'you know what, I don't drive to work, and my life is such less hassle.'"

Alternatively, big tech companies could go with the Manhattan model of prestige, and buy or build towers downtown. "I would welcome some more companies like this" in the city, Dufty said. "But it just seems there is a certain synergy people have being in Silicon Valley, and there's not much I can do about it."

Not only does BART provide the data readily to the public, it encourages competition among third-party software developers to improve the applications they develop by listing all the applications that have been devoloped on bart.gov/apps.

Comparing BART to the MTA or other systems is not completely fair because BART's system is relatively small and simple, with only 43 stations across its lines, and each of its trains is equipped with automatic vehicle location (AVL) technology so they can be monitored anywhere in the system. MTA and other transit operators, whose buses, trolleys, and light rail vehicles don't necessarily come with GPS or AVL technology, must contract with a vendor to install AVL technology and obtain the data.

MTA signed a contract with NextBus in 2002 to install AVL technology and provide real-time data for where buses are in the system, or what has become NextMuni. MTA is in the process of renewing its contract with NextBus and MTA spokesperson Judson True would not elaborate on any specifics of the deal, though he was adamant that the MTA, as a public entity, has the right to release its AVL data to the public.

"We own the AVL data, we've been clear about that question," said True. "We know there is a strong city commitment to open data, and we want to be a leader in open data. We should be. We have a very tech savvy customer base and a lot of people around here who have great ideas for how to use that data."

The primary sticking point, from my own analysis of a portion of the contract, seems to be whether the MTA uses the AVL data commercially or not [lawyers and wonks, please: PDF]. In this document, the MTA claims the right to its own AVL data, specifically: "Muni retains the right to share said data at no cost with other of the government agencies, public transportation providers, and not-for-profit agencies."

No matter how the issue for MTA is resolved, it's clear that third-party developers would prefer as much transparency as possible. One of the largest of those is Google Transit, a division of Google, which currently uses only static schedule information in its Google Maps and Google Maps for mobile applications. Joe Hughes, a software engineer for Google Maps for mobile wouldn't discuss Google's plans for real-time software development, but said that the public benefit from open data is indisputable.

"When a transit agency unlocks huge amounts of data, and people start to use it, it's like an unofficial public private partnership," said Hughes, who also believed the standardization of the data into a format like the Google Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) was important as more operators try to become transparent with their data.

"It was always one of our goals, that as a side effect of adding public transportation data to Google Maps, it would help improve data quality. By standardizing the format it makes it easier for other people to use the data."

Hughes, who runs the Headway blog, a wiki, and a transit developers listserv that are unaffiliated with Google but are ground zero for developers, said BART and Tri-Met were the standard-bearers of data transparency and that he hoped others would follow suit.

"Real time data is extremely compelling and can make the difference between sitting in the freezing cold or in the hot sun or waiting in your comfortable home for the bus to arrive. It was a pleasant surprise to see that [BART] posted GTFS information before they even started working with Google. They were being very proactive with that."

BART's Moore wouldn't say much on the MTA and NBIS issue, though he reiterated several times that it benefits from the free data that BART provides and uses it in their predictive service, a point which he brought up with the chief of NBIS, though they made no effort to reciprocate.

"I don't want to burn any bridges with NBIS, but they are using BART's free and open real-time data feed in their pay-per view mobile site.  It's one of their selling points."

No matter what the outcome, Moore suggested the MTA and other agencies should release AVL data to the public for at least a couple of lines to see what open-sourcing would do for applications for mobile devices.

"What I'd like to see is some visionary transit agency out there let out an AVL feed for one or two bus lines and encourage the development community to take on the predictive software side of this problem. At the very least it could create some competition and at best it might create another option for the agency."

Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) attached his green-housing legislation to the recently passed House climate bill. (Photo: AP)

Enter a bipartisan group of lawmakers, led by Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO), who successfully attached their green housing legislation to the climate bill that recently cleared the House. Perlmutter and his co-sponsors took a victory lap of sorts today at the Library of Congress as a Senate counterpart to their plan was officially unveiled by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).

The green housing measure aims to promote sustainable development through several channels. Transit-oriented development gets a substantial nod via location-efficient mortgages (LEMs), a brainchild of Fannie Mae that offers to count transportation savings as part of a homeowner's income when approving a loan. LEMs, therefore, help make transit access easier for first-time, urban, and lower-income buyers.

People who take out LEMs have a lower-than-average risk of default, Perlmutter said today, "because they have better control over costs."

His legislation would ask the Federal Housing Administration to insure 50,000 LEMs and energy-efficient mortgages, or EEMs, (in which energy savings can help offset homeowners' income) by 2012. The bill also requires Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to work on underwriting standards that would help make LEMs and EEMs more commonplace.

"Too many Americans are forced to drive until they qualify, to buy homes further and further from their jobs -- the result is more congestion, more emissions from cars, and more sprawl," said American Institute of Architects CEO Christine McEntee, a longtime backer of the bill.

Other provisions in the legislation reflect an ethos of empowering renters and homeowners alike to avoid over-consumption.

To help put solar panels and other clean energy generators within reach for everyone, the bill would set up a program to expedite five-year leases of equipment and offer government-insured loans for homeowners to purchase their energy generators when those leases expire.

To help low-income residents save money by weatherizing and retrofitting their homes, the bill would create an energy-efficiency block grant program modeled on HUD's successful community development block grants.

The biggest hurdle the bill faces is the same one confronting the Senate's broader climate legislation: an all-but-certain GOP filibuster threat that could pull off enough coal-state Democrats to sink the effort for good.

Photo by George Donnelly, via Flickr

While these temporary solutions will balance the spreadsheets for this year, the state's commitment to transit operations for the next five years will be a pittance and operators will continue to suffer.  Unless advocates can get on the same page and build a comprehensive coalition to call for more funding, elected officials like Governor Schwarzenegger will get away with pitching themselves as green politicians and then sabotaging one of the best ways to make our mobility more sustainable.

Unfortunately, advocates are not unified in their call for a commitment to transit.  Several hundred people have turned out at meetings about funding cuts, but those same numbers have not made it to Sacramento to lobby legislators for an affirmative change. Some of the groups will be spending their resources lobbying Washington for changes to the transportation act rather than dealing with the troubled situation at the state level.

"For me, part of it will be where the biggest opportunities are for organizing. There is some possibility for major transitions at the federal level," said CALPIRG's Emily Rusch, cautioning that transit constituency wasn't strong enough at the state level. "It will take some time before we can find more money from legislators or at the ballot."

Despite President Obama's apparent predilection for rail and some good rhetoric about the need to synchronize land use and transportation policy at a regional level, states are spending stimulus money on highway expansion.  Upending the status quo in Washington on transportation will be a monumental task. 

USDOT Secretary Ray LaHood said recently that the feds are in the business of funding capital and expansion projects, but not transit operations, which he characterized as a local issue.  Senator Barbara Boxer, who heads the Environment and Public Works Committee and will write the lion's share of the transportation act, was reported to support an amendment to the stimulus package that would have given highways an additional $50 billion.  Even Boxer's website is shameful, with Senator and global warming denier James Inhofe's specious global warming rants occupying space alongside an apparent environmentalist California Democrat.

If Transportation for America and other transit and environmental groups cannot get the federal government to make a sea change in its formula funding, Sacramento will be one of the last hopes to prevent further fare increases and service cuts.

TransForm recently opened an office in Sacramento with the goal of developing a transit funding coalition, which at the time of this writing has nearly one hundred members.  It's not clear how many of those groups signed on will do the heaving lifting when many of them have other issues that require general fund money.

Transform's Nick Caston sees the elimination of the STA as a blessing in disguise, asserting, "One of the few advantages for getting zeroed out is that we can start from scratch to come up with a better model. The STA was always considered "spillover" funding. Our target is a sustainable and predictable form of transportation funding."

Caston said that Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg had discussed setting up a select committee or task force in the upper house to identify a new source of transit funding.

A Sacramento source close to the negotiations, however, said that a transit funding select committee wouldn't get traction before the budget discussions this summer and even if it did afterward it would have trouble competing with other interests:

You can't discuss this at the state level without discussing it in the context of the general fund.  We have a tremendous problem with the State General Fund.  That's one of the issues the state transit advocates understand and have a hard time coming to terms with.  They're going up against public employee unions, prison guards, SEIU, etc.

While it should make sense to legislators that they won't meet the obligations set out in the AB 32 global warming and SB 375 anti-sprawl legislation recently passed if they continue to incentivize driving, none has come out in public linking transit funding to the state's purported environmental objectives.  Those politicians who suggest they are "green" by supporting alternative fuel or electric vehicles, but don't make a real commitment to transit are disingenuous at best.

"It's impossible to address a green agenda without funding transit operations," said Caston.