As important as all of these subjects are, the agenda item I’m most interested in sounds, at first glance, considerably less exciting — a report on the bus transit service impacts associated with the Oakland Running Festival (PDF).

Bus service disruptions during the Marathon

This report came to the Board as an informational item at their meeting two weeks ago (PDF), and I was really glad it did.

Habitual bus riders surely remember all the notices at the stops and on buses in the weeks leading up to this year’s Oakland Running Festival about the MAJOR SERVICE DISRUPTIONS they should expect on March 27th. For those of you who didn’t have the pleasure of trying to plan out trips on transit that day from the closures list, hopefully this map will give you a little sense of what it was like:

I ended up taking a cab.

If that image isn’t enough to make the point, here’s the numbers breakdown:

• For 11 hours, there were service shutdowns on 28 routes
• Those routes represent 74% of Sunday ridership
• That’s about 52,000 people impacted by the service disruption

You get the idea. It’s bad.

AC Directors unhappy

Director Elsa Ortiz was concerned about the District getting compensated by the City for the expenses incurred during the service shutdowns (overtime for extra staff on the day of the event, cost of running shuttles in areas totally cut off). Director Greg Harper said he was happy they were addressing the issue, and then made a joke about Rosie Ruiz.

Director Joe Wallace found the whole thing pretty outrageous, offering:

To me, I’m a bus rider. I’ve been a bus rider all my life. And this list lets me know if I lived in Oakland when they ran this marathon not only could they not get to church, not only could they not buy food, but they couldn’t even get to work. This is just totally unacceptable. I don’t know, they have to run around the buses or something because our buses have got to run.

Director Chris Peeples, who had originally requested the report, bemoaned the “extreme” nature of the shutdowns and suggested the Board direct AC Transit staff to start negotiating “aggressively” with Oakland about getting some cooperation, and further suggested that the Board Members themselves get a little more aggressive with Oakland decision-makers:

It’s up to policy makers to go up there and stand in front of the City Council and say “You can’t treat our customers this way.” [Our staff can't] go and yell at City Councilmembers, but we certainly can.

Why was it so bad?

So. Obviously, any time you have an event that requires many miles of street closures, that’s going to create some issues for transit service. Understood.

But service shutdowns to the point where most people basically cannot get anywhere on a bus, that can’t be normal for marathons, right?

I did spend some time (a kind of ridiculous amount of time, actually) trying to figure out how major the bus service disruptions in other cities are during their marathons. I probably shouldn’t even have bothered, because even once you manage to find the list of route reroutings, and then take it and try to compare them to a standard route map, you’re still left with the problem that when you don’t know a city’s geography, you really have no way to evaluate what the changes mean for the person who has to accomplish kind of everyday tasks or reach major destinations.

In general, I couldn’t find any marathon-related service disruptions that looked at all comparable to what happened with AC Transit in Oakland this year, but like I said, it really just is so hard to tell when you don’t know what you’re looking at. The only other city where I’m familiar enough with the bus system and the routes to make any kind of reliable judgement is Portland. And comparing their rerouting and delays to what happened in Oakland last spring, it is like night and day. They had delays on tons of routes, but the City let buses run on some roads that were otherwise closed to traffic, and in general, it looked like, yeah, maybe you would have farther to walk and it would take longer than usual, but you could get to where you needed to go.

So what made this year in Oakland so terrible for bus riders? Well, it was the route. As AC Transit Service Development and Planning Director Corey LaVigne gently put it:

The routing was set up from kind of a particular perspective but not necessarily from a transit perspective.

The staff report elaborates (PDF):

The marathon route encircled the entire city from downtown Oakland, to West Oakland, the Montclair District, Fruitvale District, and Jack London Square around Lake Merritt to the finish line at Oakland’s City Hall. The half marathon course circulated within Downtown Oakland. Both routes resulted in the closure of several major arterials including International Blvd. Broadway, College Ave., Lincoln Blvd., Martin Luther King Way and 19^th Ave.

Both running events occurred simultaneously with an unyielding route that did not permit bus crossings over the 26 mile span for the planned 11 hour period. The overall effect was a nearly complete disruption of District lines operating within and between the City of Oakland and the rest of AC Transit service area that led to rider inconveniences.

Transit-last Oakland

I couldn’t even venture a guess about how many times I have pointed out over the years that Oakland is a “transit-first city” in name only.

I mean, when I learned that the City did not even involve AC Transit in the route-planning process, my first thought was basically “OMG that is so terrible! What could they have been thinking?” But pretty quickly that switched to “Oh, of course they didn’t. Why would they have? Oakland never thinks about transit. Why would the marathon be any different?”

I think part of it is also that the City of Oakland gets so excited anytime anything good happens here that there’s a tendency to kind of just focus on that one thing and just ignore everything else. So when it comes to something like the Running Festival, it’s all “Oh boy! Something cool is happening in Oakland! All sorts of people are going to be here. How can we best showcase the city?” And when that’s all you’re focused on, questions like “How are people who don’t care about the marathon supposed to go about their lives on this day” just don’t seem so important.

In the hopes of making things go a little more smoothly next year, staff is recommending (PDF):

• AC Transit Board of Directors to advocate for continuity of the existing transit service during public events that result in service disruptions. This includes requiring event organizers to plan and coordinate with District staff, and provide compensation for additional staffing, marketing and impacts on service changes requiring additional buses.
• Require the City of Oakland and the event organizers to include AC Transit as a key stakeholder in the process related to the planning of the marathon course.
• A recommendation for the marathon course to allow bus routes to safely permeate the marathon route to continue to operate unimpeded to and from Downtown Oakland.
• Require the event organizers to include AC Transit service changes in its marketing materials, website and social media.

Seems like a solid plan. Let’s hope the City is receptive!

The first will take place tomorrow night at Oakland City Hall. AC Transit At-large Director Joel Young will give a presentation, followed by a Q&A, about the agency. Here’s the event description, from the League:

Hitching a Ride of AC Transit: Where’s this Bus Headed?

Joel Young, Director-at-Large for AC Transit, will talk about the state of AC Transit and what the future holds for both AC Transit and Bay Area transportation in general.

AC Transit is the largest bus-only transit provider in California, carrying an average of over 200,000 riders a day. Its goal is to serve the greatest number of passengers at a reasonable cost and fare. But with the budget problems facing our state and our local communities, transportation funds are hard to come by, and with the exception of fares, any significant increase to AC Transit’s operating revenues requires a vote of the public.

Join other League members and interested members of the public to hear Director Joel Young discuss Bay Area transportation issues, including how AC Transit plans to meet its long-standing commitment to preserving and improving the quality and quantity of transit service for East Bay riders. There will be time for questions following Mr. Young’s presentation.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011 — 6:00 to 7:30 PM
Oakland City Hall, Hearing Room 3
One Frank Ogawa Plaza
(to the left inside the 14th Street entrance to City Hall)

For those who attend and want to talk more about transportation, or want to talk about transportation issues beyond just AC Transit, the League’s monthly Hot Topics meeting, held on next Monday, February 28th, will focus on transportation issues more generally.

From the League:

Hot Topics – Transportation Issues

Conversation about transportation issues a follow-up to the AC Transit program

A speaker from AC Transit will have given us a lot to think about on February 22.

Now you can participate in a conversation about transit issues in Oakland and the Bay Area. Bring your questions, concerns, and ideas for improvement.

Monday, February 28
6:30–8:00 p.m.
Redwood Heights Community Center
3883 Aliso Avenue
(Off Redwood Road just below Highway 13)

All are welcome; bring a friend!

Joel Ramos from TransForm and Kassie Rohrbach from Walk Oakland Bike Oakland will be on hand to provide information and answer any questions attendees may have about transportation issues in Oakland.

I’ll be at both events. Hope to see some of you there!

They gave a short presentation explaining the fare policy proposal, and the timeline for when things will happen. There will be a public hearing on the fare policy in April, then they will look for adoption by the Board, and would expect the fare increase to go into effect in January.

The meeting was fairly well attended. The seats in the room were probably about half full. I went straight there from work, but I still got there late, so I didn’t actually get to see the presentation except the very end.

However, AC Transit staff has helpfully provided me with the slides for the presentation, so if you want to review them for yourself, you can do so here (PDF). They provide a very good, simple explanation of the background and different elements of this proposal.

After the presentation, everyone dispersed to look at the question boards they had prepared. There were five “stations,” each covering a different aspect of the fare policy proposal. There was one about the general guidelines of the fare policy, one about transfers, one about the rate structure, one about how they should go about raising the cash fare, and one about the prices for youth and disabled passes.

Each station had a board with questions, and a few staff members standing next to it. When you approached the station, the staff members would give you dot stickers, and asked you to put a dot in the box that reflected your answer to each question. If you had any questions about any aspects of that issue, they would answer them. And if you had additional comments on the subject beyond what was reflected in the boards, the staff members would take them down from you.

I really enjoyed the format. For one, sticking your dots on the board was fun. I support anything that makes meetings more fun! Also, and I believe I have mentioned this in the past, I really like these meeting formats where they break the issue down into sections and have people walk around between them. I believe it is a much more effective way to collect input than the traditional presentation followed by a long line of people rambling about God knows what, or the also popular presentation followed by sitting around a table with crazy people for 45 minutes and all crafting some inane statement together. I also think it is more accessible to people who may not be comfortable speaking in front of groups.

So I was glad to see AC Transit do it this way.

In addition to the input stations, they had posters tacked up around the room with information about the agency.

I was particularly interested in the ones showing the breakdown of the AC Transit’s ridership.

Another display I found fascinating showed the history of AC Transit’s fare rates. The photo I took was hard to read, so I have prepared some charts illustrating the fare history.

Local cash fares

Monthly pass prices

Transbay cash fares

All in all, I thought it was a really good meeting and I’m happy I attended. If you were unable to attend the meeting, but still want to weigh in, comments will be accepted through February 28th. Visit the fare input page on AC Transit’s website for information about how you can comment. And for additional background and discussion of the proposals, see the post I wrote yesterday about AC Transit’s fare policy.

If you can’t make the meeting, no worries. You can also offer feedback on the proposals through an online survey or by sending an email to planning@actransit.org.

AC Transit provides a good summary of the issues related to the fare policy proposal on their website, so if you’re in a hurry, just go read that.

And for the rest of you…

Why a fare policy?

The idea of a fare policy has been bandied around at AC Transit Board meetings for a while, and last July, the Board directed staff to go ahead and start working on it. In January, staff presented the Board with an initial proposal reflecting their research, got initial comments from the Board, and will come back to the Board again after receiving feedback from riders. The Board will likely adopt a proposal in April, and we’ll get our first round of fare changes starting this July.

Perhaps you’re wondering why they’re talking about this at all. Or maybe whether “fare policy” is just a coded way to talk about raising prices yet again. The answer is, sort of. I’ll let the staff report (PDF) explain:

AC Transit’s fare and pass price structure has been developed on an ad hoc, as-needed basis. As such, it has been inconsistent and not integrated with any structured plan.

The process of raising fares has been unpredictable, episodic, and anxiety-provoking, especially for the riding public. Each fare increase is decried by some as a surprising imposition, despite the District’s steadily rising costs. The proposed fare policy seeks to create an orderly, transparent, and rational process for regularly scheduled increases that provides stability for both patrons and the District’s budget process.

Basically, in the past, the way AC Transit approaches fare pricing is to just keep prices steady until they need money, and then raise them. Sometimes six years will go by without a price increase. Other times it’s only one. The cost of monthly passes, youth passes, transbay passes, senior passes, and whatever other kind of pass or fare they might have bear no logical or structured relationship to one another — they’re just kind of set based on what the agency thinks they can get away with charging.

A fare policy would change all that. The agency would outline a regular timeline for scheduled fare increases, the way BART does. You have perhaps noticed that although BART is constantly raising their fares, people don’t flip out and act like it’s Armaggedon every time it happens. Again, from the staff report (PDF):

Maintaining the stability of the fare structure over time is also very important. Fare increases should occur at predictable intervals, to allow both the District and passengers to plan accordingly. BART implements regular fare increases once every two years. Fare increases should maintain the relationships among different fare types, so that the structure of fares remains understandable.

In all the materials and discussions on this subject, AC Transit is placing a great deal of emphasis on the importance of transparency and predictability in fare prices. Laudable goals, no doubt.

What would the fare policy be?

After reviewing fare structures used by other transit agencies, both within and outside of the Bay Area, they’ve come up with a set of proposed guidelines to dictate the way fare prices are set:

1. Monthly Passes should be 36 times the relevant base (cash) fare
2. Transbay fares should be 2 times the local fare (cash and pass)
3. Discount fares (senior, disabled, and youth) should be 50% of the adult (cash or pass)

So basically, the normal cash fare for one normal, non-discounted adult ride on a bus would be the basis for the prices of every other kind of fare or pass. I think that makes sense. It seems simple and logical enough.

The cash fare

We’re clear so far, right? Everything stems from the basic cash fare and the cash fare increases on a regular, predictable, pre-planned schedule. That proposed schedule goes like this:

Staff recommends fare increases in a 2 year/3 year cycle; at the beginning of FY2011-12 (July 2011), FY2013-14, FY 2016-17, and FY 2018-10. If current low inflation levels continue, base fares are anticipated to be $2.10 in FY 2011, $2.25 in FY 2013, then $2.35 in FY 2016-17 and $2.50 in FY 2018-19.

So I will just say upfront that I do not find this fare increase schedule nearly as simple and transparent as AC Transit staff seems to. In fact, it seems really convoluted to me. 10 cents this year, no cents next year, fifteen cents the next year…I mean, I guess that yes, it is predictable in the sense that if you go look up the chart of when the fares are scheduled to increase, you can see what it says and therefore know the future. But is anyone going to remember this and expect it? I mean, nobody who isn’t working at that agency looks at these charts and thinks “25 cents every five years at predictable intervals every other year. Duh.”

Then there’s the line immediately following the ones I just quoted:

Higher rates of inflation may warrant greater increases.

That I do not get at all. I mean, I understand that from the agency’s perspective, sometimes they’re going to need more money. But I thought the entire point of this policy was to make things predictable for riders. Doesn’t that mean that when you adopt the schedule of increases, you stick with it, whether it’s convenient for you or not?

Youth Passes

But the erratic fare increase schedule, or the fact that in general, people don’t like it when prices go up (even if it is just ten cents) is not the rough part of this proposal. Youth passes are.

Remember that line above about discount fares, and how they should be half of the regular fares? Well, that is in accordance withmost transit agency practices, and it seems like a fair deal to me.

However. Well, you know what, I’ll let the staff report explain this one too:

The pricing of discount passes — youth passes in particular — has been held below market value (when compared to both other transit agencies and the District’s current fare structure) for a number of years. The Youth pass, priced at $27.00 in 1999, was lowered to its current $15.00 in 2000 at an estimated additional cost to the District of $4 million per year. The current $15 price is the lowest monthly Youth pass of any major transit agency in the nation. The Senior/Disabled monthly pass was last increased in 2002 and costs an estimated $2 million per year when evaluated under the proposed fare structure.

You see the problem here? It continues:

The severity of the discount is also highlighted in these pass categories when compared to the proposed 36-ride base rate. The Youth $15 pass is currently discounted at a 15-ride rate instead of the proposed 36-ride rate, a discount of over 58%. The $20 Senior/Disabled pass is discounted at a 20-ride rate, more than a 44% discount over the proposed 36-ride rate.

Staff acknowledges that many issues and vested parties are involved in this matter. However, staff also recognizes that the current deep pricing discount offered for these passes are unsustainable and corrective action should be undertaken. Staff recommends a gradual, multi-year increase in both pass categories that eventually aligns the pass price at the proposed 36-ride base discount rate. The recommendation is detailed in the Attachment.

Basically, the way youth passes are priced now is nowhere close to being in line with the proposed fare policy. And while raising fares is never a popular thing to do, dramatically raising fares on kids is an especially unpopular thing to do.

When they outlined this part at the January 12th Board meeting, Director Joe Wallace jumped in to point out that trying to enact such a change would be a “major political fight.” No one disagreed. Staff acknowledged that dramatic increases in youth fares is a “highly charged” issue, and offered that they were trying to do it in a “humane fashion.”

The plan is to phase the change in over a number of years, so that the discount fares slowly come into alignment with the fare policy. So the monthly youth pass is $15 right now, next year it would be $20, the next year $26.50, and so on, until 2018, when it matches up with the goals.

Director Chris Peeples, apparently sensitive about the idea of betraying the trust of the voters (what a novel concept!), stated firmly that he would not support raising fares on youth and disabled passengers as long as they’re still collecting money from Measure VV. And you know, he has a point. AC Transit campaigned for Measure VV on the promise of keeping fares low for kids and disabled passengers. I think it’s okay to have some wiggle room to raise fares sometime during the life of the tax, but we are talking about a tremendous increase here. Obviously that is not something the Board or the public is going to take lightly.

On the other hand, the bus does need to keep running. And just in case anyone had forgotten about that in their hesitancy to raise fares, General Manager Mary King stepped in to inform the Board that they were “whistling past the graveyard” if they think they can just not raise fares and also not cut service.

So, I kind of adore Mary King. Specifically, I adore her when she does stuff like this. The Board will go off on some thing, and it always sounds well intentioned of whatever, but she’ll step in and scold them, like a stern mother and be all “Yes, these decisions suck. Boo hoo. It’s your job to make them. Grow up and do it.” I’ve never been to a Berkeley City Council meeting, but someone told me once that their City Manager is like that too, which is perhaps why they do not have a huge budget crisis right now. In my dreams, once AC Transit hires a permanent General Manager, Oakland can hire Mary King to come sit at Council meetings and scold the Council when they’re being stupid.

One public speaker at the meeting got up to talk about how the idea of increasing the youth passes made her “ill,” and I expect that we will hear a whole lot more of that rhetoric tonight and in the coming weeks. While obviously nobody wants to run around banging the drum in favor of charging kids more to ride the bus, I do think it’s important to broaden the context of the way we talk about this issue. As sympathetic as I am to the particular problems of young people, I also have to ask how it is fair to every other rider of the system that everyone’s service has to suffer because we’ve made a choice to subsidize youth riders to a degree unmatched by any other transit agency in the country.

Seven day passes

So the youth passes are obviously the big battle here. But if you find that whole issue too depressing to think about, well, there’s other stuff the agency is looking for feedback on as well. Some of it is even really good!

One such issue that staff asked the Board for feedback on was seven day passes. Right now, you can either buy a single ride pass for $2.00 (supplemented with a transfer for a quarter) or a 31 day pass for $80. Those are your only options.

If AC Transit were to add a seven day pass, it would be good for unlimited rides for one week, and would be priced probably at 10 times the basic cash fare (so, $20 for now, more when that cost goes up). The reasoning behind introducing such an option is that it is often very difficult for low income riders to come up with the $80 to buy a month long pass, even though they might ride the bus enough to justify getting one. $20 at a time is a lot easier to produce, so a seven day pass would be expected to have some social equity benefits by making it easier for low income frequent passengers to get at least some break on their fares, even if it’s not as good as the monthly pass.

So I think seven day passes are a great idea. AC Transit should totally offer them — I think it’s a no brainer.

I am happy now to have reached a point in my life where, should I decide I need a bus pass some month, I can pretty much always do it. However, I recall vividly a time not all that long ago when this wasn’t the case, and I was totally one of those people who rode the bus every day, more than enough to justify the monthly pass, but I could never come up with that much money at once. And it totally sucked.

So while I no longer have to worry about that, I think AC Transit should definitely do it, just from an equity standpoint.

Also, seven day passes would be convenient for people like me. I ride the bus a couple of times a week, probably, but almost never enough to justify a monthly pass. However, my use patterns are very irregular irregular. Some weeks, I’ll have lots of things to do all over the City and will be riding the bus constantly. Other weeks, most stuff is downtown. If I could get a seven day pass for the bus-heavy weeks, I totally would do it, it would be super helpful.

Staff also said they were interested in feedback on the idea of going back to monthly passes versus the 31 day passes they’re doing now. A 31 day pass is like it sounds — good for 31 days from the time you buy it. A monthly pass is good for a specific calendar month. They mentioned that switching from monthly passes to 31 day passes had caused some “issues,” but if they elaborated on what they were, I missed it somehow. I don’t know what difficulty 31 day passes create from a system operations perspective, but I can’t imagine any problems they could make for riders. To me, that is a million times more convenient. Nobody really seemed particularly interested in that idea.

Transfers!

Should AC Transit offer transfers? Should they offer transfers to everyone? Or to only people with Clipper cards? Or to everyone, but make them cheaper for people with Clipper cards? Or free for Clipper card users? How long should they be good for? How many times should you be able to get on the bus with one transfer? I could go on all day asking questions about transfers.

Right now, AC Transit’s transfers cost twenty-five cents. You can use them only once, within two hours of the time you got on the bus. It used to be 90 minutes, but they expanded the allowed time last year when they cut service.

I have perhaps a spoiled perspective on transfers, since I never rode a city bus until I lived in Portland. In Portland, the transfers are free, everyone gets one when they get on the bus (or used to, I haven’t been back in a while), and they’re good for unlimited rides for three hours! So when I moved here, and discovered that not only did you have to pay, you can hardly even use the transfer at all — well, that seemed pretty lame to me. I would much prefer a more generous transfer policy.

On the other hand, AC Transit earns money from people buying transfers. So, sure, as much as riders like me all want everything to be as cheap as possible, that often is not practical from the standpoint of the people trying to actually operate the buses.

Still, I think that with the strict time limit, it’s crazy to also limit them to one use. I have definitely taken trips where I need to use three buses to get somewhere (such trips are more common now after the service cuts), and it is really frustrating to have to pay $4.00 for that each way.

The Board seemed pretty into the idea of allowing unlimited transfers within the transfer time period for Clipper users, since Clipper by nature circumvents the problem that the one-use rule for transfers was created to address, which is that people were using legally acquired transfers to get on a bus, then passing them out of the back window to other people, so the transfer would just get used over and over again by different people until it expired. With Clipper, you can’t have that kind of fraud.

Equity

There was some discussion of continuing to charge for cash fare transfers, but making them free on Clipper. I think that makes a ton of sense — free transfers would give people a huge incentive to use Clipper instead of cash. However, there was some concern that giving such special treatment to Clipper users could be a Title VI issue. I found that confusing. If the issue is that poor people aren’t using Clipper at the same rates as wealthier riders, it seems like the combination of a generous discount and an aggressive Clipper promotion campaign in areas of concern would be a logical solution to that problem.

It is in every rider’s interest to have as many passengers as possible using Clipper cards rather than cash, because it makes a significant difference in the speed of the bus. The less time every bus spends loading while people fish for dimes in their pockets, the faster they can move and the more reliable they will be. Everyone wins.

Day Passes

Another thing staff asked about was the idea of offering one day passes. Director Chris Peeples responded that they had tried day passes for “about ten minutes” some number of years ago, and that nobody used them.

Then he started going on about how things were in the time before BART, and how the buses used to run in different zones and you bought zone-based tickets and everyone was taking these long distance express buses everywhere all the time. And also the buses had racks for men to put their hats on. Not terribly relevant to the issue at hand, but it was kind of entertaining. You don’t hear people talk about getting around the Bay Area on transit in pre-BART days very often.

What do you think?

So hopefully, all that has given you guys some things to think about. You can listen to the whole discussion at the January Board meeting below:

And of course, those who have strong opinions about any aspect of this are encouraged to share their feelings with AC Transit. There’s the meeting tonight (5-7 PM, AC Transit HQ, 1600 Franklin Street) and the online survey, of course. Also, you can send in your comments by email (address messages to planning@actransit.org). Those of you still living in 1992 can fax your comments to (51) 891-4874. Voicemails are accepted at (510) 891-7293. And there’s always the old fashioned paper letter, which you can mail to: AC Transit Fare Policy Input, 1600 Franklin Street, Oakland, CA 94612.

The arbitration panel in the AC Transit labor negotiation has reached a decision between the transit district and the union representing its 1,750 of its bus drivers and mechanics for a new three year contract. The decision was reached in time to halt the weekend service cuts planned for December as part of a cost reduction program by the transit agency.

The binding decision calls for contributions from the members of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 192 to their health and benefit plans, work rule and holiday changes, and will help the district reduce its protected deficit by approximately $38 million over the term of the contract.

“There are no winners or losers in this arbitration,” said Interim General Manager Mary King. “Both AC Transit and the union focused on what is best for the riders and taxpayers of this district and what is in the long-term interest of maintaining public transit for the people we serve.”

I never managed to get around to writing anything about the December service cuts (PDF) the AC Transit Board of Directors approved back in September , partly because I was so busy with other stuff, and partly because it was just, like, too depressing to write about.

You probably read about the cuts somewhere at the time, but in case you didn’t — basically, due to ongoing budget crisis, AC Transit was going to eliminate weekend service on most lines, and cancel 4 out of the 6 buses that run all night. AC Transit service has already been reduced to very close to their lowest level in twenty-five years (with only the period between 1996 and 1998 being worse), and the December cuts would have taken them well below even that disturbing level.

It would have been just devastating. So the fact that those cuts aren’t going to happen? Yeah, it’s awesome.

AC Transit still has problems

Of course, it’s only awesome because what was about to happen was so dire. It doesn’t mean by any stretch of the imagination that AC Transit is doing okay now. The first round of service cuts (back in March) was okay. I mean, obviously, it wasn’t a happy occassion. But they were able to be pretty creative about them and structure the cuts in a way that did relatively little harm when you consider them in the context of just how many service hours were being lost. The second round, the ones that happened in October? Those were tougher.

So it is important to remember that even though this is good news, bus riders are still suffering a great deal, and AC Transit’s budget problems are nowhere near over.

Which is why I was delighted yesterday to see the guest post from Bob Allen on Living in the O. If you missed it, here’s some highlights:

However, you might be aware of and read headlines about the recent efforts of the region’s elected officials and agencies, like the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), to secure funding for a project – the Oakland Airport Connector – with ridership of several thousand daily riders , many of them from outside the Bay Area, versus the over 230,000 daily riders of AC Transit that face drastically declining service.

When BART lost $70 million in federal ARRA stimulus funds (because of its violation of Federal Transit Administration Civil Rights procedures) to complete its three-mile Oakland Airport Connector (OAC) boondoggle, elected officials from Oakland, Alameda County and Congress all pitched in and found the money. Now bus riders, transit workers and advocates are asking, “who will fight for AC Transit and its riders?”

…

Among the OAC’s top supporters were Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and City Council member Larry Reid, Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty, Alameda County Transportation Commission Chair Mark Green, State Assemblyman Sandre Swanson, U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee and Senator Dianne Feinstein. These elected officials stepped in and helped find and swap funding at the federal, state and local level. Bus riders are asking for the same treatment for AC Transit.

With the upcoming Federal Transportation Bill reauthorization, the development of the Alameda Countywide Transportation Plan, the reauthorization of Alameda County’s Measure B sales tax and MTC’s Regional Transportation Plan there are plenty of opportunities to increase AC Transit’s funding to reverse its cuts and protect its service for the long-term.

I am really glad that Urban Habitat, among others, is making a stink about this. So glad, in fact, that I even went to their rally yesterday. And believe me, I am so not a rally person. But they are so right to call out all those elected officials who scrambled to find a way to get the Airport Connector built and ask where the hell they all are as local bus service is being completely decimated.

People depend on these buses to live their lives. They need them to get to work. They need them to get to the doctor. They need them to get to the store. They need them to get to school. They need them to go see their families. And it is not okay for all these officials who bent over backwards to try to help out this overpriced construction project to just sit their and twiddle their thumbs and ignore these devastating service cuts that have serious impacts on people’s lives. Lots of people. Hundreds of thousands of people.

The immediate response you get to something like this is, of course, “Well, sure. I support not cutting the bus. But where’s the money for that?” And the point of all this is, of course, that it is their job to help find the money. This is a crisis, and it’s not okay to ignore it. It is not enough to just shrug your shoulders and be like “Well, duh. I agree the bus cuts suck. But operating money is just so hard to find. There’s nothing to do.”

So good for Urban Habitat and ACCE, and BOSS, and the Center for Progressive Action, and Genesis, and Public Advocates, and United Seniors of Alameda County, and the other groups that organized the event for pointing out that doing nothing is not an acceptable response. Yeah, finding operating money is a problem. So let’s change that! Transportation advocates have been trying. But they are not going to get it done without help from our local elected officials.

Pictures!

I didn’t actually get very good pictures of the rally yesterday. My phone was just about out of batteries when I arrived. I did manage to snap three kind of crappy photos before it died. So here’s what I got. There were tons of cameras around, so hopefully somebody else will post some better ones, and when I see them, I’ll link there.

Forum breakdowns by question and recaps with my commentary will be forthcoming, but I don’t know when, and I wanted to get these up as quickly as I could, because I know some of you out there are particularly interested in this BART race. So here you go.

BART Board District 4

Candidates in this race are incumbent Carol Ward Allen and challengers Robert Raburn and Monique Rivera.

AC Transit Board District 3

Candidates in this race are incumbent Elsa Ortiz and challengers Dollene Jones and Nancy Skowbo.

Peralta Community College Board District 3

Candidates in this race are incumbent Linda Handy and challenger Monica Tell.

Peralta Community College Board District 5

Candidates in this race are incumbent Bill Riley and challenger William Mattox.

Okay, have fun! And if anyone knows of websites for the candidates that I didn’t include a link for, it would be awesome if you made a note of them for me in the comments.

Well, as a matter of fact, that’s exactly what they have been doing. And conveniently, AC Transit has recently issued a report (PDF) on exactly that subject and will be hosting a community forum to discuss it on Thursday.

Let’s start from the beginning.

What is the 1R?

AC Transit’s has been running a bus line called the 1R since June of 2007. The line runs from downtown Berkeley to downtown Oakland along Telegraph, then from downtown Oakland to the Bayfair BART Station in San Leandro along International Boulevard. Along the same route, AC Transit also operates a line called the 1, which is in general, slower than the 1R, because it has way more stops. Previous to the summer of 2007, this corridor was served by two different buses, the 40 and the 82.

It is a tremendously popular line, carrying over 12,000 passengers daily as of November 2008 (an 11.4% increase from 2007). This is on top of all the passengers that ride the 1. Although riding the 1R is substantially faster than riding the 1, many people choose to take the 1 anyway because the 1R stops are quite far apart, and often not particularly close to one’s destination.

Theoretically, the 1R arrives every 12 minutes between 6 AM and 7 PM at each of the 36 stops along its 17 mile line. The total trip from downtown Berkeley to Bayfair BART is supposed to take 73 minutes in the morning and 78 minutes during the afternoon rush hour.

The superior speed of the 1R versus the 1 is due to the two factors. First, the 1R stops a whole lot less than the 1. 1 stops are spaced between 800 and 1,300 feet apart. The minimum distance between 1R stops outside of downtown Oakland is about 1,200 feet, but they average a much longer 2,400 feet and some are spaced nearly 5,200 feet apart.

Besides the stop spacing, the 1R is also faster than the 1 because of something called Transit Signal Priority. This is a neat-o high-tech tool that you put both on the bus and the traffic light. When the bus is approaching the traffic light, the tool can tell, and it will keep the light green for a couple seconds so the bus can get across.

Sounds great. But do people ride it?

So this is an issue that comes up a lot when people are talking about transit. It is not uncommon whatsoever to hear people talk about the bus as if only buses are only ridden by the destitute and crazy transit freaks. Often, when talking about the bus – in public meetings, in comments on, say, this blog, or in general conversation, you will hear people say things like “Oh, I would never ride a bus” or “Nothing could make me ride a bus” or “Nobody who has a choice of doing something else would ever make me ride a bus.” Maybe. Maybe not.

Obviously there are always going to be some people who will just never ride the bus anywhere. You can’t do anything about that. But there are also lots of people – normal people – who ride the bus because it gets them to where they need to go, and it’s simply easier than driving a car. One of my favorite things I’ve read in the last year was this interview with Mad Men and Angel star Vincent Kartheiser, where he says he takes the bus to work. The interviewer acts all shocked. Like, where do you live that you can do that? And he’s so casual about it, all “Oh, I live here, but you can take the bus from lots of places. It’s not a big deal.” It is so rare in the media to see taking the bus portrayed as a normal thing to do, even though, in reality, it is incredibly normal. More Oaklanders take the bus to work than take BART.

Anyway, enough with the tangent. Do people ride the 1R? Um, yes. The 1R carries roughly 12,000 passengers a day. And they ride it in growing numbers. Between October 2007, a few months after the line debuted, and November 2008, ridership on the 1R increased by 11.4%.

And why do they ride it? Well, a lot of people take the 1R to work. The chart below illustrates the number of people on the bus during AM commute hours, along with how many people are boarding and exiting (alighting) at each stop.

Click to enlarge

Also, contrary to what some people seem to believe, people don’t only ride the bus during commute hours. If you ride the bus during the middle of the day, you know this already. If you don’t, well, the chart below illustrates the line usage during midday hours.

Click to enlarge

Overall, the 1R averages 89 passengers per trip.

Okay. So why don’t even more people ride it?

Well, big problem with the 1R is reliability. As I said above, the entire route is supposed to take 73 minutes. In reality, it can take as much as 115 minutes. That’s a big difference.

Of course, most runs don’t go so crazy far over schedule. The average running time for the 1R going south during peak afternoon periods is 89 minutes, 11 minutes longer than it’s supposed to. The deviation from scheduled running time varies throughout the day, but it’s almost always longer. See the chart below.

Click to enlarge

A more sobering way to look at it is to consider how many trips are completed within 5 minutes of the scheduled runtime. In AM peak periods, this figure can be as low as 21%. Yikes!

The full report includes lots of great charts that give a little more context to the problem, showing where exactly the bus gets so slowed down, but for the sake of space, we won’t get too much into it here.

When buses get behind schedule, the result is often something called “bunching.” This is when multiple buses arrive at or near the same time. The bunching is probably the most serious problem with the 1R, as it means riders end up having to wait much longer than they should for a bus to show up. It means the service is unreliable. And when people can’t count on the bus to take them where they want to go when it’s supposed to, then they are much less likely to ride it.

For purposes of the report, bunching was defined as buses arriving within 2 minutes of each other. During peak afternoon periods, 16.5% of buses were found to be bunched. The report defines “normal” headways as buses arriving 10 to 14 minutes apart. During peak afternoon periods, only 14.8% of buses were found to be normal. Terrible! The bunching percentage increases and normal percentage decreases as the bus gets further and further along the route.

What makes the bus so slow?

Well, obviously, there’s traffic. And along with it, stop lights. 19% of the 1R’s running time is spent waiting at traffic lights. But there are other factors as well.

24% of the 1R’s running time is spent at stops, waiting for passengers to get on and off. This is an issue with busy bus routes. It takes time for people to get on and off the bus, and when you have a lot of people getting on and off, it ends up taking a lot of time. At the worst stop, International and 34th Avenue, it takes an average of 78 seconds to get everybody onto the bus.

Part of the reason it takes so long is because it takes people a while to pay. People paying cash take the longest. Often people (irritatingly) have not gotten their money ready beforehand, and end up standing at the farebox fishing for change and making everyone wait behind them. 34% of 1R passengers pay cash.

The fastest way to pay is using something you can just flash and go, like a TransLink card or flash pass. Riders using TransLink take as little as 2 seconds to load. Sadly, TransLink payment accounted for only 3% of the 1R’s passengers as of the time of this study, although that figure is surely increasing now due to the more widespread adoption of TransLink and policy changes on the part of AC Transit.

Besides the general loading time, the 1R also has to deal with the additional time it takes to load strollers and wheelchairs. There are also a lot of strollers and wheelchairs on the 1R. Obviously, there are, in general, going to be more strollers and wheelchairs on high traffic lines simply because there are more people riding the bus total. But it does sometimes seem that the 1R, particularly on the East Oakland portion, gets a disproportionate number of strollers.

Strollers and wheelchairs slow down the bus because it takes a much longer time to get them on. The ramp has to come out, people have to get on it, then the ramp has to come back up, then once they’re on the bus, strollers have to find a place to go and wheelchairs have to be secured. The average loading time for a stroller was found to be 1 minute and 34 seconds, and the average loading time for a wheelchair was found to be 4 minutes and 10 seconds.

How do we fix it?

Do BRT.

No, just kidding! Seriously! I don’t want this discussion to turn into another debate about BRT, it’s about improving the 1R. Various features of a BRT system would eliminate or significantly reduce some of the dwell time problems delineated above, but even if AC Transit ended up deciding to go through with totally full fledged BRT as designed in the maximum alternative, that still wouldn’t be operating until like 2015. That’s a long time to wait for a better bus.

The report identifies a number of ways to improve speed and reliability on the current 1R. Read the full report (PDF) to see them all, I’m just going to do the highlights here.

First, the bus can be made safer for the large number of strollers if they have a place to go. Additionally, the time associated with loading the strollers and having people stuck in line behind them could be decreased it they don’t have to hunt for a place to park. The suggestion here is to replace some of the normal seats on the 1R with seats that flip up and down. That way, if there are lots of strollers on a run, more space can be available to accommodate them. If there aren’t, then people can use the space to sit down.

For wheelchairs, the report suggests marking clearly the space at the bus stop where everyone should be waiting – one space for people using the front door and another space for passengers who will need the ramp. This would be helpful, but of course, only works if the bus always stops in the exact same place. As frequent riders know, that doesn’t always happen. The report suggests that this problem could be ameliorated by separating 1R stops in certain high locations from the stops used by other buses, so the 1R wouldn’t be stopping all the way behind the other bus.

Additionally, the report suggests that 1R drivers get special training to familiarize them with the unique operating needs of the rapid line and that the line be managed more closely to lessen the impact of bunching. For example, when a bus reaches the end of the line, the driver would be instructed to not depart in the other direction until 12 minutes have passed since the last bus left. The ideal departure time would be indicated through the use of a countdown clock, and would hopefully put a stop to the snowball effect created by bunching, where each instance of bunching ends up making the problem even worse for the next bus.

Finally, the report suggests that the time spent loading passengers could be reduced by encouraging less time consuming payment methods. Specifically, it proposes exploring the use of some sort of ticket vending machine at the line’s busiest stops (Shattuck and Allston in downtown Berkeley, 20th and Telegraph, 14th and Broadway, 11th and Broadway, 12th and Broadway 11th and Harrison, and 12th and Harrison in downtown Oakland, International and 34th in the Fruitvale district, and Bayfair BART). If passengers could buy a flash pass before they get on the bus, then the time waiting for people to hunt for change could be significantly reduced. Passengers could be encouraged to use the vending machines instead of on-board cash payment if the vending machines offered some kind of fare discount. Clearly, there are a variety of issues that would have to be addressed before AC Transit could implement ticket vending machines, but it seems like a promising concept.

If you find all this as fascinating as I do and want to know more, you have two options. First, you can just sit down and read all 88 pages of the report (PDF). It’s not anywhere near as bad as it sounds – there are lots of big maps and charts, and the whole thing is written in admirably clear and non-jargony language. Second, you can go to the community forum AC Transit is hosting tomorrow. At the forum, AC Transit staff will present the findings of the study, answer questions, and take suggestions from the public about how to improve 1R service.

The meeting will be held tomorrow, Thursday, February 25th at AC Transit’s headquarters at 1600 Franklin Street in downtown Oakland from 6 to 8 PM.

Anyway. So what does this mean, to select a locally preferred alternative?

First, here is what it does not mean. It does not mean that the Planning Commission (and in coming weeks, the City Council) is approving doing BRT. That is a decision that will come later, after AC Transit has completed their Final Environmental Impact (FEIR) Report for the proposal. Before they can complete the FEIR, each City in the corridor (Oakland, Berkeley, and San Leandro) has identify their preferred route for the project and preferred station locations.

With a detailed plan for the route and stop locations, AC Transit will be able to identify the actual impacts of BRT more precisely than in their Draft EIR. Once the concrete impacts have been identified, they can then try to come up with specific steps they can take to mitigate those impacts. When that is all finished, the Council can then decide to approve or not approve the project.

I think that BRT would be pretty much the best possible thing, transit-wise, that could happen for Oakland and really hope that when we get to that point, the Council will make the correct decision. But it is important to understand that we aren’t there yet. I feel like a great deal of the opposition to BRT is due to a lack of information about the project. Yes, there are, of course, some people who are fully informed and have well thought out rationale for not liking the project. I disagree with those people, but respect them.

However, most of the time when I encounter people who don’t want BRT, it takes all of two minutes of talking to them before you realize that they are aware of like, zero facts about the project besides the fact that it involves dedicated lanes. I think this is unfortunate, and largely due to a combination of poor press coverage and aggressive misinformation campaigns on the part of a few local organizations. It’s sad.

If BRT is a new concept to you, you can get up to speed on AC Transit’s BRT page, the City of Oakland’s BRT page, and of course, the BRT archives on this blog. Basically, BRT would replace the bus routes 1 and 1R. Buses would run from Berkeley to downtown Oakland along Telegraph Avenue, then from downtown Oakland to San Leandro along International Boulevard. The stops would be spaced every one-third of a mile. This will be closer together than the stops on the existing 1R, and farther apart than the stops on the current 1. Roughly, the bus would stop every four blocks instead of every two.

Passengers would board the buses from raised platforms in the median. The stations would feature ticket vending machines, so that fares are pre-purchased. The raised platforms would also allow for level boarding (no more painful waiting for the bus to go up and down to let wheelchairs on and off). The buses would run in dedicated lanes along the route, except in downtown Oakland. Combined, the features are intended to significantly improve speed along the route, but much more importantly, ensure reliability of service.

Oakland’s draft locally preferred alternative, which the Planning Commission will be discussing tonight, involves not only dedicated bus lanes, but also the transformation of International and Telegraph into what is called a “complete street,” featuring significant improvements for pedestrians and bicyclists along the corridor. Read dto510′s blog post on the subject for more context.

You can read the details of the City’s draft locally preferred alternative at the City’s BRT website.

The City held a series of public meetings to solicit feedback on the proposed locally preferred alternative during January. The comments received at these meetings are included in the agenda report for tonight’s discussion (PDF). The 46 pages of comments include a lot of good questions and useful suggestions for further study. They also include a lot of pointless, unproductive, and totally uninformed comments from crazy people who hate BRT and have no interest in learning any facts or having a conversation about how to improve the project. And there’s also a pretty healthy dose of the random and irrelevant. Below, I’ve listed some of my favorites from the document:

I will enjoy the bus rides

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The City of Oakland needs to repair the underground infrastructure such as the ailing old Sewer System before this Transit project. Most of Oakland’s Neighborhoods have Sewer leaks, Leaking Raw Human waste into the Ground!

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To improve bus transportation routes, this is good. But you’ve got to first repair the roads, because now many roads are broken and without repair. Therefore the roads cause accidents, not only to pedestrians but to automobiles. Therefore I suggest that Oakland fixes all the broken roads first, and then tries to improve the bus transportation route.

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I adamantly oppose the implementation of AC Transit’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) plan. The havoc it woudl create for private autos and everyone else using the Tlegraph corridor is well beyond reason, with no great benefit to transit users. It would also make riding a bicycle on Telegraph Ave much less attractive, being hemmed in by long lines of autos and large buses whizzing by. And the idea that the City has no recourse to remove the infrastructure once the plan shows its not useful is beyond gall.

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I’ve ridden AC Transit buses on Telegraph in Berkeley and Oakland for about thirty years. Never has there been any bus more dangerous (for a senior) and uncomfortable to ride than the BRT. In fact, I avoid BRT whenever possible, as do many others (witness the low ridership; I often see near empty BRT lumbering down Telegraph). It’s hard for me to believe you know or care how passengers are thrown around inside the BRT trying to grab something to hold onto or sit on. Did you think drivers waited for passengers to clasp something to hold onto or sit onto before driving off? It’s fairly obvious to we who ride buses that someone, somewhere, who never rides buses, took a big bribe to authorize such a mosterosity.

And my hands-down favorite of the comments? This one:

I can’t thank you enough for dropping your STOP BRT flyer on my Temescal home’s doorstep. I had heard nothing about this, and after reviewing various things on the web about it this afternoon, I am thrilled. What a creative proposal to improve public transportation in our city and help the environment.

Your flyer, by the way, is a bit of a downer. More the “politics of nope” than a “politics of hope.” My reaction to people who “just say no” is to always look at the other side, and in this case was so excited by the possibilities of Bus Rapid Transit that I have to wholeheartedly support it. To that end, I am cc’ing _brt@oaklandnet.com_ (mailto:brt@oaklandnet.com) with this comment: Yes to BRT!

Yeah, you read that right. Temescal was papered with STOP BRT flyers filled with a bunch of lies about the proposal designed to terrify people about the concept of BRT. Happily, in at least one case, it backfired.

But the input received is by no means all silly or uninformed. There are a number of issues pop up repeatedly in the comments, and how these concerns can be addressed or mitigated, either through changes to the locally preferred alternative, or later through specific steps on the part of AC Transit, should be the focus of tonight’s discussion so that Oakland can end up with the best possible project when and if this finally happens. The common themes are as follows:

• Prohibiting left turns will shift traffic onto side streets
• Concern over bus only lanes limiting access for emergency vehicles
• Concern about losing parking spaces
• Concern about seniors walking too far for the bus

The Planning Commission meets at 6 PM tonight at City Hall, in Hearing Room 1. Oh, and if you feel like showing up early, the Planning Commission’s Zoning Update Committee will be meeting at 4:30 this afternoon to discuss a proposal to amend the Zoning Code (PDF) to allow conditional use permits for people to create new “temporary” surface parking lots on vacant property downtown. No, I am not making that up. There is more to the proposal than that – the parking lots are just one example. The idea is to allow “temporary” uses of things that otherwise wouldn’t be allowed throughout the City. What’s the point of even having zoning in the first place, you ask? Yeah, I don’t know either.

I realize that’s probably a silly sounding thing to say, but I really do. I go to a lot of public meetings, way more than anyone probably should, and frankly, sometimes I get kind of sick of it. The seating is often cramped and really uncomfortable, and seems intentionally laid out to make you feel unwelcome. For many bodies the acoustics are just awful, and in general people tend to drone on and on and on about things that are actually pretty boring, and more and more lately, I find myself just dreading the idea of having to drag myself to yet another one.

But not AC Transit! Believe it or not, I actually look forward to sitting through those. They have an excellent, spacious Boardroom with great sightlines. They have more than enough seating to accommodate the audience almost all the time, and their chairs are very cushy and comfortable. There isn’t so much public comment that meetings drag on forever, even when something is controversial. What public comment they do get almost always falls into one of two categories: informed, thoughtful, and interesting or completely insane, and therefore hilarious. Very rarely does someone show up and just say something totally boring. Plus, there’s an outlet right next to where I like to sit.

Since hardly anyone goes to these meetings, I don’t have to constantly shush the chatterboxes sitting near me or deal with people asking me lots of questions, both of which happen all the time at the City Council, making it hard to keep up with what’s actually happening at the meeting. Also unlike the City Council, the Board discussions are really pleasant to listen to. All the Directors generally have smart things to say (well, the ones who speak, anyway), tend to be informed about what they’re voting on, and seem to understand that their agency exists to provide service to the public, and is not, in fact, simply a ridiculously expensive employment program. That’s not to say that I agree with everything the Board does or that I think they always make the right decisions, but you have a significantly better shot at arriving at a good decision when you’re at least starting from the right place. Plus, several of the Directors a pretty witty. A little dose of humor goes a long way to making long meetings about depressing subjects more endurable. And even when you read the agenda and think everything they’re talking about sounds like it’s going to be completely mind numbing, it usually turns out to be really fascinating once you’re there.

Anyway. One interesting thing on tonight’s agenda (PDF) is the idea of placing a new parcel tax (PDF) on the November ballot, which would bring the agency an extra $14 million a year. Now AC Transit (and all local transit agencies, for that matter), is in a pretty dire situation, and decisions on the State level may soon make things even worse. If they are going to continue providing even a minimally acceptable level of service, they will have to find some kind of stable funding source. So I certainly understand why they would want to do a new parcel tax.

On the other hand, AC Transit has gone to that well an awful lot in the relatively recent past, passing parcel taxes in 2002 ($24/year), 2004 (another $24/year), and 2008 (another $48/year). Despite the best efforts of some of our local media outlets, voters do seem to like AC Transit quite a bit – Measure VV passed in November 2008 with a 72% yes vote, which is crazy high. And a poll conducted in December suggests that a new $48/year parcel tax should enjoy a similar amount of support. That would raise the total parcel tax going to AC Transit from $96 per year to $144 per year.

While the poll results are encouraging, I have to wonder a little bit about how willing people are actually going to be to vote for another tax come November. I mean, there’s pretty much no way this is going to be the only one on the ballot.

Elsewhere on the AC Transit meeting agenda, there’s a rare bit of bright news about BRT. Sort of, anyway. I mean, it’s not really news, I guess, but AC Transit is applying for (PDF) this new urban circulator FTA grant to buy buses for the BRT line (hybrid buses, FYI). As you may recall, there is currently some question about the available funding for the BRT project, particularly now that the agency has sacrificed $35 million in funds previously earmarked for BRT to prevent some pretty drastic service cuts. So any new possibility for money = exciting!

Also, apparently getting these new buses would also make BRT cheaper, somehow. From the agenda report (PDF):

The multi-door feature of the proposed buses will reduce the cost of the BRT by $10 to $15 million because it will help reduce impacts at intersections associated with the busway and stations, and may allow the use of “dual platforms”, allowing both directions of the BRT route to use a single platform. This is due to the multi-side door feature that allows loading and alighting from either side of the bus.

So…maybe someone can help me out with this one a little bit. Perhaps I just had too many glasses of wine last night and am being really slow, but I don’t really get this doors on both of the bus thing. Wouldn’t that mean people are getting out into the middle of the street? I’m so confused.

Update: A reader very kindly explained the buses with doors on both sides thing to me. As I suspected, I was being an idiot. Anyway, here’s the reasoning:

In most situations, having doors on both sides is to allow, at each stop, the use of either side. Usually, both sides are not used simultaneously, but having the options of both sides allows for much for efficient and effective routing. For example, along a BRT route, for some segments of the route, with dedicated left-hand lane and new specialized Stations, the BRT vehicles could board on the left hand side at a mid-street station location. If the vehicles have left-hand doors, then the station can be to the left of the travel lane, and vehicles in both directions could potentially use the same center-street station (rather than having to build two stops/stations, each to the right of the dedicated lane in each direction). This also reduces vehicles having to swerve to get to the right placement for the boarding.

Then, when that same BRT vehicle stops at a different part of the route, which uses the right-hand lane, (e.g. on 20th st Uptown Transit Center), then they can use the right-hand doors for that part. This allows flexible route and station design. In some cases, with a specific design, you could use both sides, but even if you are only using one side at each stop, having both options allows for a routing that will provide faster/smoother service.

In some locations, with a specified station/stop design, all doors could be used. For example, the Eastmont transit center, is one example that could be setup for boarding from both sides.

Yeah…nobody will getting out of the bus in the middle of the street.

One of the issues raised as part of budget discussions earlier this year was the cost of providing free parking in City garages to City employees. Parking spaces occupied by staff are parking spaces not available to the general public. Since we charge to park in the garages, every time we give away a parking space to staff for free, we are losing potential revenue that would come from having paying drivers occupy those spaces.

In order to minimize the lost revenue, the Committee today considered a proposal that would clearly define which City employees are eligible to receive free parking. I thought this was a good idea when they talked about it before, but after reading the list, I have a hard time seeing the point of any of this. Here’s the list of who would get free parking spaces under the plan:

• City Council: two spaces for Councilmembers (one on-street and one in the garage), plus two spaces each for staff
• Mayor: one space, plus seven spaces for staff
• City Auditor: one space, plus two spaces for staff
• City Attorney: one space, plus seven spaces for staff
• City Administrator: one space, plus five spaces for staff
• City Clerk: one space, plus one space for staff
• Agency Directors and Department Heads: one space
• Deputy and Assistant Directors: one space
• “Employees who are required to use their vehicles in the performance of assigned duties or whose work assignments regularly require that they work late hours”: one space, granted on a case-by-case basis by the City Administrator
• “Employees needing parking on a seasonal basis for the duration of time where there is a need to work late/irregular hours”: one space after 5 PM while they’re working late, granted on a case-by-case basis by the City Administrator

Staff estimates that this will free up a total of 33 parking spaces in the garage, bringing the City around $60,000 extra per year, which is, as District 4 Councilmember Jean Quan noted, “significantly less” money that the Council had expected to get out of the policy change.

The discussion started out strong, with District 2 Councilmember Pat Kernighan asking why the hell the report (PDF) didn’t even mention what all this free parking costs the City. WORD. Then she asked why we aren’t talking about providing monthly transit passes for employees, if we are, as we claim to be, a “transit first” city. Again, WORD.

Assistant City Administrator Marianna Marysheva-Martinez answered that with the combined total of around 200 city employees receiving free parking, we’re looking at a potential total of “just under $400,000 a year in foregone revenue.” Which, obviously. Parking is expensive. But also, WOAH. You would think that a figure like that would get everyone on that Committee pretty worked up and wanting to rethink this whole free parking thing. After all, they all know perfectly well just how staggering the budget cuts they’re going to have to make in just a few weeks are, and $400,000 is kind of a fortune.

Hahahaha! Committee members mostly expressed concerns about the categories of free parking where the City Administrator gets discretion in authorizing the privileges. In the end, they addressed the problem by requesting an annual report of how many people are getting free parking, so they can make sure the discretion isn’t being abused. Way to completely miss the point, which should be why the hell are we giving free parking to anyone? Reserved spaces in the garage, sure. I have zero problem with that. But the rationale behind saying that people shouldn’t have to pay for those spaces, just like everyone else who rents a monthly space, well, it’s just completely beyond me.

What discussion there was of transit alternatives was equally disappointing. I assumed, God knows why, when the phrase “transit pass” first came up, that they were talking about exploring an EasyPass program with AC Transit. No. Instead, the idea that got floated was that since a parking space could be rented for roughly $150 a month and a monthly transit pass costs $90 a month (which is wrong, BTW. AC Transit monthly bus passes cost $80), we could potentially save $60 per person by offering just the employees who were getting free parking the option of taking a monthly pass instead. Holy brain-dead inefficiency.

The Committee suggested we should go do a survey of all the people getting free parking to see if they were even interested in trading the space for a transit pass. Jean Quan suggested that we consider broadening the eligibility for a transit pass to everyone who receives an auto allowance as well, and staff said they would take a look at what other cities are doing and return with a report on the City’s options in March.

What other cities, like Alameda and Berkeley, and other local institutions, like Mills College, the Peralta Colleges, and UC Berkeley do not do is go to the AC Transit ticket office and buy off the shelf monthly passes for employees who elect to take them. They participate in AC Transit’s EasyPass program. With EasyPass, all employees are offered unlimited AC Transit passes loaded on TransLink cards. The cost per employee of the program is unique to every situation, but is based on pricing matrix where the City of Oakland, would, at most, be paying an annual per employee cost less than what the City seems to think it would cost to buy a pass each month.

Personally, I think it’s a no brainer that the City, which loves to bill itself as being so incredibly green and environmentally friendly, is beyond overdue for doing EasyPass. I understand, however, that reasonable people might argue that we can’t afford to start it right now, because it would cost money. I’m not unsympathetic to that argument, and if it doesn’t work out right now because of the budget, well, I wouldn’t think that’s the end of the world either. But I find it mind boggling that no one at the meeting even brought it up as an option. And whether we offer a transit option of any sort or not, there is simply no excuse for sacrificing this level of potential revenue by letting so damn many (or any) people park in the City’s garages for free.

Related Posts

• 05.04.2010: Free employee parking will be around a little longer
• 04.09.2010: Oakland: “Transit-first” only on paper