Commentary: Advocates Should be Proud of What They've Accomplished

Like many reporters, I was up into the wee hours Tuesday night and Wednesday morning following results of this monumental election. Gersh Kuntzman, senior editor of Streetsblog NYC, emailed me a quick “Congrats!” message just before 5 a.m. after reading my story on Sunset Dunes and the transit measures. My counterpart at Streetsblog Massachusetts also emailed the gang to say he was including San Francisco coverage in his election reporting.

It only then dawned on me that the Regional Transit Measure, Sunset Dunes, and Prop. H (the Muni Measure) had caught the attention of urbanists throughout the country. This wasn’t just an enormous win for the San Francisco Bay Area—it was a symbolic victory for transit and car-free spaces nationwide.

The thousands of indefatigable volunteers and professional advocates who scoured the Bay Area for every last vote should be proud of what they’ve accomplished. I wish I could buy a beer for every one of you (or a non-alcoholic beverage of your choice). You’ve earned it.

Of course, for those of us in the Bay Area, the victory was anything but symbolic. Our quality of life will just be better. When someone wants a coffee or dinner in the city, I don’t have to schedule around hourly BART service. When someone in the Outer Sunset wants to take their kids to the beach, they won’t have to navigate a loud, menacing highway full of speeding cars. When someone has a doctor’s appointment in San Francisco, they won’t wait an hour for the next bus. Even drivers dodged the proverbial bullet of horrendous traffic.

That said, I hope advocates realize this wasn’t just a victory for transit riders. It was also, in the minds of a subset of politicians and bureaucrats at BART, Muni and other transit agencies, a victory for their careers. It was an affirmation of their work that, in some cases, was well deserved and in others not so much. Along those lines, an S.F. bureaucrat once complained to me about my videos trolling Muni’s retrograde bike ban. They said, “Is this really the most important thing right now? And what would the bike rules even be?”

Rush hour on Calgary’s C-Train, which carries more riders using identical equipment to SF Muni. Still from a YouTube video.

It was not the most important thing at that moment, or any moment. But all of Muni’s peer agencies in North America have moved ahead with bikes-on-board policies. Is it that hard to cut-and-paste some other agency’s bike rules?

Of course, I was hammering Muni’s bike ban because it’s a stark example of “customer-last” laziness and inertia at the agency. And what about all the challenges that remain in facilitating transfers between transit services? Why does SF Muni continue to ignore its “transit first” mandate? And what about BART’s ongoing excuses and failures to pilot full automation that would allow trains to run every couple of minutes, even off-peak? As in the lead image of Montreal’s new REM automated train, more and more cities are leaving us in the dust; ironic considering San Francisco is supposed to be the world’s tech capital.

And what about providing safe-and-livable streets? The third-and-one-hopes-final Sunset Dunes victory showed, yet again, that San Francisco wants safe, car-free-and-car-light spaces. So why is the city dilly-dallying on a Better Market Street pilot that includes protected bike lanes and is safe for all users? Why hasn’t it finished the last few blocks of Valencia Street’s protected bike lanes? Why does the fully funded Arguello safety project continue to fester?

A schematic of “Destination Market Place,” which would include fully protected bike lane. This project has festered for years now. Image: SFPlanning

Enjoy. You’ve earned it, advocates! Image: Wikimedia Commons

Advocates have earned time to celebrate their accomplishments. But then they have to turn from winning over the voters and look back at SFMTA and other transit agency managers and politicians who stand in the way of progress. Seamless Bay Area is one such group that’s made huge strides doing this but, as its founders will tell you, there are still transit bureaucrats who never miss an opportunity to jam things up or even turn back the clock. The remaining elects and bureaucrats who make it so hard need to get with the program or take a walk.

We need a BayPass for everyone. We need consistent bike and other rider policies. It’s long past time for Montreal REM-style, fully automated BART service. The city needs streets that are calm and safe for all users all the time. With the funding problems finally out of the way for a while, that should be everyone’s focus.

Let’s down that well-earned beer. And then let’s get back to work and again inspire the whole country by realizing the most customer-focused, most-integrated and seamless, most transit-first, safe-for-all-users transportation system in the world.