San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Bill seeks to ease transit tangle
It’s an idea that has tantalized transit thinkers for years. Find a way to knit together the fractured world of 27 Bay Area transportation agencies to lure more riders and speed up travel times.
But it’s never happened, and the reasons aren’t very satisfying. For starters, transit systems are meant to focus on their own needs and not expected to look beyond boundaries. Then there are turf battles, meaning that schedules, fares, signs and apps would need to be reworked. Maybe biggest of all is money. If the divisions drop away, a mammoth outfit like Muni or BART might end up paying the bills of a tiny bus service on the edge of the Bay Area.
These issues won’t disappear easily. But it’s past time to try. San Francisco Assemblyman David Chiu, with the backing of other Bay Area lawmakers, is introducing a measure that starts small and aims big in getting the transit chess pieces to fit together. Winning support from transit operators remains the key question between now and later this year when hearings begin.
“This has been a conversation many years in the making,” Chiu notes.
The Bay Area Seamless Transit Act, AB2057, would compel the tangled web of agencies to share data and set policies that link up the local transportation world. That could mean a universal bus fare, standard transfers and discounts, and a single regional map. Imagine the Clipper Card that riders carry in their wallets working everywhere, not just on a handful of the bigger systems.
Then the bill moves on to larger quarry by getting the agencies to coordinate routes and service times that allow a rider to step off one line and on to the next without fear of missing a connection or enduring a long wait. Improvements, extensions and extra service would be drawn up and coordinated across transit fiefdoms.
Finally there’s the dangled offer of using regional transit funds to pay for the changeover. The stream of funds from tolls, taxes, fares and government grants could be used to herd agencies together. Oversight of transit spending is now done by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, led by elected officials.
Beyond government efficiency and customer convenience, there’s urgency behind the bill. Despite billions spent on steel rails, new buses and transit salaries, only 3% of everyday Bay Area trips are made by public transportation. Since 1970, just 12% of the population has used public transit to commute. According to Chiu, ridership actually dipped by 5.2% between 2016 and 2018. These low numbers are put up in a region with some of the worst commute times in the nation, indicating how hard it is to pry people out of their cars.
There may be many reasons for such statistics, including convenience, dependability and comfort. But such objections may melt away if a fastmoving, linked up system is available. “Right now, it’s fragmented and unreliable,” Chiu said The driving public needs convincing that public transit won’t be an ordeal of long wait times, confusing directions and jumbled schedules.
Chiu outlined his proposal in the cavernous and nearempty Salesforce Transit Center. The blockslong building is woefully underused while it awaits a connection to the Peninsula’s Caltrain line, years in the making. The gleaming transit hub, exactly the kind the bill seeks, attracts only a few bus riders. But if the connections are finally made, the center could turn into a success story for regional transit.
A revived, streamlined transit grid comes with other advantages. Tailpipe emissions could be reduced for the sake of cleaner skies. Housing options could widen if Bay Area communities were better connected. The personal wear and tear of an hourslong slog between transit lines could lessen.
Other cities have done what the bill intends. Seattle and London junked a patchwork system in favor of a single entity that serves the city center and surrounding suburbs. The Bay Area could learn a lot by studying these examples.
The region’s first transit agency was Muni, which was created in 1912. Then came a wave of systems in the 1960s and 1970s, including BART and AC Transit, as the area’s population and economy surged. Now it’s time to consider the next age, when a single, easytouse operation will better serve riders.