Transbay Blog

Alameda Harbor Bay; courtesy of etthekid.

Prior to the construction in the 1930s of the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, Bay Area citizens crossed the Bay by using the once-thriving ferry service. The completion of those bridges and the rising popularity of the automobile greatly affected how people moved throughout the region. Since then, ferry service has been profoundly reduced, now serving a fraction of the riders it once did, generally tourists and a small share of transbay commuters. But as we know, the next big earthquake is not a matter of if, but when; and when it does hit, any damage sustained by BART and the bridges may require that we go back to the basics, by moving people via ferries. The Water Transit Authority (WTA) was established in 1999 to plan an eventual expansion of Bay Area ferry service and terminals, and WTA finally produced a plan in 2003. Then, in October 2007, the Governor signed SB 976 into law, which established the Water Emergency Transportation Authority (WETA), a new agency that would absorb the WTA. The goal of the legislation was to create an agency that would manage and expand Bay Area ferry service in a way that would make ferries a central component of the region’s response to earthquakes and other emergencies. SB 976 required that WETA adopt a transition plan by January 1, 2009, and an emergency management plan by July 1, 2009. Local concerns about the ferry takeover prompted SB 1093, which took effect in September 2008; that latter bill extended the adoption date for the transition plan to July 1, 2009, and assured Alameda and Vallejo that the transition would be informed by a public process. WETA has since produced the two required draft plans, and the agency now seeks public comment on those plans before adopting final versions.

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BRT at Bancroft, near Sproul Plaza. Courtesy AC Transit, extracted from this video clip.

This past July, the Berkeley City Council voted to place Measure KK on this November ballot, thanks to the efforts of a vocal, persistent group of Berkeley NIMBYs whose goal is to prevent AC Transit from building dedicated bus lanes in Berkeley (only one to one-and-half miles long) as part of its bus rapid transit project on Telegraph Avenue and East 14th Street. The BRT project, estimated to cost $250 million for a roughly 17-mile corridor, would upgrade service on the 1/1R line, which is AC Transit’s most popular trunk line, carrying roughly 10% of its daily ridership. Running buses in a dedicated transitway that is wholly separated from automotive traffic, when combined with signal priority and Proof of Payment, will allow AC Transit to make better use of a fixed amount of resources; it will also ensure line reliability, thus creating a superior and dependable riding experience that will attract more riders.

If passed, Measure KK would require that a “designation plan” be prepared whenever a lane is planned to be reserved for transit vehicles or high-occupancy vehicles — not just for this BRT project, but also for all similar future projects carried out in Berkeley. The language of the measure is vague as to what exactly must be contained within a designation plan; but, at a minimum, it is required to describe how reserving an HOV lane could affect “drivers, transit riders, pedestrians, bicyclists, businesses, parking and emergency access.” The process of creating a designation plan would itself be required to include extensive public hearings. Once the designation plan has been completed, the City Council would then submit it to voters for their approval. No transit-only lane could be reserved unless its corresponding designation plan was approved by voters.

The extra expense of carrying out these procedures is hefty — each designation plan could cost $250,000-$500,000 to prepare. On top of that there would be $15,000 for placing the plan on the ballot, and $350,000 or over $700,000 to hold a special election, depending on whether it is conducted by mail or at polling places. Moreover, the need to prepare a designation plan and get it approved by voters would add considerable delay to BRT planning and implementation, not least because it would make it more difficult to line up the diverse array of funds needed to build the project. But still another potential problem lurks behind Measure KK’s vague language: if modifications are made to the project after the official close of the planning process, it is possible that such changes could trigger still another “designation plan” and another vote, thus compounding the delay and project cost.

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Given the fact that the Berkeley City Council decided not to litigate against the anti-BRT voter initiative — choosing instead to “honor the initiative process” — it was clear that the initiative would indeed be added to the November ballot. That said, I thought I should probably add this update to clarify any potential confusion about the timing, because my previous post about the initiative went live at 8:00 pm, but the Council did not vote to add the initiative to the ballot until about 10:45 pm. During the Council open session, Mayor Bates admitted the initiative had “lots of problems” (therefore appropriate for voters), and both TALC and Friends of BRT stepped up to the plate to denounce the initiative. Meanwhile, one quite confused speaker claimed that giving buses a dedicated lane would cause them to “get stuck,” and that what we really needed was “flexibility.” She suggested that with “flexibility,” AC Transit could run buses every three minutes, while implying that three-minute headways would be impossible with a dedicated bus lane. Just incredible. Anyway, the language will be slightly fine-tuned, but the City Council moved unanimously to add the anti-BRT initiative to the November ballot, as expected.

The last time we picked up the seemingly endless saga concerning the mere 1 to 1.5 miles of bus-only lanes proposed for the Berkeley leg of AC Transit’s BRT project along Telegraph Avenue, the Berkeley Daily Planet had propagated an outright lie, alleging that the San Leandro City Council had already “opted out” of its portion of the project’s bus-only lanes — which the Council had not, in fact, done. A few months ago, though, the beginnings of a ballot measure were in the works, aiming to stop BRT once and for all, and then, just yesterday, the Chron reported that the anti-BRT contingent had gotten enough signatures to put the measure on this November’s ballot. The measure would require voter approval to set aside bus-only lanes (or any dedicated HOV lane) on any street owned or controlled by the City of Berkeley. Specifically, the initiative would require creation of a “designation plan” involving more impact analysis, possibly costing an additional $250,000 to $500,000 per project to prepare, and voters would then have to approve the designation plan. The designation plan is itself quite vague, requiring enough information to be given such that “a reasonable person can assess how the designation and use will affect them.” There is also a possibility that modifications to the project made after the close of the planning process could themselves require a separate designation plan and another vote. In other words, if the initiative proposed for this November’s election is approved by voters, it would significantly stall the BRT project, because no dedicated bus lanes in Berkeley could be reserved without the vote. These delays will make it all the more difficult to obtain the varied array of funds required to complete the project.

The voter measure, as the Chron correctly noted, is quite embarrassing for a city that prides itself on its (increasingly dubious) claims of progressivism.

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Not everyone in the East Bay hates BRT. Here is an article from the Daily Review, forwarded by Hank Resnik of the Berkeley group Friends of BRT. The Berkeley Daily Planet continues to cement its reputation as one of the Bay Area’s most definitive sources for fact-free journalism, by “reporting” that the San Leandro City Council has “opted out” of its transit-only lanes for the East Bay BRT project — thereby implying that Berkeley ought to do the same. Except for the small detail that San Leandro, well, hasn’t opted out of its transit-only lanes. In fact, after San Leandro City Councilmembers heard a presentation just this week about the BRT alignment along San Leandro’s East 14th Street thoroughfare, “most were encouraged by the proposal.” And as for San Leandro’s mayor, Tony Santos? “It’s reducing our carbon footprint and cutting down on greenhouse gases. … Anything you can do to get people on the bus is fine.” Let’s back up one step, though. By fighting for the “right” of motorists to drive without having to deal with the inconvenience of transit-only lanes getting in the way and slowing them down, Berkeley is just being progressive, right? Yes, that must be it.
[Daily Review]

This post will provide some information on the Democratic primary for the California legislature campaigns. The blurbs that follow are essentially endorsements, but I hesitate to use the word “endorsement” here, because to my mind, use of that word ought to be supported by a fuller discussion, drawing on a large range of issues. Because this blog has a relatively narrow topical focus, I wasn’t sure what the interest level would be outside of that focus; in any case, there did not turn out to be time to put together a more complete discussion.

It probably goes without saying that my that my opinions about these these candidates are based on more than just their records on transit and planning issues — in fact, that may have only been a small part of the equation. But I figured that if you are reading this blog, you are probably interested in the candidates’ perspectives on these topics — particularly because in campaigning, these issues often get lost in the shuffle, even though some of us find them to be extremely important. So that is the focus of these blurbs, as a starting point; readers are of course encouraged to research other issues they care about. This post does not pretend to be a thorough or equal discussion of all candidates campaigning for the same position — nor is this a complete list of all races. Candidates are after the jump.

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Proposed BRT at Shattuck Avenue & Bancroft in Berkeley. Courtesy FMG Architects.

And so it continues: the ever-committed opponents of Bus Rapid Transit in supposedly progressive Berkeley have hatched a plan to stop BRT in the East Bay — “Rapid Bus Plus,” a brainchild of the group Berkeleyans for Better Transportation Options (BBTOP). Under “Rapid Bus Plus,” the comfortable bus stops and dedicated bus lanes that distinguish BRT would be removed. BBTOP instead suggests that AC Transit obtain Orion VII low floor hybrids, like those that the SFMTA obtained. These vehicles have not quite proven to be an unqualified success in San Francisco, but even so, new vehicles and cleaner fuels are collateral to a primary objective of dedicated lanes — namely, system speed and reliability. BBTOP also suggests that the signal preemption and NextBus technology currently used for the 1R and 72R be expanded to the full system, and that Proof of Payment (to be used on the proposed BRT line) also be expanded to the full system. These latter ideas are fine — certainly, it would be nice to see signal preemption in more places, and NextBus can go a long way toward reducing rider stress — but neither is a substitute for separating transit vehicles from automotive traffic, particularly on a high ridership route that serves a great many of the East Bay’s activity centers.

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This post will lay out a guide for future bus rapid transit expansion in the East Bay; it is the companion to a San Francisco BRT post from a couple months ago. The map at right (click through for a full-sized map, hosted on Flickr) is a visual depiction of what a future rapid bus network might look like. Just for reference, rail corridors are marked in red. As on the San Francisco map, the BRT corridors here are categorized into yellow and green. Yellow represents the most important corridors, streets that should receive full BRT treatment, including dedicated right of way, signal preemption, station platforms, ticket machines, and NextBus screens. Green represents secondary corridors that are lower priority than yellow corridors, and would receive a subset of full BRT treatment. The green label is slightly misleading in that not all green corridors are equivalent. There are several reasons why a corridor may have been labeled green — in most cases because the street is too narrow to create bus-only lanes, ridership is not terribly high, or serious enhancement is unnecessary. College Avenue, for example, currently served by the 51 bus, is marked in green, while Broadway, also served by the 51, is marked in yellow. Despite the narrow street width, service on College could be improved by removing a few lightly used stops and giving buses priority at traffic signals. Other enhanced green-colored corridors include crosstown lines on Ashby Avenue in Berkeley and Fruitvale Avenue in Oakland; Solano Avenue in Berkeley and Albany; Shattuck Avenue between Telegraph and Adeline; and routes that connect Emeryville to MacArthur BART station, West Oakland, and downtown Oakland. Enhancements have been added along the Alameda portion of the 51, and this route has been extended slightly to terminate at Fruitvale BART. Additional service could operate only within Alameda, connecting to ferries and development at Alameda Point.

The bona fide BRT corridors, marked in yellow, are AC Transit’s highest ridership trunk routes; some of these would also be natural candidates for future upgrade to light rail. They are placed on Broadway, Telegraph Avenue, San Pablo Avenue, East 14th/International, University Avenue (extending all the way to the Marina to meet ferries), and the downtown Berkeley/Gourmet Ghetto section of Shattuck Avenue. The improvements for Telegraph and East 14th marked on the map represent the BRT project that is currently underway, and the rest of the network is projected around this initial line.

The Grand/MacArthur corridor seems like another candidate for full BRT treatment. Unfortunately, mere wisps of one-way streets on either side of Interstate 580 make it difficult to introduce bona fide BRT on the whole corridor, though it is easier to do so west of Piedmont Avenue and east of Fruitvale Avenue. In any case, I marked MacArthur — and its extension past Eastmont along 73rd Avenue to Oakland International Airport, per the 805 line — in green rather than yellow, but the more spacious sections of the street offer the opportunity to build a fuller complement of BRT-like features, including transit-only lanes.

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If you haven’t gotten to it already, please check out the introductory post. Also, the San Francisco half of the map can be found in this post.

Unlike the San Francisco half of the map, which takes a stab at expanding both the BART and Muni Metro systems, the East Bay half of the map assumes a BART expansion by default, although some of it could also be incorporated into a new AC Transit light rail network. The map includes direct service to the new Transbay Transit Center (which would also be served by Caltrain, California High Speed Rail, and Muni Metro, per the other half of the map). Trains traveling between the East Bay and Transbay would use a second transbay tube, which is an infrastructure investment we will have to make eventually anyway, when the current tunnel reaches capacity.

The new lines in the East Bay essentially follow AC Transit’s most popular trunk lines, with the intent of maximizing the number of districts that are given their own comfortably walkable neighborhood train station. On the map, existing BART infrastructure is marked in red. New lines and stations (including infill stations on existing lines) are marked in blue. As you see, there is an awful lot of blue in this map, which indicates just how many neighborhoods BART misses (as usual, click on the image to see a full size version on Flickr):

Satellite view courtesy Google Maps.

Existing BART stations are often so far apart that current lines could already be thought of as express service in some stretches, and the new lines, which all have more stations, provide some of the local service necessary to complete the network.

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Bolfing’s Elmwood Hardware, the famous hardware store which opened in 1923 and has since come to be a key fixture of the Elmwood District in South Berkeley, is in danger of closing its doors — and this only months after Telegraph Avenue lost Cody’s Books, a venerable Berkeley institution of 50 years. Why is Elmwood Hardware in danger of closing down? Is it a greedy developer who has bought the plot of land and plans to demolish the hardware store and build luxury condos on the site? No, far from it. This time, the store is in danger of closing because of a zoning ordinance designed to preserve the neighborhood.

How could this be? Shouldn’t a preservation-oriented ordinance, well, preserve such a long-standing and well-loved store? So you’d think. In this case, Tad Laird, the owner of Elmwood Hardware needs to close the store on October 1, in order to carry out about $4,000-5,000 worth of much-needed renovation, seismic retrofits, and upgrades that will bring the building in conformance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. However, it is unclear that he will be able to afford all these changes. In order to fund the renovation, Laird wanted to add an extra floor with apartments (at different points in the process, the exact number of units has been quoted as 2, 3, or 4), but the extra story could potentially make Laird’s proposed building 1.5 feet taller than the acceptable maximum height of 28 feet. His proposal also involves additional storage and office floor space. As it turns out, Laird’s rather modest proposal conflicts with the Elmwood’s draconian zoning ordinance on three separate counts, and in order for his plan to go through, he would have to apply for three separate variances to the zoning. If any one of these three variances is not granted, the plan fails, and Laird will have wasted a large sum of money he cannot afford, not to mention time — all in an effort to keep his well-loved store in business.

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