THE DRIVE TO CONNECT
An effort is underway to simplify the Bay Area’s complex, unwieldy multiagency transit system
It happens two to three times a week, Alex Rivkin says.
His MUNI train runs a few minutes late, pulling up to the 4th and King Street station in San Francisco just in time for Rivkin to run frantically toward his departing Caltrain, only to see it pull away before he gets there.
Or vice versa: He’s standing on a MUNI platform and, along with two dozen other people, pounding on the doors of a MUNI train stopped at a red light that won’t open its doors to the travelers who just sprinted from the Caltrain station.
“It’s sadistic and cold-blooded,” said the frustrated San Francisco resident, who uses the two agencies, along with a city-provided shuttle in Mountain View, to get to his job at a South Bay pharmaceutical company and back home.
“There is a lack of accountability for customer service, and it feels like these agencies just don’t care.”
He added, “I wish they would just talk to each other.”
Rivkin is not the only one who wants to see more cooperation and coordination among train, bus and ferry operators. At a time when regional leaders are considering asking taxpayers to back a proposed “mega-measure,” a $100 billion or more regional transportation sales tax, transit advocates say it’s more imperative than ever for the Bay Area’s more than two dozen transit agencies to work together and put customers first.
That means timing connections between agencies, agreeing to standard ticket prices and discounts, and using the same branding and mapping systems so that
“I wish they would just talk to each other.” — Alex Rivkin, on coordination among transit agencies
customers are aware of where they can go in the Bay Area on transit, said Ian Griffiths, the co-founder of Seamless Bay Area. The advocacy organization was formed about two years ago with the goal of championing a more integrated regional transit network.
“It’s really the mega-measure that’s changing the tenor of the conversation here,” Griffiths said.
Not only could the potential new tax, which voters may consider as early as 2020, help pay for the expansion of transit in the region, Griffiths said, but it could also ensure that if transit operators agree to a standard ticket price, for example, there would be money set aside so that the agencies don’t lose money as a result.
Some of that work already has begun. On Monday, a committee of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission that oversees Clipper card — a plastic card that can be loaded with money and used on nearly every bus, train and ferry in the Bay Area — ap- proved nearly $600,000 in bridge toll funds to study the possibility of simpli- fying fares, with the goal of increasing the number of people who take public transit.
In January, the commission approved nearly $1 mil- lion to fine-tune a common map and design a brand for the region’s transit network, an effort that’s expected to continue through spring of next year. The commission also has been slowly testing a standardized set of signs to help travelers who take transit find their way around the region.
And while it may seem like these are small, incremental steps, they’re actually monumental, said Arielle Fleisher, the transportation policy director for SPUR, an urban planning think tank. SPUR is one of three organizations, along with business advocacy groups the Bay Area Council and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, that are spearheading the campaign for the proposed $100 billion transportation sales tax, dubbed Faster Bay Area.
“It’s a historic day,” Fleisher said of the committee’s vote Monday to study simplified ticket prices. “If we want to go to voters and get people to vote for the creation of a seamless transit system, we have to show them we are serious about it.”
The commission has tried similar efforts in the past to little effect, said spokesman Randy Rentschler. As part of Regional Measure 2, a $1 bridge toll increase, voters in 2004 approved a policy for simplified ticket prices, which the MTC studied in 2008.
But there was resistance from bus and train operators who were reluctant to give up their ability to control prices, one of the few tools at their disposal to close gaps in the budget, create incentives or give discounts, Rentschler said.
Historically, the Bay Area’s transit agencies were created to serve local, rather than regional, customers, said Brian Taylor, a professor at UCLA’S Luskin School of Public Affairs. One of his first academic papers in the 1980s looked at the splintered nature of the Bay Area’s transit topography.
“Right now we have a system, and a tradition, where each transit agency has its own map, its own color scheme, its own way to organize fares, its own way to describe its services,” Taylor said. “And there are reasons why local organizations should have control.”
Part of it is cost, Taylor said. Smaller bureaucracies tend to be more cost-effective, and customers have more direct access to provide input to a smaller organization than to behemoths like MUNI or BART, he said.
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission has instead focused its efforts on hiding the complexity of the region’s transit fares from customers with the Clipper card, which was introduced in 2006, Rentschler said. Users can load money onto the card and use it to pay for a ride on nearly every bus, ferry or train.
But changes to the system — adding discounts for university students, for example — have been difficult to implement, precisely because the underlying system is complex, accounting for a mind-boggling 19,000 business rules, a result of 22 agencies using the card, each with its own ticket prices, discounts and partnerships.
That underlying complexity sometimes leads to inconvenient results for riders. San Jose State University student Matt Baker of Hayward, for example, uses two Clipper cards. One is subsidized by his school for bus and light rail rides on the Valley Transportation Authority. The other he uses on BART, which his university does not subsidize.
Diane Gregorio, an Oakland resident who regularly rides BART, AC Transit and the San Francisco Bay Ferry, would love to have a monthly pass that works on all those agencies, she said, but the Clipper card doesn’t allow for monthly passes.
And Antioch resident Gwen Murray wondered why there couldn’t be one price she could pay to travel throughout the entire Bay Area, like there is in Sacramento, where she used to live. As a result, Murray said, she hops in a car whenever she can.
“Public transit just isn’t connected,” Murray said. “And it’s very expensive.”
The lack of information and anxiety about making connections can be barriers to taking transit, Griffiths said. And it leads to a chicken-and-egg scenario where most train and bus riders stick to one system, which makes it hard to convince operators that more people would ride if the Bay Area’s transit network was easier to use. In 2018, two-thirds of Clipper users rode only one form of transit, and 27% used two. A little more than 7% used three or more types of trains, buses or ferries, according to data from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.
But when it comes to crossing county lines to get from home to work, many commuters do take transit and often are forced to make transfers. In every county except San Francisco, commuters traveling across county lines use transit at a higher rate than those who live and work in the same county, according to data from the commission.
When metropolitan regions with multiple transit operators have simplified ticket prices and begun operating as one network — even if the agencies remain independent — it often has led to an increase in the number of people using multiple systems, Griffiths said. In Munich, Germany, for example, the number of people taking transit increased 50% in the year after the region simplified ticket prices across its many operators. And in the years since, the number of people taking transit doubled, even though the population increased by only 40%, Griffiths said.
Small changes, such as universal discounts on transfers, also can make a big difference, Fleisher said. In New South Wales, Australia, a $1.40 rebate on transfers led to a 50% increase in people making the transfer, she said.
But beyond simplifying ticket prices, Fleisher said, she’s hopeful the study will be the first step toward greater integration of branding, maps and wayfinding signs, along with timed transfers between agencies.
The goal, she said, is an effortless experience for customers.
“If people could actually see transit as a network that takes them where they need to go,” Fleisher said, “that would be huge.”