AC Transit

After reports of fare inspectors and drivers telling Muni passengers they can't take photos on Muni's buses and trains, the MTA is being forced to craft a photo policy and make it public. The San Francisco Appeal and WHAT IM SEEING both have stories today about Muni's elusive policy, which MTA spokesperson Judson True told the Appeal will be posted online soon, and "will say that non-commercial video and photography will be OK as long as it doesn't disturb transit."

A couple of real stinkers over in Mainstream Medialand today.

Transit advocates, transit riders, politicians, and religious figures mourned the continual underfunding of transit operations by staging a mock funeral for public transit above the 12th Street/Oakland BART station today. The event was tied to a national campaign led by Transit Riders for Public Transportation (TRPT), the Transportation Equity Network and Transportation for America to pressure Congress to provide funding for transit operations.

A state appellate court in Sacramento ruled two days ago that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger can't continue taking money out of the Public Transportation Account (PTA) to help balance the budget, something the governor has done repeatedly while in office, costing state transit operators $1.19 billion in 2007-2008 alone. Many Bay Area transit operators might not have had to cut service, raise fares, nor stage epic battles with their unions if that steady source of funding had been allocated to them.

The MTA Board did it this week, and now AC Transit may become the second transit agency in the Bay Area to declare a fiscal emergency. Such a declaration allows the agencies to bypass environmental review in order to implement service cuts.

Nearly a month after a San Francisco federal judge ruled against a discrimination lawsuit against the MTC on behalf of AC Transit riders of color, attorneys representing a broad coalition of riders, labor and environmental justice advocates have appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals. 

When the State Transit Assistance (STA) fund was zeroed out to pass the budget a couple of months ago, the already dire situation for transit operators in California became much worse.  In the Bay Area, AC Transit raised fares, the MTA has been considering budget cuts and fare hikes, and BART will likely do the same if its board can get to the discussion at the next meeting. 

In 2005, with frustration and anger mounting over service cuts and fare hikes for AC Transit riders, who are mostly people of color, a coalition of riders, labor and environmental justice advocates filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), accusing the agency of racial discrimination in the way it doles out transit funding. It claimed the MTC has a long history of channeling funding to mostly white riders on Caltrain and BART at the expense of AC Transit bus riders of color.

In a sobering revision of the 25-year Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) at yesterday's Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) meeting, MTC staff explained that the elimination of the State Transit Assistance (STA) fund and much lower than expected sales-tax revenues forced the planning body to significantly revise down its projections for operational spending and expansion projects (PDF). The MTC revised down expected revenues by $8 billion (even despite over $3 billion in expected stimulus funds) and announced that BART's extension to San Jose is running a cool $1.5 billion over budget.