Streetsblog San Francisco

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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The Senate Transportation Committee met earlier this week to consider AB 744, a bill that would authorize the MTC to convert carpool lanes to toll “express lanes” and use the revenue to expand the regional carpool and bus express lane network. To its critics, the plan is the last gasp of suburban highway expansion. To its proponents, it’s the beginning of road pricing and a substantial enhancement for regional transit.

The bill would allow the MTC to charge a toll for single occupancy vehicles to access the 500 miles of existing carpool lanes and use the revenue generated to build 300 miles of new carpool lanes on suburban freeways. The Sierra Club and most other environmentalists support the conversion of existing HOV lanes to HOV/toll lanes, as long as fast speeds in the carpool lanes are preserved and the funding generated is used for transit, as is the case with the lanes currently in operation in Santa Clara and Alameda Counties. It’s the creation of 300 miles of new highway lanes where urbanists and environmentalists object to the MTC’s plans.

“There are some environmentalists for whom the outcome they’re seeking is not to have the network at all, and that’s unfortunate,” said Randy Rentschler, Legislation and Public Affairs Director for the MTC. Rentschler says the network will provide connectivity in the express lane that will provide “significant benefit to public transit,” especially the important kinds of transit that city residents such as San Franciscans might not appreciate: vanpools, corporate shuttles, and regional express buses.

Urbanists counter that the plan only contemplates express lanes on suburban highways. Creating express lanes close to San Francisco or Oakland would require converting existing multi-purpose lanes to express lanes, something MTC staff assumes is politically impossible. That assumption was buttressed by an amendment to AB 744 offered by Senator Joe Simitian and “accepted” by the MTC expressly prohibiting the MTC from converting existing multi-purpose lanes to tolled express/carpool lanes. If, as planned, the express lanes will stop at the edge of urban Oakland and San Francisco and the revenue generated from those lanes stays in the corridor where it’s generated, urbanists contend the network will induce sprawl by improving suburban freeway efficiency and throughput while urban areas get no funding, just more traffic.

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