Supervisor Mark Farrell. Photo: Jennifer Low/Flickr

The committee was expected to approve recommendation of the proposal today, sending it to the full board for a vote next Tuesday. However, Farrell said that it was “absolutely inappropriate” for him vote on it today without feeling adequately informed, and that he still wouldn’t be ready in a week. Although the proposal received unanimous approval from the SFMTA Board of Directors today, the SFCTA committee decided to postpone its vote until its next meeting, in one month.

Staying updated on the project, said Farrell, “is a responsibility of mine, for sure, but it’s also a responsibility of the TA [staff].”

“In my opinion, it is very appropriate and, I think, necessary for all the supervisors and commissioners who get affected by this in their districts to be fully briefed on this before we’re asked to vote on any portion of this, even if it might be non-binding,” he said.

The Van Ness BRT design proposal would preserve the center median while allowing the use of right-door buses. Image: SFCTA

The proposal, widely praised by officials and advocates for combining the best features of two design alternatives, was publicly announced on April 27. Responding to Farrell’s complaints, SFCTA Deputy Director of Planning Tilly Chang said agency staff offered to brief the board members at their previous meeting on April 24. “Some did take us up, and some didn’t take us up,” she said.

She also noted that the project “has been out there” in the media, and staff made a presentation on the proposal to the committee today which they’ve given to neighborhood groups and at other public meetings. Today’s committee meeting agenda also included a report [PDF] on the design proposal and a memo [PDF], dated last Thursday, which provides background information.

Postponing the vote could potentially set the entire project back a month, as Chang said agency staff needs board approval before completing the remaining analysis needed on the proposal. She said the vote would not bind the agency to the design.

The project, currently expected to be completed by fall 2016, has seen numerous delays since it was first conceived in 2004. “The Federal Transit Administration, in particular, is very keen for us to essentially catch up, as we are behind on our schedule,” said Chang. “However, they do understand the need for a strong local process.”

Image via TransForm

Bus rapid transit (BRT) between Oakland and San Leandro in the East Bay cleared a major hurdle this week after AC Transit unanimously approved the project’s environmental impact report. Agreements with the cities of Oakland and San Leandro must still be finalized in June before the project can officially break ground.

“This plan represents a big step in making bus service significantly better in the East Bay,” said Marta Lindsey, communications director for TransForm. “But it’s also a big step for the entire Bay Area, as it will showcase what’s possible: faster, more reliable, and more frequent buses – plus a better experience for riders all-around and at an incredible value.”

Marta noted that East Bay BRT has the highest cost-efficiency rating from the Federal Transit Administration of any public transportation project in the nation currently competing for federal funds.

The full Oakland-to-Berkeley corridor won’t get true BRT after merchants in Berkeley complained about losing car parking to dedicated bus lanes. But this section will bring substantial benefits on its own: 22 community organizations have signed a letter [PDF] cheering the estimated 39 percent improvement in travel times, 300+ jobs, and transit-oriented growth the project is expected to bring along the International Boulevard corridor.

Photo: TransForm/Flickr

Members of a broad coalition hailing from throughout California are headed to Sacramento next week to push policymakers to save transit funding and enact sustainable transportation planning reforms.

The Oakland-based transit advocacy group TransForm has amassed about 150 advocates to descend on the capitol for its two-day Transportation Choices Summit, the first known event of its kind, where they will meet with state representatives and urge them to prioritize walking, bicycling, and transit.

TransForm State Policy Director Graham Brownstein said the action came out of the organization’s Invest in Transit campaign, launched last year to address the “very, very serious crisis” facing transit systems in California. The state has made dramatic funding cuts totaling more than $4 billion over the last decade, and TransForm recognized the immediate need for “creative policy reforms that will stabilize, and then grow transit funding in California,” said Brownstein.

The cornerstone of the campaign is a push to ensure that a major portion of the revenue from California’s nascent cap-and-trade program will be dedicated to transit operations and affordable housing projects located near transit.

The cap-and-trade revenue could go a long way toward restoring the damage done to transit funding under the Schwarzenegger administration. By selling emissions permits, Governor Jerry Brown’s administration anticipates the cap-and-trade program will generate $1 billion in the 2012-2013 budget and $10 billion annually by 2020, according to TransForm [PDF].

Brownstein said transit agencies need all the help they can get to avert a much deeper statewide crisis.

“Piecemeal, at this point, isn’t going to cut it,” he said. “We’re looking at just billions of dollars that are needed really pretty rapidly, or else you run into a situation where some of these systems that have not had proper maintenance and rehab for years start to really not function, and it becomes much more expensive, and it’s not just a repair, but a replacement kind of an issue.”

TransForm’s proposal is targeted to help the state meet its air quality goals, particularly for disadvantaged communities, as mandated by AB 32, passed by the state legislature in 2006. The goal, said Brownstein, is to combine “the investments in transit infrastructure and operations with transit-oriented development in the right places so that you’re maximizing the drop in people driving their cars, maximizing the increase in the ability of people to take transit, walk, and bike, and therefore you’re maximizing the greenhouse gas reductions, which cap-and-trade is all about, ultimately.”

He also pointed out that investing in transit options benefits low-income communities the most. “You’re maximizing the benefits that accrue to people in this state who are suffering the most because of our over-reliance on cars. They’re suffering because of the hit to their pocketbook, they’re suffering because if they’re low-income they’re much more likely to live next to a freeway or near a port or other facility where lots of polluting motor vehicles are located.”

The coalition will also push for reforms in how the state plans and funds transportation projects, “all of which aim to either increase funding for transit, bike, and pedestrian facilities, consider health and equity impacts as they’re making transportation planning decisions, create some new tools for local governments to have financing to support needed infrastructure and housing investments,” said Brownstein.

The coalition amassed by TransForm has grown to represent “not just the usual do-gooders,” he said, but also local governments and transit agencies, business and labor, affordable housing proponents, and disability advocates. The campaign coalesced to ”stitch these interests together.”

“This has become much bigger than about transit and housing,” said Brownstein. “It’s now really about integration of the various modes of transportation — transit, bike, ped, and cars — and the ways in which we coordinate, or fail to coordinate, transportation and land-use planning to maximize the benefits of these investments.”

The Transportation Choices Summit will take place in Sacramento next Tuesday and Wednesday, May 1 and 2. Registration for the event is still open, and you can also sign a petition to show your support.

A Transit Score map of Seattle, the nation's 7th-most transit-friendly major city according to new rankings. The city is buoyed by its dense urban core, where many transit lines converge. Image: Walk Score

Today, Walk Score — developers of the popular method for evaluating neighborhood walkability (and filling out NCAA tournament brackets) — announced its first ranking of cities by Transit Score, a measure of the “usefulness” of a city’s transit system. On a 100-point scale, New York and San Francisco took the top two spots with scores of 81 and 80 respectively, while Boston (74), Washington D.C. (69), and Philadelphia (68) round out the top five (see the full rankings).

Walk Score CEO Josh Herst believes this is an important time to begin evaluating cities in terms of transit, and all the Americans who rode transit 10.4 billion times in 2011 would likely agree with him. “Heading to the gas pump this season is about as much fun as getting a root canal,” Herst said in the official release [PDF]. “With gas prices expected to hit new highs, more people are riding transit, walking and biking to save money. And being able to leave your car at home more often is great for your wallet, your waistline and the environment.”

The company generates Transit Scores using data provided by transit agencies, and takes into account the number of nearby transit routes (weighted differently by mode), how often those routes run, and how far away the stations are from any given point. A city’s score is based on a population-weighted average of all individual point scores. For an excellent discussion of the Transit Score methodology, check out this exchange between transit expert Jarrett Walker and Walk Score’s Matt Lerner from early 2011.

Overall, it’s fair to say that few American cities score well on the system. Of the 25 largest cities that make their transit data available to the public, only ten topped a Transit Score of 50, which is the lowest score qualifying as “good transit,” described as “many transit options nearby.” Most (14) fall into the “some transit” bracket, and the 25th-highest Transit Score among the cities evaluated — Raleigh, NC — is a 23, the upper end of “minimal transit.”

The scale is non-linear; that is, raising a city’s Transit Score from 70 to 80 would take much more work than raising it from 60 to 70. Because of the population weighting, the more people who live in a city, the harder it is to raise the score: As the Walk Score website explains, one additional bus route means a lot more for a small town than it would for a big city.

Furthermore, rail transit (including subways and light rail) is weighted at twice the value of a bus route, with ferries, cable cars, and other modes splitting the difference between the two. These numbers weren’t pulled out of thin air — they reflect research that shows a range of effects of different transit modes on the value of surrounding land.

Because of this, Transit Scores will tend to be higher in the center of cities where multiple rail lines converge, but where residential population may not be at its densest. It’s not hard to see how development near rail stations could make or break a city’s Transit Score.

No doubt, Transit Score is a useful way to compare different neighborhoods within a city, and now entire cities as a whole. However, it primarily reflects how easy it is to get to transit, rather than where you can go and what you can do with transit once you’re on it.

Stockton Street. Photo: geekstinkbreath/Flickr

Before you head off to one of the SFMTA’s ten public workshops on how to make your Muni route faster and more reliable, first you can take a peek at the proposed plans on the agency’s website.

The SFMTA’s Transit Effectiveness Project (TEP) web page now features a route-by-route summary of the proposals tailored to each of its eight priority “rapid” lines: the 28-19th Avenue, the N-Judah, the 30-Stockton, the 8x-Bayshore Express, the J-Church, the 14-Mission, the 5-Fulton, and the 22-Fillmore. Although the website doesn’t provide maps or detailed designs, it features a rough look at the street changes proposed for each line, including new transit-only lanes, extending transit bulbs and boarding islands, moving stops across intersections, removing stop signs or adding transit-priority traffic signals, increasing stop spacing, and widening narrow lanes to fit buses.

If you want to see Muni move more efficiently, it’s especially important to show up and support proposals to increase stop spacing to speed up trips (or, in other words, remove stops). At the first of these TEP workshops, which focused on the 28 and N-Judah lines, attendees generally voiced mixed feelings about removing stops, according to agency staff.

Overall, the idea of setting stops farther apart is popular: A 2010 survey found that 61 percent of riders would consider walking longer distances if it would speed up their trip. And once stop spacing is optimized and riders can experience the difference, the changes seem to be appreciated. SFMTA staff said the agency has received mostly positive feedback from riders on the 28-Limited line after the agency removed several stops last fall.

Seventy percent of Muni stops are closer than Muni’s own guidelines call for, according to the SFMTA. With stops as frequent as one (or more) per block, it’s a top complaint among riders. In a 2010 Streetfilm, SFMTA TEP Project Manager Julie Kirschbaum explained that “over time, bus stops have sort of creeped in for various reasons” in “places that aren’t necessarily optimal.”

The SFMTA also held a workshop last weekend on the 8x and 30 lines in Chinatown and will hold two more this week. Tonight’s workshop will focus on the J-Church and 14-Mission (south of Cesar Chavez), and tomorrow’s will look at the 22-Fillmore and 14-Mission (in the Inner Mission). The final workshop on May 5 will address all of the proposals.

See the entire schedule of workshops on the TEP website. You can also weigh in on an online poll.

Brian Stokle's map envisions how the Bay Area region could possibly be connected by future transit projects -- some planned, some only envisioned -- including high-speed rail, BART extensions, and BRT lines. Image via The Atlantic Cities

Imagine the freedom of being able to hop on a nearby train or bus to reach virtually any place in the Bay Area (and beyond) on an integrated network of reliable transit.

That’s the vision cartographer Brian Stokle sought to lay out in a map featured in the latest issue of SPUR‘s monthly magazine, The Urbanist. In a recent article in The Atlantic Cities, Urbanist editor Allison Arieff says that the map, along with another map of existing regional transit that Stokle created, “have generated a lot of conversation (and some controversy) — which is exactly what they were meant to do”:

The majority of the projects, routes, and modes shown in Stokle’s proposed “Future” map (or some might argue, “Utopian”) reflect current Bay Area planning. However in some cases, the mode or route has been changed. In other instances, some new routes have been suggested. For example, BART to Livermore and Dumbarton Rail are two projects that are not included in this map. Instead, access to Livermore from BART is provided by bus rapid transit, and the Dumbarton corridor is served by rapid bus service. New projects that are not currently part of planning, or are in their early phases include projects like the Oakland Emeryville streetcar down Broadway, Capitol Corridor crossing at Vallejo, and 101 Rapid in the Peninsula.

Some ideas are old, some more novel. In San Francisco, the controversial Central Subway (now under construction) is shown extending all the way to Lombard and Van Ness to meet the coming BRT line, which is also extended to connect the Transbay Terminal to Marin County via the Golden Gate Bridge (where a BART line was fought off in the 60′s).

What would it take to bring a comprehensive vision like this into reality, and which projects could be feasibly built? Regional planners are currently figuring that out as they develop the Bay Area’s 25-year Sustainable Communities Strategy and Regional Transportation Plan. Next month, staff from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the Bay Area’s transportation financing agency, will present a list of the transit projects they determine to be the most beneficial and cost-effective to build in the coming years. Stay tuned to Streetsblog for more on that.

In the meantime, check out Stokle’s map of the existing regional transit network — one of SPUR’s ideas for saving transit – after the break.

Stokle's regional map of existing transit systems. Image via The Atlantic Cities

For some more wonky urban planning treats, head over to Stokle’s blog Urban Life Signs to check out his other creations, like illustrations of Valencia Street’s various incarnations over the past 129 years.

A new articulated Metrobús sits in front of Mexico City's Monumento a la Revolucion. Photo: Noah Kazis

This is the second in a series of reports about sustainable transportation policies in Mexico City. Last week, Streetsblog participated in a tour of the city led by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. A previous installment covered pedestrian improvements in the city and a third will discuss its bicycle planning.

After a precipitous collapse, buses are on the rebound in Mexico City.

When the city’s public bus system fell apart during the political and economic turmoil of the 80s and 90s, Mexico City residents were left to rely on a fleet of private microbuses that was extensive but slow, dangerous, and heavily polluting. Now, the city is quickly building out a bus rapid transit system called Metrobús that’s making surface transit fast, safe, and healthy. “It’s the most important initiative in the city in the last 25 years,” says Mayor Marcelo Ebrard.

On the Avenida de Insurgentes, where the first Metrobús line opened in 2006, the distinctive red buses pass by in continuous streams, even when it’s not rush hour. At midday, the gap between one bus and the next was rarely longer than the time it takes to load and unload passengers at the previous station or to wait at a red light. Each bus was full. Clearly, demand is high, perhaps higher than the system can handle.

A bus pulls up to the elevated station in a dedicated lane. Another bus followed immediately behind this one. Photo: Noah Kazis

Each of the three Metrobús lines offers a full set of bus rapid transit features. Riders cross to the median of a wide avenue, where buses run in each direction on physically separated lanes. A ramp leads up to an enclosed station, where you tap a smart card against the turnstile to enter.

Once the bus arrives, its wide doors open down the length of the vehicle, passengers quickly exit and enter, and the bus pulls away. The long, straight avenue and stations in the median mean the driver rarely has to even turn the wheel; it’s a very smooth trip for a bus.

On most lines, bus rapid transit cut travel times in half compared to private microbuses. Image: Metrobús

The results speak both to the efficiency of the operation and the chaos that generally reigns on Mexico City streets. On Insurgentes, giving three lanes of traffic to Metrobús operations actually improved speeds for both transit and private automobiles. Speeds rose from an average of only 12 kilometers per hour for mixed traffic to 17 kph for cars and 20 kph for buses, according to Metrobús official Gonzalo Garcia Miaja. A trip down the full 30 kilometer corridor used to take 140 minutes. Now, it takes only 85 — and Insurgentes saw the smallest improvement in travel times of any Metrobus line. Property values are up along the route, according to Walter Hook, the CEO of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy.

A centralized microbus station near Mexico City's Bosque Chapultepec. Most microbuses pick up passengers who hail them along the street. Photo: Noah Kazis

The trick was taking the private microbuses, which snarl traffic by darting back and forth across the street in search of one more fare, off the road. With all buses sticking to one lane, traffic moves more smoothly for everyone. It also moves more safely. “The microbus rides like he wants,” said Miaja. “They are literally killing themselves to get more passengers.” Traffic crashes and injuries are down significantly along Metrobús corridors, he said, though they’re far from zero.

Between the 1980s and 1990s, mode share for high-capacity buses plummeted, while microbuses filled the gap. One year after the first Metrobús line opened, the new bus rapid transit system was started to bring back good bus service. Image: Metrobús

The ubiquity of microbuses on Mexico City streets dates back to the mid-1980s. Before then, the city had a publicly run system of buses. Buffeted on one side by a left-wing union that sided with the Zapatista uprising of 1994 and on the other by the wave of privatization that swept through the country under President Carlos Salinas, the system fell apart. In 1986, 42 percent of trips in Mexico City took place on a high-capacity bus; by 1994, that number had plummeted to just 10 percent. Microbuses picked up all the slack and more.

Moving from microbus to Metrobús has also proved important for air quality, a critical issue in a city that had some of the worst smog in the world. According to Miaja, the newest models being put out on the street by Metrobús are 95 percent cleaner than buses being sold in 1993, the year the very newest microbuses on the road were produced.

Air pollution is easing up in Mexico City now, thanks not only to better transportation options but improved automotive technologies, heavy industry’s departure from the city, and tough policies like Hoy No Circula, which forbids each car to drive one day a week. The ring of mountains that surround Mexico City are still cloaked in a grey-blue haze, but the heavy, eye-stinging smog that many travelers remember is, increasingly, a thing of the past.

A map of the Metrobús system, including the fourth line set to open this year.

Even with extensive infrastructure, however, the system is now approaching its limits. The Insurgentes line is essentially at capacity; though Mayor Ebrard announced the addition of some newer, larger buses for the system just last week, the only way to significantly add service along the route, according to ITDP’s Annie Weinstock, would be to build new passing lanes in each direction, allowing express service.

When the fourth Metrobús line opens this year, the city expects to have 201 million passengers riding the system a year. The ridership is enormous but adds up to less than three of Mexico City’s eleven subway lines.

The constraints inherent in surface transit are clear. The buses must wait at red lights to allow traffic and pedestrians to cross the street, slowing trips. “You can’t do transit signal priority,” said Weinstock, referring to systems which extend green lights for approaching buses. “You would never have cross traffic.” At one point on our tour, a street protest blocked the Metrobús line in one direction; our group was forced to walk.

Mexico City's extensive subway system is also expanding, with a twelfth line opening this year. Photo: Noah Kazis

Mexico City is not standing still, continuing to expand its transit system both below ground and on the street. A twelfth subway line will open this summer, as will a fourth Metrobús line. In 2010, the city launched a new public bus service, named Ecobus for using clean fuels, which runs in mixed traffic.

Ebrard identified the relatively low cost of Metrobús operations as an advantage over further subway construction. At a five peso fare, equal to about 40 cents, the system turns an operating profit. Private operators — collectives made up of the minibus drivers who formerly drove each route — get all fare revenues, which then pay for their labor, fuel, maintenance, and most of the buses themselves, explained Miaja. The government only pays for the street and station infrastructure. In contrast, the city subsidizes its Metro system at a cost of about US$300 million a year.

The newest Metrobús line, opening this year, will have less extensive infrastructure. The two lanes on the right will be dedicated to buses, with a small bus shelter visible in a median in the street. One lane of through traffic will remain, visible in the top left. Photo: Noah Kazis

The new Metrobús line set to open will function slightly differently than the first three. Rather than offering the full bus rapid transit package, the new line will dispense with large stations and off-board fare payment while keeping the physically separated bus lanes. Because the line runs through Mexico City’s historic downtown, finding the space for the more intense infrastructure and squaring it with historic preservation laws proved unfeasible. At one point, Line 4 will run as a two-way bus mall, without any private car access. It will also improve transit access to the airport; right now, only one terminal is directly accessible from the subway.

The fourth line of the Metrobús will run just blocks away from the Calle Regina, a pedestrianized street downtown that Streetsblog described in a previous post. In both cases, street space was being used less for vehicle throughput than as unauthorized market space. “The streets were absolutely immobilized with street vendors,” said Hook. By our visit, the vendors had been cleared and construction was underway on the bus infrastructure.

On Mexico City streets, evidently, conflict isn’t only between different modes competing for scarce real estate. As important is the battle between the formal and informal sectors of the economy. Squatting vendors and private minibuses vie for street space with the customers of bricks-and-mortar merchants and systematized public transit. In clearing the first group to make way for the second, Mexico City is simultaneously improving mobility and sustainability while extending government control over new spaces.

Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, in the yellow tie, speaks aboard a new articulated bus. Photo: Noah Kazis

Even if the Metrobús business model of displacing microbus drivers and then hiring them as BRT operating companies is not applicable in most American cities, Mayor Ebrard urged United States cities to copy the technological example of Metrobús, and to have the political will to invest street space in high quality bus service.

“Perseverance. You are right,” Ebrard told his American counterparts. “You are going to have resistance, but you are going to win this battle. I guarantee it.”

Photo: torbakhopper/Flickr

Two years from now, Muni buses will have traffic signal priority at 600 intersections throughout the city, SFMTA Transit Effectiveness Project (TEP) Manager Julie Kirschbaum told the agency’s board of directors today.

The signals will speed buses along all of Muni’s priority “rapid” route network, which encompasses half of San Francisco’s roughly 1,200 signalized intersections, she said.

Transit-priority traffic signals would substantially speed up Muni trips by “allow[ing] us to extend greens and reduce the amount of time buses spend sitting at signals,” said Kirschbaum in an update on the TEP [PDF] presented to the board.

The signals, which would use GPS to hold green lights for buses and trains as they approach an intersection, will be installed using $20.3 million from the Prop B street improvements bond measure approved by voters last November. “It really is a substantial investment,” said Kirschbaum.

Although staff is currently performing environmental review and public outreach on physical street improvements recommended in the TEP, other improvements are moving ahead, like signal priority and system-wide all-door boarding, which is expected to begin on July 1.

When the rest of the TEP is implemented by 2017, said Kirschbaum, it will add other street improvements to facilitate signal priority, including colored bus-only lanes, right-turn lanes for other vehicles, and bus stops moved to the far side of intersections.

Some intersections already have transit-priority signals, but staff said they use outdated technology, and many have been poorly maintained. The new signals will also replace stop signs on some routes.

Photo: Anomalous_A/Flickr

Improving transit by changing financing, fares, speeds, metrics, territory and maps.

[Editor's note: This article is re-published with permission from the transit-themed March issue of The Urbanist, the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association's (SPUR) monthly member magazine. The article, written by SPUR Regional Planning Director Egon Terplan, is based on a discussion paper developed by the SPUR Transportation Policy Board. Read the full paper at spur.org/tsp.]

Every day, Bay Area residents and visitors take more than 1.4 million trips on one of 27 different public transit operators. But for more than a decade, the costs to operate these transit systems have been increasing far faster than any improvements in the service. Unless we make changes now, the system will not be sustainable in the future.

Regionwide, transit carries one in ten people to work. It costs more than $2.2 billion to run these 27 transit systems each year. More than $700 million comes from fares and $1.5 billion is a direct subsidy from a hodgepodge of sources (sales taxes, federal funds, state gas tax revenues). By looking out to 2035, these systems will face a combined $17 billion capital deficit and an $8 billion operating deficit.

In recent years, the costs of running these transit systems have increased far faster than inflation, even as ridership on some bus systems has declined. About 14,000 people work full time for the region’s public transit systems. Wages and fringe benefits account for more than three-quarters of the operating and maintenance costs of transit, and the cost of fringe benefits in particular is rising fast. At the same time, budget shortfalls, unpredictable revenues and service cuts are degrading the quality of public transportation. Transit systems face competition from an underpriced alternative — driving — and often operate in low-density and auto-oriented environments that are not conducive to growing ridership.

Unless there is some change to costs and revenues, with corresponding improvements in service, the viability of transit in the Bay Area is at risk. Recognizing this looming crisis, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the regional agency that funds transportation, launched the Transit Sustainability Project (TSP).

At its most basic level, the goal of the TSP is to highlight the challenges facing Bay Area transit and propose solutions. The fixes would include controlling the rapidly rising cost of running the Bay Area’s buses and trains as well as restructuring the types of service offered. In short, the Bay Area cannot remain economically competitive, nor meet its goals of cutting greenhouse gas emissions, without a transit system that does a better job of getting people where they need to go in a cost-effective and efficient manner. Much of our new investment in transit is quite simply not resulting in better service. This has to change.

SPUR interprets the key findings of the TSP report and offers six suggestions for how to save our transit system.

What Does the Transit Sustainability Project Tell Us About Bay Area Transit?

The TSP made four important findings about cost and service delivery of Bay Area transit.

• Finding 1: Costs are increasing faster than inflation

While inflation increased by 39% from 1996 to 2010, unit costs (the cost to operate a transit vehicle for one hour) grew by more than double that for Muni, SamTrans, Golden Gate and AC Transit and faster than inflation for all other major transit operators except Caltrain.

Unit costs — what it costs to operate a bus or train for one hour — are increasing at almost twice the rate of inflation for most operators (See Fig. 1). In the 14-year period from 1996 to 2010, Muni’s diesel bus unit costs increased from $92 to about $170 (an 86 percent increase). Over that time period, Muni’s trolley costs increased from $73 to $155 (a 111 percent increase). By way of comparison, the consumer price index (CPI)increased only 39 percent during this period. Among Bay Area transit operators, only Caltrain’s unit costs were lower (20 percent). Almost all of these unit cost increases are attributable to ineffective management. Among the most striking causes of cost increase are soaring pension and retirement costs, increases in health care premiums, and work rules that negatively affect productivity but do little to improve the working environment.

If costs had grown in line with inflation, Muni would now have an extra $156 million per year, AC Transit $86 million and SamTrans $30 million. These savings equate to as much as one-fifth of the entire operating budget. There is no way to maintain a viable regional transit system without greater control of this cost inflation.

• Finding 2: Increases in productivity are not sufficient to match cost increases

This chart reflects the overall trend that ridership and service are not keeping pace with costs.

Increases in unit cost are not compensated by corresponding increases in productivity (measured in total passengers, passengers per hour or passengers per mile). In fact, in many cases — passengers per hour, for example — productivity has declined. The productivity trends also reflect real and difficult decisions facing agencies. For several agencies, the rise in costs and decline in ridership reflect policy decisions to continue very slow service in neighborhoods and put little priority on suburban arterials. Overall, this results in slower services carrying fewer people per hour of service.

• Finding 3: Transit speeds are declining, which further exacerbates cost and productivity issues

As the cost to provide an hour of service has increased, the number of miles that hour can deliver (and the number of trips a bus can make in a day) has declined. Traffic congestion results in either service decreases or more costly service.

Among regional operators, Muni averages 8 miles per hour (8.6 for diesel buses and 6.6 for trolley coaches), AC Transit 10 miles per hour, SamTrans 12 and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) 14. Over the last 15 years, speeds have dropped about seven percent. If the Muni trolley coach system’s average speed increased by just one mile per hour, Muni would save about $19 million dollars annually without any service decrease, just by making the buses go faster.

Operating buses and light rail in mixed traffic means that traffic increases and congestion have very real impacts on transit speeds. And slower service means less service or significant increases in costs to maintain the same service.

If an entire bus route normally takes 40 minutes and slows to 44 minutes, it means a single operator can only make 10 one-way trips a day instead of 11. So in order to maintain the same level of service, the agency must put additional buses on the road, which increases costs. It will be difficult to either increase service or hold operating costs steady if transit speeds continue to slow.

• Finding 4: There is no single factor causing these inefficiencies in transit operations

Many parties are responsible for the inefficiency of local transit operations. Transit agencies have not done enough to control the rise in unit costs. Recent contract negotiations at AC Transit (and to a lesser extent Muni) reflect partial savings. But the agencies argue they are not likely to achieve such savings in the near term. Cities too often harm transit by not giving sufficient dedicated space in the streets for buses to operate efficiently. Finally, funding agencies select poor transit investments, which also harms transit efficiencies over time.

Six Ways to Fix Bay Area Transit

Having taken on a study of the issues with the TSP, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission should now take ownership over implementing many of the good ideas to come out of the process. The following suggestions show how to fix transit by improving funding, speeds, fares, competition, information and maps.

• 1. Change the funding of transit operations from guaranteed revenue to incentive pay for more riders

Transit operations should be funded in ways that create an incentive for adding riders, as well as for making the most cost-effective improvements. For example, if the MTC offered to pay transit operators a $1 incentive (or bounty) per new rider, an agency that increased ridership by 1 million trips in a year would get an additional $1 million from the MTC. This would encourage transit operators to consider the immediate impact on ridership when allocating service.

• 2. Establish a regional fare policy that does not penalize customers who transfer between systems

By shifting from a guaranteed funding stream to a bounty paid by the MTC, operators will have a direct financial incentive to increase ridership. Growing ridership is one of the key goals for improving Bay Area transit.

When passengers transfer between BART or Caltrain and a local bus, they almost always pay two fares (there are a few exceptions, such as free transfers from Caltrain to Muni). In general, bus systems have little financial incentive to coordinate schedules with train systems. And the rail systems have no requirement to help pay for the local bus systems, even though they are getting additional riders and fares from these bus systems. This doesn’t make sense. The Bay Area needs a regional fare policy. This is complicated but certainly possible to implement with the Clipper Card as it is rolled out to all agencies. One approach would be for regional rail agencies like BART and Caltrain to pay a bounty to the local operators who deliver passengers to their systems. For example, if a passenger takes a local bus from Martinez to the Concord BART station, BART should share some of the paid fare with County Connection, the local operator. The end result could be better service to passengers, because the local agencies will benefit if they do the right thing — like coordinate schedules, adopt reasonable transfer tariffs and extend their hours of service.

• 3. Establish a new regional capital investment program that invests in speed improvements on key transit corridors

Improving transit speed and service requires investments in things like dedicated lanes for buses, signal priority and other operational improvements. When streets are designed for auto speeds, transit suffers and costs go up. MTC is already proposing a new $30 million pilot program for prioritizing transit on existing city streets to speed service. This annual program is a good start and should be expanded.

• 4. Create a tenured, independent regional transit analysis office to collect and distribute objective information and performance metrics

Just as we have a legislative analyst in Sacramento and San Francisco, we need an independent transit analysis office to both improve the public’s comprehension of the challenges facing transit systems and provide transit operators with clearer information on how and where their particular system should improve. There is already a lot of transit information out there. But there is no office with tenure and structural improving Bay Area transit.

• 5. Allow transit operators to pick up and drop off passengers within each others’ service territories

Today, transit bus operators all have distinct service territories. These territories are monopolies to the extent that one operator cannot pick up or drop off passengers in a territory controlled by another. Operators should be able to pick up and drop off passengers in each other’s service territories. (This would, however, require changes to state law.)

• 6. Produce a single transit map for the Bay Area and move toward common branding

While merging many of the Bay Area’s transit systems is impractical and not likely to achieve significant cost savings, making the entire region feel more like a single system could achieve many of the same results. The Clipper card is one step in the right direction. Creating a single transit map for the region would be another. A further step would be to move toward common marketing and branding. This approach has been taken in Melbourne, Australia, where there are numerous transit operators but the public face of transit is a single brand: Metlink.

What’s Next for Transit?

Bay Area transit systems, while operated separately, are owned by the same shareholders: the people. That simple fact should make improving transit for its owners (i.e., its customers) a top priority. To get the Bay Area’s $1.5 billion in annual transit system investments to produce better results requires much more transparency and direct and accountable financial incentives. These are not revolutionary concepts — in fact, they are the basis of all democratic systems. The system will not get better on its own. It will start to unravel unless we make needed changes. A better and sustainable transit system for the region will make a better Bay Area.

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.

Obama announcing the American Jobs Act. Photo: SHRM

Specifically, they lay out the numbers:

• $27 billion for rebuilding roads and bridges
• $9 billion for repairing bus and rail transit systems
• $5 billion for projects selected through a competitive grant program
• $4 billion for construction of the high-speed rail network
• $2 billion to improve airport facilities
• $1 billion for a NextGen air traffic control system

It’s encouraging to see the words “upgrading” and “rebuilding” when it comes to roads, indicating that the administration might be adhering to a fix-it-first approach to transportation spending. But, as we mentioned last week, the bridge Obama highlighted recently as a prime target for jobs-bill money isn’t actually in need of repair — transportation officials just want to widen it to allow more traffic to go through faster.

Certainly, the administration has shown a desire to attack the maintenance backlog in the country, but that doesn’t guarantee that highway expansions and sprawl projects won’t get a slice of the “rebuilding” pie.

That said, it’s good to see the plan includes $5 billion for projects funded through a competitive grant program (think TIGER). And it also hits a somewhat more equitable balance between rail/transit and roads than Congressional transportation bills generally do.

The president’s plan also includes an infrastructure bank, funded with $10 billion seed money. The administration says projects will be evaluated on the basis of how badly they’re needed and how much they would help the economy.

Some have said over the last couple of weeks that the I-bank concept is in trouble after the GOP pounced on the Solyndra loan story, in which a solar company filed for bankruptcy soon after receiving half a billion dollars in government-backed loans. Experts say the infrastructure bank proposal would vet projects well and protect taxpayers from risk.

According to the 2011 Urban Mobility Report, released today by the Texas Transportation Institute, this delay cost the average D.C. driver $1,495 once you factor in lost productivity and increased trucking times. In Chicago, it’s $1,568. L.A., $1,334.

Every year, TTI puts out their Urban Mobility Report, and every year we criticize it for its autocentrism. After all, its sole measure is how fast a vehicle can speed down a given mile of roadway. Maybe your city is dense and friendly to pedestrians and bikes, so that it’s easy to glide past the automobile gridlock on your short commute to work. Or maybe transit provides an excellent and affordable alternative to traffic jams. None of that matters to TTI. If someone, somewhere, is sitting in traffic, that’s all that matters. All other measures and modes of urban mobility are ignored.

TTI doesn’t bother to figure out how much time is saved if one avoids that congestion by taking transit, but they do examine how much time transit riders save drivers by taking vehicles off the road.

How public transportation reduces delays for drivers, 2010. Source: 2011 Urban Mobility Report, via APTA.

If there were no transit, the country’s drivers would be facing an additional 796 million hours of traffic delay. (Take that, drivers who grumble when their gas tax “user fee” funds mass transit!)

“Operational treatments” like ramp metering, traffic light timing, and removing crashed vehicles from the road have become much more effective in the last 20 years but still don’t come close to the savings provided by transit, saving about 40 percent as much as transit in terms of hours of delays, fuel, and costs.

Still, in TTI’s examination of congestion relief strategies, public transportation is barely alluded to and never mentioned outright, while operational treatments get significant attention. There is a shout-out to smart growth, or “denser developments with a mix of jobs, shops and homes, so that more people can walk, bike or take transit to more, and closer, destinations.” They also suggest telework and, of course, adding capacity.

TTI warns that congestion is only as bad as it is because the economy is still sluggish. We can expect a rapid worsening of the situation when the economy rebounds – 3 more hours of delay by 2015 and 7 hours by 2020, per commuter, with costs rising from $101 billion to $133 billion, more than $900 for every commuter, and enough wasted fuel to fill more than 275,000 gasoline tanker trucks.

I guess it’s time to really get to work on expanding and improving transit service then; right, TTI?

When it comes to public transportation, residents of the city of Detroit and suburbanites live in a state of government sanctioned apartheid. They ride fully separate systems, with fully separate sets of maps and noncooperating administrations.

Can Detroit and its suburbs cooperate on a regional transit system in order to draw $300 million in federal funding for light rail? Photo: DrPenna.com

Here, urban-suburban tensions are so intense, multiple tries over decades have failed to produce a unified regional transit system. Instead, the suburbs are served by the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART) and the city of Detroit is served by the Detroit Department of Transportation.

And it’s not just a logistical nightmare for riders, it’s a major obstacle to the region’s economy. There is no regional vision for transit, because Detroit — unlike every other major city in the country — still lacks a regional transit system.

But now the federal government is stepping in to help remedy the situation and it’s holding a $300 million bargaining chip. The Federal Transit Administration recently called experts together to brainstorm ways to improve and unify Detroit’s transit system, and Crain’s Detroit reports that FTA chief Peter Rogoff has followed that event up with closed-door meetings to help bring about regional solution. Apparently, the federal government has some concerns about turning over the grant funds needed to realize Detroit’s Woodward Corridor light rail plans with the transit system in its current state.

For one, the light rail line is intended to extend beyond the city limits into some of the northern suburbs.

“[An RTA] has to happen for the project to achieve its broader utility,” Rogoff told Crain’s. Rogoff also told Crain’s he was concerned that Detroit would raid money from bus transit service in order to support the rail expansion, which is prohibited under the terms of the federal transit grants.

Meanwhile, like most transit systems across the country, both of metro Detroit’s are suffering. But the redundancies that are part of Detroit’s two-system solution only worsen the landscape for the region’s carless masses.

The city of Detroit, for example, has no dedicated revenue stream supporting transit operations. The service is supported by the city’s general funds — also an exceptional case among major cities.

Meanwhile, job opportunities and essential services don’t stop at the city borders. Job sprawl has intensified in recent years. More than three-quarters of the region’s jobs are located at least 10 miles from the urban core. Meanwhile, fully one-third of Detroit households lack access to a private automobile.

“They’re depending on the buses to get them where they need to go,” said Owens. “They’re losing jobs, because if they can’t get to a job on time, they’re going to lose that job.”

Fortunately, however, in addition to federal calls for a regional transit system, unification has supporters in high places at the state level as well. According to Crain’s, the push for a regional transit system is echoed by Governor Rick Snyder. His efforts have produced a level of support, as well, among key officials in the suburbs and city. Still some disagreements remain, however, about the governing structure of the proposed regional agency and the terms of the agreement with union employees.

Ultimately, however, it was this kind of squabbling that killed promising efforts at integration last year and in 2005. Developing a cohesive transit agency or regional vision in Detroit has without a doubt been complicated by its history of racial segregation. Detroit is roughly 82 percent African American, which makes it America’s blackest major city. By maintaining separate transit systems for its suburbs and city, the Detroit region maintains essentially segregated transit service.

“Race is definitely an underlying issue with any regional efforts in this region,” said Megan Owens of the local advocacy group Transit Riders United. “There’s a great deal of mistrust between city and suburban leaders. There are some folks out in the suburbs who still are afraid of transit because they think black folks from the city are going to take the bus out and steal their television.”

But Owens is hopeful a regional transit system could help heal some of those scars. “It’s really easy to maintain misperceptions of what people are like if you live in a bubble and then you get in a metal box and drive to an office building where everyone looks like you,” she said.

Governor Snyder is planning an address on the issue in October, Owens said. She is hopeful a new system will emerge before the end of the year.

Detroit is counting on about $318 million from the feds in order to build the $528 million project. Rogoff has indicated that the lack of a regional transit agency would not necessarily preclude the city from receiving any federal funds. But he did indicate he’d like to see progress toward a regional system when the funds are awarded.

Owens and other transit advocates are cautiously optimistic that this time will be different.

“The fact that there is such interest and momentum from the governor [and] the Detroit City Council really does give me hope that we can break past these barriers and some of the self-centered politics that have blocked it in the past,” she said.

Yesterday's "Don't X Out Transit" rally in Los Angeles. Photo: Crystal McMillan / Bus Riders Union

The American Public Transportation Association collected testimonials from a variety of transit organizations nationwide, explaining what such a deep cut would mean to their service:

A 30 percent cut would probably eliminate our service. Under the present political environment a 30 percent loss in federal support is just another nail in the coffin.

- Northwest Indiana Regional Bus Authority, Hammond, IN

If our 5307 funding were cut by 30 percent, it would amount to a loss of about $360,000. About the only way this can be made up without additional revenues is to eliminate all holiday service and Saturday service (we have never operated on Sundays). Our paratransit service would also no longer operate on holidays and Saturdays… Of course, with these cuts we would also have to lay off operators and other staff.

- City of Las Cruces RoadRUNNER Transit, Las Cruces, NM

A 30 percent cut in federal funding would mean that we would have to cut up to five of our 17 community routes. Our funding situation is already so precarious that our “neighborhood” routes only run four or five trips a day, Monday through Friday, so any further cutbacks would mean elimination of all service on these routes.

- Centre Area Transportation Authority, State College, PA

We have been able to… boost the frequency of service to no more than 15 minutes between buses from 6am to 9pm Monday thru Friday on our most popular routes resulting in the first 4 months a 15 percent increase in ridership and similar results beginning to occur on the routes feeding those two. Cut funding and we will become a system of hour headways.

- Transit Authority of River City, Louisville, KY

This proposed 30 percent cut in funding would cause an approximate $7 million reduction in service, which equals almost 1 million revenue miles annually, affecting 3 million passengers. This would cause a loss of approximately 50 jobs within our agency.

- San Diego Metropolitan Transit System, San Diego, CA

Overall, “20,000 fewer buses and trains and paratransit vehicles will be purchased, causing breakdowns and overcrowding,” APTA President Bill Millar said on a telephone call with reporters yesterday. “These proposed cuts would impact a total of 46 major expansion projects in 18 states.”

Already, many transit systems have been cut to the bone. Amalgamated Transit Union President Larry Hanley told reporters about the elimination of entire transit systems in Clayton County, Georgia and painful cuts in Albany, New York and Lorain, Ohio, where “buses have been laid up in lots because transit systems don’t have the money to operate them.”

“We’re already in a crisis throughout the United States in transit,” Hanley said, “and Congress’s suggestion that we can take a 30 percent cut in the existing program is preposterous.”

Pat Scully of Daimler Buses testified from the point of view of the leading manufacturer of city transit buses in North America. “We’re manufacturing less and less as each day goes by,” he said.

Scully said the six-year proposal by the House would cost jobs but also said that the constant extensions have hit the industry hard.

“These temporary extensions, and the one-third cut that is proposed in investment spending, do nothing but add indecision and uncertainty for our customers and our markets,” Scully went on. “Indecision and uncertainty have led to reduced order intake for the manufacturing base over the past two years. We are all operating at lower production output and employing fewer people now — without the one-third cut proposed.”

A free Muni for youth rally drew more than 150 people to the steps of City Hall. Activists said students and working-class families shouldn't have to choose between buying groceries and a Muni pass. Photos by Bryan Goebel.

A broad coalition of community groups, youth leaders, transit advocates and elected officials called on the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency today to initiate a three-year pilot program to give young people ages 5 to 17 free Muni passes. The program would cost an estimated $7 million a year and result in a 4.6 percent increase in Muni ridership.

“We believe that transportation is a human right,” said Alicia Garza of People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER).  “What we’re seeing is that over the last few years the cost of (public) transportation has increased, and service and access is decreasing. Over the last two years, there’s been more than a 100 percent increase in the cost for Fast Passes for youth.”

“For families that are struggling to survive in San Francisco,” she continued, “that also means an increase in costs when wages are not increasing, when the number of jobs in San Francisco is not increasing, and when resources for public services, including schools, are not increasing. For families with more than one child this translates into an additional burden that’s being placed on working-class families and working-class communities of color in our city.”

Earlier this year, the city adopted a one-time program to give free Muni passes to 12,000 low-income students but supporters said the demand far exceeded the supply. A Muni Youth Pass currently costs $21 and is free for kids under 5. A recent survey showed that 70 percent of students in the San Francisco Unified School District rely on public transit at a time when school bus service has been dramatically cut. The number of low-income students in the district is also high, with an estimated 61 percent taking part in the school lunch program.

"It's one critical step we can take to improve the quality of life for all families in the city, and to support and encourage a new generation of transit riders for our future," said Supervisor David Campos, who added that New York City and Portland have similar programs.

"Back when I was in high school, I used to depend on the 19 bus line to get to school, and I also took the 30 Stockton to volunteer in Chinatown, where most of my friends are," said James Ng, a freshman at SF State who volunteers at the Chinatown Community Development Center. "Over the last two years, the price for bus passes has gone up 110 percent, and that has made it hard for my friends and family to find the money to get bus passes. I know some who aren't buying bus passes because it cost too much."

“Muni has become too expensive and the services that we depend on are becoming out of reach for us financially,” said Leah LaCroix, the chair of the San Francisco Youth Commission. “No matter what school you go to, and what your family’s income level is, or where you live, you should have access to transportation and it should be affordable and you should be able to go from your school to your after-school program to your game and wherever you want to go in the city. Free Muni does this for young people.”

The three-year pilot program, backed by six members of the Board of Supervisors, and SFMTA Board Director Joél Ramos, would be paid for “using a combination of private contributions,” “Muni efficiencies,” and “funds from several different public agencies.” While the pilot is running, those agencies would work to develop a long-term program.

Supervisor David Campos introduced a resolution [pdf] at the Board of Supervisors today calling on his colleagues to support the pilot. Ramos said he planned to get the matter agendized at an SFMTA Board meeting October 18th. He told Streetsblog one option to pay for the program could be extending parking meter hours.

“By actually generating revenues, the 7 million dollars that it might cost per year, we actually reinvest in the overall system and we make it so that parents don’t have to park anymore because their kids were on transit, so they can take transit,” he said. “That works for making parking available for people who really need it. That’s why this is a win-win.”

Paul Rose, a spokesperson for the SFMTA, said the agency is “working with the Budget Analyst to develop a comprehensive report that looks at not only what our revenue impact would be, but at what type of expenditures would be necessary to provide things like: additional vehicles, more graffiti abatement programs, or additional Clipper administrative costs, etc.”

The agency is currently facing a $23 million deficit, and recently scrapped a staff proposal to raise parking fines to help close the gap.

Thea Selby with the San Francisco Transit Riders Union said the pilot and long-term program would also include an education component for young people, and she praised POWER and other organizations working to make free Muni for youth a reality.

“They’re not just interested in giving a pass to youth. They want to train them and turn them into the transit first citizens of the next generation,” she said.

The pilot is being supported by a number of elected officials, including Supervisors Campos, John Avalos, Jane Kim, Malia Cohen, Eric Mar and Ross Mirkarimi. Organizations backing it include the Chinatown Community Development Center, Jamestown Community Center, Filipino Community Center, Public Advocates, POWER, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, the Coalition on Homelessness, Urban Habitat, SF Transit Riders Union, MORE Public Transit Coalition and many others.

“If we believe, as a city, that public transportation is a right and not a privilege, today we take the first step in making that a reality for San Franciscans who need it the most,” said Garza.

Supervisor Jane Kim was the first to sign a petition to support free Muni passes for youth.

Sen. Tom Coburn has an axe to grind with bicycle safety. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

It’s unclear how we went from a House determined to cut spending levels by more than 30 percent to a House unanimously committed to passing a bill with current spending levels. It’s unclear even that this unanimous vote plan will work. Republican party discipline isn’t what it used to be, what with the Tea Party revolt just loving to accuse House Speaker John Boehner of being a tax-and-spend liberal.

However, rumor has it that House Republicans are being told that the extension’s spending levels don’t change the appropriations levels the House is willing to approve, and that’s $27.7 billion for the year for highways and $5.2 billion for transit. So if the extension authorizes $19.8 billion for highways for the first six months and $4.2 billion for transit, that’s fine: It just means that for the whole second half of the year, highways would only get $7.9 billion and transit would only get $800 million. Those are deadly cuts, but it appears that transportation leaders are putting off that fight till later in order to pass an extension now.

Meanwhile, if the extension bill doesn’t pass the House by unanimous consent, the House will need to follow normal rules of order to pass it by majority vote. That means it’ll need to wait a full 72 hours between the posting of the bill and the vote, and that would mean a Wednesday vote. It could also open the door to a messy amendment process.

Speaking of amendments: In the Senate, Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn is planning to file an amendment to cut Transportation Enhancements from the six-month extension. It’s good news that he’s doing it as an amendment and not a hold on the bill, since a hold is a unilateral move to force the Senate to utilize a much more time-consuming process to vote on the bill. His amendment will likely fail, since many senators who would normally vote with him to cut bike/ped funding are committed to passing a clean extension, with no amendments.

If Coburn’s amendment does fail, he can lose graciously — or he can try to filibuster. It’s unclear whether he plans to do that. While the House is hoping to have 100 percent support for the bill, insiders fear that in the Senate, the bill could fall short of the 60 percent majority it needs to overcome a filibuster.

The Senate hasn’t yet introduced a (six-month) surface transportation and (four-month) FAA extension bill to replace the four-month surface transportation extension passed by the EPW Committee last Thursday. It won’t go through the same process – the extension will be filed as an amendment attached to an enormously popular bill that House Majority Leader Harry Reid has reportedly been holding on to for just this purpose – as a vehicle to get more controversial measures passed by adding them as amendments. The bill itself deals with sanctions against Burma, a cause dear to Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s heart.

So, the transportation extension will be an amendment attached to the Burma bill, and Coburn’s TE cut will be an amendment to the transportation amendment. Clear enough?

Meanwhile, according to our sources, Sens. Boxer and Inhofe of EPW agree that any amendment – even to the six-month extension – would be a violation of their delicate bipartisan deal on the two-year reauthorization. They require a clean extension.

For Minneapolis residents along the Hiawatha rail line, that convenience is worth tacking on an additional 10 percent to housing prices. Chicagoans near the Midway transit line are willing to pay about 19 percent extra. And in Portland, folks are willing to fork over an additional 31 percent for an abode within one-quarter mile of a rail transit station along the Westside extension line.

Selling prices for homes within 1/2 mile rose 31 percent after the addition of light rail in Portland, according to one study. Photo: Wired Autopia

The Center for Housing Policy recently completed a comprehensive review of the existing research on housing prices and proximity to rail. According to dozens of studies over decades, a rail station within a short walk can add 6 to 50 percent to home values.

The center’s analysis shows, however, that not all rail lines are created equal, at least when it comes to housing price appreciation.

Some important considerations for potential investors: Is the station walkable or is it located near highway infrastructure? Does the rail service operate frequently and offer service to desirable destinations? What is the strength of the regional housing market?

All of these factors are important. But ultimately they point to a central conclusion: the premium buyers are willing to pay to live near rail transit correlates roughly to how much accessibility the transit service offers relative to other modes. In a congested city with a strong housing market and robust transit system — New York City, for example — rail transit proximity results in the largest premiums. Meanwhile, weak market cities with poor transit and relatively traffic-free highways — like Buffalo, New York — may see little price appreciation around rail transit stops. In these cases, rail transit has little inherent advantage over highway travel.

Other interesting insights from the study:

• Apartments and condos generally enjoy greater price appreciation with proximity to rail transit than single family homes. In a 2008 study of San Diego, the premium was 17 percent for condominiums, but only 6 percent for single-family housing. Researchers theorize this is because multi-family housing dwellers (generally single) have less complicated transportation needs than their single-family counterparts (often families).
• Some evidence shows that appreciation is greater in higher-income neighborhoods. However, other studies have shown that price appreciation also takes place in low-income neighborhoods, indicating that the value of transit is capitalized into housing prices across income levels. For example, after plans were announced for Atlanta’s Beltline rail transit corridor, housing value increases were observed only in the lower-income portions of the route on the south side of the city.
• Price increases are not generally observed for bus transit because they lack the permanence of rail transit. However, fixed bus-rapid-transit routes, like the bus-only corridors in Pittsburgh, did offer a measurable appreciation effect on nearby housing.
• Building transit stations near freeway facilities can counteract the livability benefits of transit and lessen or even eliminate housing price appreciation.
• Housing price appreciation was not found to take place near park-and-ride rail transit facilities, perhaps because of the nuisance caused by increased traffic.
• There is little information about how proximity to rail transit affects rent prices.

In general, study authors found, communities can expect proximity to rail to add up to about 10 percent to nearby home values. Researchers also found that home values generally continue increasing as the value of the new service becomes more widely understood.

The Center for Housing Policy recommended that cities undergoing rail expansion take care to maintain affordable housing by stations. The group also recommended that public agencies attempt to capture some of the value created by transit investments through tax increment financing and use that money to support the rail expansion.

If SAFETEA-LU isn't extended on time, over 5,000 transit grants could be at risk. Source: FTA

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is meeting tomorrow to discuss a four-month extension to the current transportation bill, SAFETEA-LU. The map above is from a short but powerful document the Federal Transit Administration put out this week explaining “The Impacts of Failing to Extend Surface Transportation Funding” [PDF]. How much transit work would grind to a halt in your state without an extension?

In addition to the 5,600 transit grants, covering both capital projects and operations, a failure to extend SAFETEA-LU on time would jeopardize 134,936 active highway projects and 847,294 jobs, according to the FTA.

How about this for your next transportation stimulus, Mr. President? Image: Austin Strategic Mobility Plan

Given the GOP strategy of obstructing any stated goal of the administration, it’ll be a tough sell. Some Republicans have already made it clear they would rather see a $640 billion, 12-month payroll tax holiday. That would increase the deficit by more than twice what Obama’s plan would, but deficits don’t seem to matter as long as taxes are getting cut.

So it’s no surprise that the president is also looking for ways that he can spur infrastructure job creation without Congress’s approval. Last week, Obama pleaded with Congress to pass a clean extension of the transportation bill (a plea which some Republicans are gleefully denying). At the same time, he announced that he was directing some agencies to each identify three infrastructure projects that could use a little federal help in speeding up the process. Here’s what he said:

In keeping with a recommendation from my Jobs Council, today I’m directing certain federal agencies to identify high-priority infrastructure projects that can put people back to work. And these projects — these are projects that are already funded, and with some focused attention, we could expedite the permitting decisions and reviews necessary to get construction underway more quickly while still protecting safety, public health, and the environment.

He specifically called on the departments of agriculture, commerce, housing and urban development, interior and transportation to highlight three projects each. We were wondering whether this process will end up falling into some of the same traps as the stimulus, which emphasized shovel-readiness to the detriment of other evaluation criteria for new projects, like whether the money would be well-spent.

Though Obama didn’t use the phrase “shovel-ready” last week, he called for projects that are already funded and have state and local permits, which implies nearly the same thing. Without a new stimulus, which the Republicans have already promised to oppose, there is no money to fund new projects, making it imperative to find those that are already funded. Still, the president admitted last year that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects.”

And despite the administration’s general friendliness toward transit and understanding of the limitations of the private automobile, 60 percent of transportation dollars in the stimulus went to highways, with just 20 percent to transit. (Most of the rest went to freight rail, with a little bit for aviation and maritime projects.)

Considering that politicians, including Obama, are looking to infrastructure as a job creator, they’d be wise to reassess those spending priorities. A Smart Growth America report earlier this year showed that stimulus-funded public transportation projects created 19,299 jobs per billion dollars spent, where the stimulus road projects created just 10,493 jobs for the same money.

“So any forthcoming jobs proposal, we would hope, would include proportionally more spending on public transportation projects or repair projects, rather than new construction of highways,” said SGA’s communications director, Alex Goldschmidt, “mainly because those are more effective at achieving the ends that the president has laid out.”

“New highway construction opens up states to huge financial liabilities,” she added. “They are then tasked with maintaining these roads and keeping them in good condition, and a lot of states are already failing to do this.”

So what would be some cost-effective, pipelined transportation projects that could be advanced as part of Obama’s short-term jobs initiative and serve as smart long-term investments?

Detroit’s light rail project along the Woodward corridor would be one favorite. The plans for the 9.3-mile, 19-stop line are complete, and just last week, it got the green light from its environmental review. Private and city funds have already been committed, but they could use more federal funds to complete the project.

And Austin has a Strategic Mobility Plan to build a 16.5-mile urban rail line connecting the University of Texas, the international airport and neighborhoods in between. The city of Austin will put a bond measure on the ballot next November to fund it, and the city is working in partnership with the county and the Federal Transit Administration.

And Chicago’s Regional Transportation Authority recently 13 planning, operating and capital projects that are slotted to receive nearly $14 million in federal, local and RTA funds. The projects, according to the RTA, “will plan for and increase transit usage, provide multi-modal connections, improve the efficiency and effectiveness of local transit, improve access to jobs, and help increase mobility for its region’s seniors, people with disabilities and the general public.”

Advocates say road and bridge repair, as well as public transit, is a good use of funds that also creates more jobs than construction and helps states address their financial burdens, rather than create new ones.

Traffic is killing us. It eats up our time, it thins our wallets as our cars idly burn through expensive gasoline, and it spoils the air we breathe. We need a path to real public transportation alternatives in order to get out of our cars and on with our lives.

That’s why I have authored legislation calling for a group of experts to develop California’s first statewide public transit development and financing plan. And, ever mindful of our trying budget times, it will not cost our state’s besieged General Fund a dime.

Assembly Bill (AB) 650 establishes a blue ribbon task force to craft a public transportation development plan for California based on an assessment of what transit we have, what amount of transit we need, and how we can finance transit construction. The task force will be composed of 12 experts in finance, transit, the environment, and public health who must complete their plan by September 30, 2012. This work would be undertaken, in part, through workshops conducted across the state. And, it would be financed from existing transit moneys provided through California’s gas tax, specifically those devoted to transit planning.

The blue ribbon task force is a tried and true way to help California find solutions to complex and enduring problems, like public transportation. In recent years, task forces have helped California enact comprehensive fisheries protections off our coast and achieve breakthrough reforms that balance our state’s water supply needs with environmental protection.

I come from Los Angeles where traffic is a big part of life. While traffic congestion is a cause for consternation across California, it is particularly bad in Southern California where traffic delays have nearly tripled over the past twenty years.

Each commuter loses 63 hours of life to traveling by car at peak hours. This staggering statistic is a reflection that we do not have enough transit alternatives.

Last month, while work was being done to expand Los Angeles’ 405 freeway, Angelenos everywhere were warned of the coming Carmageddon – massive gridlock that would paralyze the city. It was a comical spectacle for everyone not living in Los Angeles. But, more than anything else, this episode shows why we need more transit.

The simple truth is that California’s population is expected to grow by more than four million people over the next 10 years. This will lead to more time wastefully spent in traffic congestion. In 2005, transit prevented 540 million hours of traffic around the country, saving us $10.2 billion in lost economic productivity.

Transit investment creates jobs and reduces our footprint on the environment. Every $1 billion invested in transportation infrastructure creates 47,500 jobs. Every $1 invested in transit generates $6 dollars in local economic activity. For each person taking transit instead of driving, 4,800 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions will be prevented per year. By 2025, an estimated 1 in 5 Californians will be over 65 and 20% percent of this demographic does not drive.

Unfortunately, funding for transit hasn’t kept pace with demand. While we have secured a more stable funding source for transit in recent years, the demand for transit services has increased around the state, especially as fuel prices have risen, traffic congestion has grown, and Californians look for ways to cut commuting expenses and their environmental impact.

Today, most long-term transit infrastructure development planning occurs in a series of patchwork measures. We need to think bigger. Building and maintaining an effective public transportation network requires a commitment and vision that makes transit an integral part of transportation in 21st Century California. AB 650 will help get us there.