During these times of budget strife, good news can be hard to find. After scouring the media, I'll say that it can be extremely hard to find. Nonetheless, I was interested in the story of a car-free development proposed in Hayward:
Quarry Village is a proposed 1,000-unit neighborhood that would fill a former quarry near Cal State East Bay and 1 1/2 miles from the Hayward BART Station. It's the brainchild of Sherman Lewis, a professor emeritus in political science at Cal State East Bay who created a nonprofit organization to promote the idea with local officials, investors and developers.
According to Lewis, 69, people would rent or buy eco-friendly, garage-free homes in the densely built community with interconnected pathways. Residents would receive transit passes with the cost of their home but could pay separately for one of just 100 parking spaces.
A village square would feature a grocery store and other services. Shuttles would ferry passengers to the campus and BART. (SF Chronicle)
The project is a looong way from even getting approval, let alone breaking ground. However, Lewis has some commitments from potential owners, and the City of Hayward seems to be amenable to the idea of this development. And given its proximity to public transit, this very well could be a feasible project.
If we are to move into a future that responds to the nature of our sensitive environment and the demands of the modern economy, this kind of development will have to become the new suburbia. This project will be an interesting case study as we move forward with sustainable planning.
Incidentally, if you know of something that would be a good fit for my new California Good News features, drop me an email.
At the California Democratic Convention a couple weeks ago, Gavin Newsom met with a couple dozen bloggers to talk about his campaign for governor. I was excited going into this meeting, especially since I knew exactly what question I was going to ask. It was the same question that AC Transit Director Joel Young asked at a Newsom town hall in March: what are you going to do about the fact that the state has entirely stripped funding from local transit agencies? You might remember that Newsom basically dodged the question and launched into a speech about how great high speed rail is. So this time, I was determined to get a better answer.
And surprisingly, I was somewhat impressed with his answer. He explained that coming from a city and county, he understands the needs of public transit agencies. While stimulus funds are available for capital projects, none are available to run buses, which is problematic. (Of course, this isn’t entirely true - some funds are being used for operating expenses - but it was nice to hear that he understands the need for operations funding.)
Newsom then said that California is a prosperous state and that it’s all about priorities. Except somehow he managed to skirt by without saying what his priorities are! His comments suggested that he would prioritize public transit, but he never actually committed to this. This was a theme throughout the blogger meeting - Newsom displayed a firm understanding of the issues at hand but managed to not make many specific policy promises.
My favorite line from Newsom about transit issues came not in response to my question but in an answer to Calitics’ David Dayen’s question about prison issues. Newsom said (among other things), “Building prisons is like building highways; within a few years, they’re 90% filled up.” Yes, a major candidate for governor understands that building highways is fruitless because they only generate demand and never fulfill it. Of course, he didn’t promise that he would place a moratorium on new highway construction or do anything else to stop highway expansion.
I left feeling pretty good about Newsom’s answer. Though he didn’t make specific policy promises (except on high speed rail), he at least didn’t entirely dodge my question.
But I became a bit less impressed yesterday, after reading Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi’s post on Calitics about High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). Up until a few weeks ago, Garamendi was running for governor, and if he had stayed in the race, he would have blown Newsom out of the water on transit issues:
(Just shocking to see Garamendi use the Bay Area as the example here. Worth a read tho. - promoted by Julia Rosen)
California's San Francisco Bay Area, a beacon for the world's most ambitious and entrepreneurial, is in some ways a victim of its own success. Decades of regional growth have created a highway and public transportation infrastructure incapable of meeting the demands of commuters.
"The worsening traffic congestion in the Bay Area is having an increasingly negative impact on the quality of life in the region. The millions of people who commute to work daily lose valuable time, waste gasoline and add to air pollution. Businesses suffer and new enterprises are discouraged from locating in the area, harming the Bay Area economy."
The average Bay Area driver spends 39 hours each year stuck in traffic on a regional freeway. Average time spent idling in traffic will rise to 72 hours per year by 2035 if present trends continue. For a host of reasons - including the needless pollution, wasted fuel, and loss of time at work or with family - minimizing congestion should be a priority for regional leaders. And when possible, enticing commuters into a carpooling arrangement or public transportation should be encouraged.
Fortunately, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the regional transportation authority, with input from Bay Area leaders and activists, has crafted an ambitious regional transit plan: Transportation 2035.
The Chronicle featured a really inspiring story yesterday about Mayor Tom Bates of Berkeley. Much like I did last year, he decided to give his car up entirely and to walk and bus around town instead:
The 71-year-old mayor is trading in his 2001 Volvo for an AC Transit pass and a sturdy pair of walking shoes.
“I’m trying to reduce my carbon footprint to the absolute minimum,” he said. “I figure, if I really want to go someplace I can just rent a car.”
Bates’ long farewell to the Volvo began about a year ago, when he started walking to work as a way to lose weight and stay in shape. The 18-minute trek from his home in South Berkeley to City Hall was so invigorating he started walking everywhere he could - to Berkeley Bowl, the BART station, city council meetings.
This is a pretty awesome example being set by a mayor. Now I could take this opportunity to rag on Mayor Dellums for being the least green mayor in the Bay Area, since the Chronicle mentioned he’s chauffeured around in a town car that gets 19 miles per gallon, but fortunately, there’s more to commend Bates for.
Last night, I went to Gavin Newsom’s town hall at the Rotunda in downtown Oakland. Overall, I wasn’t surprised by the event. He touched on many subjects - health care, education, improving the environment - and his overriding theme for the evening was that while many candidates talk about these issues, he has shown real progress on them. He did fail to mention though that many of the projects he took credit for last night (like universal health care) actually originated in the Board of Supervisors. But that’s pretty typical - he’s a politician and of course is going to take credit for everything he possibly can.
I really appreciated the fact that he took almost an hour of unfiltered questions from the audience. And I could not have been much more pleased when our new AC Transit Director, Joel Young, asked the first question. Joel explained that the state had defunded public transit and asked if Newsom, as governor, would restore public transit funding.
Newsom responded that public transit is so important for the environment and briefly answered, “Yes,” that he would restore the funding. But then instead of explaining why or how, he jumped into a long-winded speech about high speed rail. He started off by saying that he wanted to tell us about a project that he knew not all of us supported because it barely passed. This is a strange thing to say because 63% of Alameda County voters voted in favor of Prop 1A.
He then explained how high speed rail was going to change the state, creating jobs and changing how we thought about and used transportation. He talked about his vision for the “Grand Central Station of the West,” which is what some are calling the Transbay Terminal. Energetically, he explained how this would greatly improve the Bay Area region, making it easy to get from downtown to downtown (Oakland to SF).
And that was it. That was his answer to an AC Transit Director.
As Robert mentioned in his post this morning, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) will be voting this Wednesday on how to use federal stimulus funds. While they’ve scrapped one of their initial wasteful proposals, the Transbay Terminal train box, they are still proposing to use $70 million for the Oakland Airport Connector. V Smoothe summarized the proposed project and its history last week at OakBook:
BART’s Oakland Airport Connector is a proposed 3.2-mile elevated tramway that would ferry passengers from the Coliseum BART station to the Oakland Airport. Since the agency did not have enough funding to finance the project in full, they began seeking private partners to help build the rail line. All three interested parties dropped out of the project last year, citing concerns about profitability. At the time, BART officials said they would drop plans for the elevated train and begin exploring more affordable ways of providing a reliable connection between the station and the airport, such as dedicated bus lanes.
But then of course Congress passed the stimulus package, and MTC staff proposed to use $70 million of the funds to revive the Oakland Airport Connector project.
Now, I can understand why the Oakland Airport Connector is such a tempting project. I’m going to be taking BART to the airport this Friday evening, and a quicker and more reliable connection would save me a lot of time. The problem with the project as currently proposed is that it’s incredibly expensive, and like so many of BART’s projects, relies on ridership statistics that are entirely unrealistic. (They’re predicting that more people would use this connection than take BART to SFO!)
I’m happy to announce that a group of East Bay transit advocates that I am a part of have endorsed Elizabeth Echols for Rebecca Kaplan’s vacated At-Large seat on the AC Transit Board of Directors.
When this seat became vacant, leaders of local transit advocacy organizations came together to decide who we thought was best suited to represent bus riders, bicyclists, and pedestrians on the board. We identified seven applicants and invited them to answer our questionnaire, and interviewed six. Our group includes leaders of Walk Oakland Bike Oakland, Friends of BRT, the No on KK Committee, Alameda Transit Advocates, the City of Oakland Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, Bicycle-Friendly Berkeley, Livable Berkeley, the East Bay Bicycle Coalition, and TransForm.
Going into this endorsement process, I must admit that I was a bit nervous. Rebecca Kaplan was such an effective board member, and I didn’t know if we’d find someone who could match Rebecca’s experience, knowledge, and energy. I was pleasantly surprised by the answers to our questionnaire from all of the candidates and by the new ideas and vision the candidates demonstrated in our interviews. It’s exciting to see so many qualified candidates vying for a position that is so important to me but often gets overlooked by others.
As the Congressional battle over Obama's stimulus heats up, so too is progressive activism over the deliberate underfunding of mass transit. Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat, is leading the charge to redress the problem, as shown in this important discussion with policy geek Rachel Maddow:
DeFazio isn't just complaining on TV - he is offering an amendment to provide $2 billion in direct aid to local transit agencies that have had to cut service or raise fares - or both - as a result of the economic downturn and state budget problems.
Here in California this problem is especially acute, as Arnold is having success in his effort to defund mass transit. As a result local transit agencies have been hit hard. From the Monterey Bay and SF Bay Areas alone:
* San Benito County Express in Hollister and San Juan Bautista raised fares 33% earlier this year and will reduce service 35% effective on February 1, with some routes eliminated entirely.
* Monterey-Salinas Transit hiked fares 25% this month, though they were able to avoid service cuts. (The fare is now $2.50 per ride.)
* SamTrans in San Mateo County (the Peninsula) will raise fares 17% in February.
* Caltrain increased fares on January 1. Caltrain is the commuter rail service between San Francisco, San Jose, and Gilroy.
These cuts are especially damaging in this economy. Many Californians depend on affordable and available bus service to get to work. When routes are cut or fares increased, many can no longer get to work, and job losses merely increase.
It also makes it more difficult to build a sustainable transportation system, since these cuts can be difficult to restore. It took well over a decade for AC Transit to recover from the service cuts of the early 1990s - and even that progress may be set back without federal assistance.
Transportation for America has a map of the transit cuts being proposed or implemented across America. And they are leading the charge for restoring this funding. DeFazio's amendment will come before the House Rules Committee tomorrow, and T4America is asking folks to call Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY) to ask her to send the amendment to the House floor.
California has three Representatives on that committee, and their contact information is as follows:
David Dreier - Republican from 26th District (San Gabriel Valley foothills). Phone numbers: DC office (202) 225-2305, San Dimas office (909) 575-6226, Toll-free (888) 906-2626
Doris Matsui - Democrat from 5th District (Sacramento). Phone numbers: DC office (202) 225-7163, Sacramento office (916) 498-5600
Dennis Cardoza - Democrat from 18th District (Stockton, Modesto, Merced). Phone numbers: DC office (202) 225-6131 or (800) 356-6424, Merced office (209) 383-4455, Modesto office (209) 527-1914, Stockton office (209) 946-0361.
UPDATE: It looks like the AC Transit Board of Directors may not be voting tomorrow on a fare increase! Instead, they're looking into a putting a parcel tax initiative on the November ballot. So tomorrow at their hearing, they'll likely vote to postpone discussing fare increases until after the November election. (BTW - last time I'm relying on the SF Chronicle as a source.) Also, the Board will be considering sending a letter of opposition to the FTA's proposal on nixing school buses from public transit.
This morning, I sat down on the bus to be greeted by a flyer with red, bold writing, proclaiming:
Rider Alert! Governor’s Budget Cuts $19 Million from AC Transit. Phone calls needed to protect your bus service!
So I knew I’d be writing about the need to take action for transit this evening. At the time, I hadn’t realized that transit’s being attacked by all levels of government this week. Luckily, there are three ways you can take action to stop these attacks.
I hate when history repeats itself. This year's May Revise budget proposal has some ugly similarities with last year's, particularly when it comes to public transportation cuts. In May 2007 Arnold proposed a $1.3 billion cut to mass transit. Ultimately $700 million was slashed, bringing to a halt transit projects around the state designed to help commuters get out of their cars and avoid the crippling impact of soaring gas prices.
Now, Arnold is proposing to raid public transportation funds again, to avoid tax increases. John Laird's budget overview makes clear that Arnold intends to cut over $400 million from state assistance to local public transit. This is an act of madness, as Californians are crying out for alternatives to the car. Ridership on local transit systems is soaring, but these systems are also being squeezed financially by rising fuel costs - especially diesel costs (which here in Monterey are just under $5 per gallon).
These proposed cuts are going to make it difficult for local systems to maintain their current levels of service, and will certainly make it hard for them to expand service to meet rising demand. It's hard to escape the conclusion that Arnold wants to drive commuters back into their cars.
Underneath the green veneer, Arnold is still the same conservative Republican who seeks to destroy the environment. What explains Arnold's desire to destroy public transportation? It's two interrelated factors. The first is that Arnold simply is not an environmentalist. He is fixated on the automobile as a form of transportation. He thinks more freeways are the solution, not more public transportation. The screaming demand of millions of Californians for public transit don't register with him.
The second is that Arnold is in the pockets of Big Oil. They have donated well over a million dollars to his various funds since November 2006, even though he isn't eligible for re-election in 2010. As their gouging of Californians continues, the oil companies know that a backlash is coming. They want to prevent that at all costs, want to ensure that they hold the line in California lest they set a trend for the rest of the nation.
If Arnold destroys California's public transit systems, Californians will not have any alternative but to pay the exorbitant costs at the pump. The middle class will sink further into financial ruin.
Arnold's public transportation cuts are a catastrophic disaster for the state of California. Not only will they make global warming worse, not only will they make our environment more polluted, more prone to fire, and mired deeper in drought, but his cuts will ruin family budgets, eventually causing lost jobs and further destroying the state's middle class.
Gas was at $3.50 when I wrote that. We're now at $4 and climbing fast. Arnold's attack on public transportation is nothing short of an attack on the California economy and on the wallets of every Californian. It is the height of hypocrisy to claim to protect those wallets by not raising taxes and to then force voters to shell out more money in gas purchases. Higher taxes would help lower the cost of transportation for Californians, growing the economy and leaving more green in family budgets at the end of the month.
Arnold's budget is flawed in many respects. This seems one of the most obvious - and one of the easiest targets for a counterattack.
I spent last weekend in San Diego, and as usualwhen I travel, I couldn’t help myself from comparing the city to Oakland. It’s been a couple years since I’ve visited San Diego, and I realized that though I’ve been there at least a dozen times, I’ve never spent even 24 hours there in one visit and I’ve never really gotten to know the city.
When remembering San Diego, I often thought of the one factor that’s true in the southern California cities I know better - sprawl. And this part I remembered correctly. San Diego is incredibly spread out, and it seemed difficult to get between most neighborhoods without a car. Oakland’s not the most compact city, but I feel like it’s fairly easy here to get from almost any neighborhood to the next, as long as you’re willing to hop on the bus or BART and maybe even transfer to another bus.
And just as I had remembered, it did seem as if pretty much everyone in San Diego had a car. Parking was sometimes difficult in popular neighborhoods - not San Francisco difficult, but certainly more competitive than most parts of Oakland.
But there were a couple things about San Diego that surprised me.
