In a key decision on April 20, the Oakland City Council unanimously approved Oakland’s segment of the LPA, which comprises the great majority of the full BRT route.  Oakland’s LPA includes dedicated median transitways on Telegraph Avenue (south of the Berkeley city limit to 20th Street) and on East 14th Street (south of 14th Avenue to the San Leandro city limit), with some shared and mixed flow lanes in Eastlake and along Broadway in downtown Oakland.

On May 17, the San Leandro City Council also approved its own segment of the project LPA.  The San Leandro LPA  proceeds south of the Oakland city limit, featuring dedicated lanes and station platforms in the median of East 14th Street as far south as Sunnyside Drive, where it transitions to mixed curbside operation for the southernmost segment of the route, then terminating at San Leandro BART station.

Berkeley, naturally, went its own direction.  On April 29, the Berkeley City Council fell short of endorsing the build alternative in Berkeley.  With Councilmember Max Anderson absent from that meeting, the resolution failed as 4 pro-BRT votes were matched by 2 votes against the project and 2 abstentions.  Berkeley’s rejection of full-build was accompanied by adoption of a diluted LPA, which discards the dedicated transit lanes and replaces them with mixed curbside operation and potential queue jump lanes.  The lack of dedicated lanes, when taken in combination with other proposed non-BRT changes (mainly converting one-way streets near the University campus to two-way operation), could transform the Berkeley portion of the route into a slow, unreliable northern appendage — hampering reliability on the rest of the line, despite dedicated facilities in Oakland and San Leandro.

This split of support among the three cities — exacerbated by the revelation that AC Transit might eliminate 1R rapid bus service north of downtown Oakland to close its current budget deficit — created fresh concern about what the next step should be for BRT.  Despite staff including 1R truncation as one potential measure to address the budget, AC Transit prefers to preserve the full 1R route.  Still: would Berkeley’s refusal to accept dedicated lanes accordingly deprive Temescal and North Oakland of the transit, pedestrian, and bicycle improvements that would accompany the full-build BRT?  Would AC Transit instead reduce the scope of the BRT project by cutting it off at MacArthur BART, or even downtown Oakland?

There has been an encouraging and re-energizing development this week.  Berkeley Councilmember Anderson, who was not present at the April 29 meeting, has indicated that he would support full BRT.  Councilmember Arreguín, who abstained on April 29, has also indicated that he would support full BRT.  If so, the 4-4 vote on April 29 would become a 6-3 vote endorsing BRT.  The agenda has not yet been set as of the time of this writing, but the current plan is for Berkeley to revisit BRT at its June 22 meeting.

The AC Transit Board of Directors intended to adopt an LPA for the whole project on June 9, incorporating the local preferences of the three cities.  However, the Board continued the item and delayed its decision on BRT until June 23, just one day after the Berkeley meeting.  This will give the Berkeley City Council an opportunity to reverse its prior decision.  The way forward is not crystal clear if that vote gets delayed, or if Berkeley insists on substantial changes, but the process should be straightforward if Berkeley promptly approves the build alternative on June 22.

BRT will be a stronger, more reliable, and more heavily patronized project if it includes dedicated transit facilities in all three cities.  The Berkeley Councilmembers are encouraged to join their colleagues in Oakland and San Leandro by approving the build alternative.

Included in the transit funding are the New and Small Starts grants, which set aside a total of over $1.8 billion for capital investments in transit around the nation. The bulk of the New Starts funding is proposed for major transit projects outside of California.  Three major projects serving New York City (Second Avenue Subway, East Side Access, and ARC) are allocated $612 million.  Other allocations include those for Salt Lake City projects ($180 million), Houston projects ($150 million), Denver projects ($120 million), Seattle University Link ($110 million), Dulles Metrorail ($96 million), Dallas Northwest/Southeast light rail ($86 million), Honolulu Rail Transit project ($55 million), Hartford busway ($45 million), Twin Cities Central Corridor ($45 million), and Orlando’s Central Florida Commuter Rail project ($40 million).  A total of $200 million of Small Starts funding is also included for distribution to several other projects, mostly bus rapid transit.

Although the Bay Area was not in a position this year to receive as much funding as some other parts of the country, the budget nonetheless recommends $50 million for use on three major Bay Area transit projects.  The Central Subway, Van Ness BRT, and East Bay BRT are all considered by FTA to be priorities for funding:

• Central Subway: The $20 million New Starts sum in this budget is a small portion of roughly $950 million in federal funding that the Central Subway is ultimately slated to receive, amounting to 60% of the $1.57 billion project cost.
• Van Ness BRT: The $15 million sum in this budget is a partial allocation of up to $75 million Small Starts for which this BRT corridor would be eligible, assuming that San Francisco opts to construct one of the two serious center lane BRT alternatives (rather than side lane BRT, which would be cheaper to build but would provide only diluted transit benefits).  The maximum $75 million federal contribution would represent 57-63% of the total capital cost of $118-132 million.
• East Bay BRT: The $15 million sum in this budget is a partial allocation of up to $75 million Small Starts for which this BRT corridor would be eligible.  The maximum $75 million federal contribution would represent about one-third of the total capital cost of $235 million.  The exact status of the project is uncertain, in light of a requested swap for operations money. Nonetheless, AC Transit continues to move forward with environmental work and has not abandoned the project.  A match of local funding has also been retained for the time being, so it is good to see that FTA has prioritized this BRT corridor.

An initial set of meetings will be held in San Leandro over the next couple of weeks. The first meeting is tonight, and there will be two additional meetings, on the evening of October 27, and the morning of November 7. The focus of these meetings is how BRT will operate on the southernmost segment of the route, in San Leandro along East 14th Street, between the Oakland city limit and the Bayfair BART station. AC Transit, plus all three cities along the route, should know that despite the recent funding setback, this project remains an important priority for their constituents who want to see better transit in the East Bay. So these meetings are not only a nice opportunity to learn more details about the project, but are also a key opportunity for advocates to express their support for BRT.

The meeting details:

• Thursday, October 22 – San Leandro Public Library (300 Estudillo Avenue, San Leandro), 6:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m.
• Tuesday, October 27 – Bayfair Mall, 2nd floor (15555 East 14th Street, San Leandro), 6:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m.
• Saturday, November 7 – City Hall South Office (835 East 14th Street, San Leandro), 10:00 a.m.-12:00 noon

Click here to see the flyer (PDF) with full details, including information about how to win a free AC Transit ticket.

The AC Transit Board of Directors held a meeting to confront head-on the risk that the agency’s current financial crisis poses to its planned 17-mile bus rapid transit (BRT) project, which would extend from downtown Berkeley to San Leandro, via Telegraph Avenue, downtown Oakland, and East 14th Street. The State has postponed allocating an important chunk of funding for BRT, which will delay the project. AC Transit also plans to cut about 15% of its service hours to set right its operating deficit. The agency is thus considering using BRT funds to enhance its operating budget. Doing so would alleviate the pain of service cuts, but it would also put on hold a major regional project that is the centerpiece of AC Transit’s planning vision.

The directors finally decided upon a compromise solution, authorizing some of the money to be redirected toward operations and restore some service that was to be cut. However, they also decided to hold onto another portion of the funding, at least for now. That likely won’t be the end of the story.

The discussion revolves around the two pots of money that AC Transit has considered tapping into. The first pot of money is from the Congestion Mitigation & Air Quality Improvement Program (CMAQ), which is a federal program that provides money for surface transportation projects that improve air quality and reduce congestion. The second pot of money is Regional Measure 2 (RM2), a bridge toll increase authorized by Bay Area voters in 2004, the proceeds of which are spent on transportation projects that have some nexus to improving congestion in a bridge corridor.

AC Transit staff recommended that $35 million of CMAQ funds and $45.6 million of RM2 funds, both slated for the BRT project, be reallocated toward operations. This would provide an additional $80.6 million for operations — preventing layoffs and restoring about half of the service slated to be cut. It is possible for the funds to be reprogrammed from capital to operations, although doing so requires some effort and bureaucratic maneuvering.

CMAQ and RM2: A Smelly Bowl of Alphabet Soup

The CMAQ chunk of money is relatively uncontroversial. There is general agreement that the CMAQ funds should be redirected toward operations, because doing so would give AC Transit access to an additional source of operations money that could lessen the severity of the planned service cuts. The agency was essentially forced to implement these cuts by the State, which left transit operations out in the cold by zeroing out State Transit Assistance (STA) funds from the budget. Redirecting CMAQ funds for operations would require the approval of both MTC and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). There is also the caveat that CMAQ money must be used within a 3-year period, and only for new or expanded service. This means that technically, AC Transit could only use CMAQ money to operate the new routes it has proposed as part of its service adjustment plan; but that would free up more non-CMAQ money to restore service that doesn’t qualify as new or expanded. Thus, if reallocated, the CMAQ money would offset part of the service cuts and reduce hardship to riders who depend on bus service as their lifeline.

Redirecting the RM2 funds is another issue entirely. Earlier in September, Rick Fernandez (AC Transit’s General Manager) contacted MTC Executive Director Steve Heminger, proposing the idea of reprogramming funds. The response from MTC more or less tied together the fate of the CMAQ and RM2 funds: if CMAQ is to be reprogrammed, then so must RM2. This condition was ostensibly issued on the ground that AC Transit should produce an operating plan that is “sustainable” for some length of time, and that redirecting only part of the money would be an insufficient emergency stopgap measure. It was basically this directive that led to the staff recommendation to reprogram both CMAQ and RM2 funds together. Reprogramming RM2 funds would be problematic, however, for a few reasons, beyond just the fact that shifting money around, while technically permitted, nonetheless appears dodgy to voters.

First, there is the “swap” mechanism that would be used to reprogram the money. RM2 money is used for both capital investment and operations, but MTC cannot simply decree that an RM2 capital dollar be switched to an RM2 operating dollar. Rather, AC Transit must undergo a swap with another agency’s project. MTC would facilitate a transfer of AC Transit’s RM2 capital share to another project, and then the agency sponsoring that other project would commit to AC Transit the same amount of operating funds. It was suggested in so many words that the other agency in question here could be BART, and that the swapped capital funds could shore up the dreadful Oakland Airport Connector. (The OAC still has a 20% funding gap, which BART plans to fill using a TIFIA loan from the federal government.) Even if some AC Transit service is restored in the bargain, there would still be something ironically tragic about cannibalizing BRT to build the worst-than-useless airport connector.

Another problem, though, is what shifting RM2 would mean for the BRT project. Reserving this store of money for BRT demonstrates that the Bay Area has made a financial commitment to the project. This strong local match has made the BRT corridor an attractive candidate for federal Small Starts funding, which was planned to supply almost one-third of the $235 million project cost. Rick Fernandez suggested that reprogramming RM2 is not unduly problematic, believing that once AC Transit had that pot of money at its disposal, it could use it for a variety of purposes, including BRT. This is really a red herring, as it’s extremely unlikely that cash-strapped AC Transit would redirect precious operating funds in this fashion. The more likely scenario is that RM2 would simply fund operations, not BRT. To the extent that losing RM2 also means losing out on federal funding, what we have on our hands is an evaporating BRT budget. Work on the environmental document will continue, with an estimated completion date in Spring 2010 — and it’s also possible to reduce the scope of the project, by focusing on the high ridership East 14th Street segment of the route. But withdrawing these critical sources of funding would realistically postpone BRT indefinitely.

Where Things Stand (For Now)

The Board ultimately decided to support the redirecting of CMAQ, but it refused to disturb RM2 for the time being — instead wanting to take a few months to evaluate the issue further and explore other potential sources of funding. In light of how little notice was given to the public about this special meeting, holding off on such a major reprogramming of RM2 funds was the correct decision. Indeed, given the precarious circumstances of this meeting, the Board’s vote here was just about as good as we could hope for at this time, and the directors should be commended for not immediately giving way to MTC’s directive. But the vote also means that this issue remains unresolved. MTC will likely not be pleased to learn that the directors held back on RM2, and we may see another showdown over this issue in the near future to decide the fate of this funding, and the fate of BRT.

But leaving aside alphabet soup for the moment, what’s at stake here? Although San Francisco has as a number of transit corridor projects in the works, the Telegraph/East 14th BRT corridor is the only true transit expansion project in the eastern half of the Bay Area’s urban core. (We omit the Oakland Airport Connector, which, for all intents and purposes, is closer to a toy than true transit.) For an urban area with more than a half million people, which is projected to absorb significant future growth, it will not be sufficient in the long-term for AC Transit to merely grasp onto any straw it can find, in a desperate (and, in this case, unsuccessful) attempt to maintain current service levels. That approach is merely defensive. Indeed, the long-term health and viability of the agency may well depend on its ability to go on the offensive, by delivering more robust service on trunk corridors. That service must be more reliable, faster, and more comfortable than current bus service to entice a significant number of people from their cars. Investing in some form of dedicated transitway will be necessary to eliminate transit delay due to congestion, streamline operating costs, and to ensure livability on the major avenues that are well-suited to absorb higher density.

While many of the public speakers in favor of the funding shift were people from Berkeley who have been vocally opposed to BRT all along (and thus showed a less than good faith interest in preserving transit service), others were transit-dependents who were genuinely worried about how the service cuts would affect their lives. I do not want to discount these concerns. The Board’s support of reprogramming CMAQ while maintaining RM2 for the time being is a good compromise that favors riders, while acknowledging the need to take the time to collect more information. Even if the RM2 money is ultimately diverted to operations as well, at least that decision would theoretically follow a more thorough investigation and public process, rather than being rushed with little public notice.

It is incredibly sad that the State of California’s theft of transit funds has put AC Transit into such a difficult position, pitting the hardship of a disenfranchised ridership against a good project that will attract more people to transit. If we lived in a state and nation that truly recognized the value of good transit — and that put its money where its mouth is on the same — we would not be allocating untold billions of dollars to new freeways, while artificially forcing transit agencies to make the difficult and unfair choice between running current service and setting aside a modest sum of money for future investment.

Those who dream of one day rebuilding the B-Geary line, figuring that it would be worth the investment, might not be swayed by the TA’s stated excuses for not pursuing light rail: the increased expense and complexity (see this memo or presentation, PDFs), and tight competition for considerable extra funding. From the cost persepctive, something does not quite add up. The TA may have escalated its cost figures based on the astronomically high costs of the Central Subway, because even using the numbers cited by the TA in its report, a six-mile Geary line — including a downtown subway terminating at Montgomery Station, with a west portal at Laguna — should cost something in the ballpark of $1.2-$2 billion, not $5 billion as claimed. Even on the basis of existing ridership (to say nothing of the new riders it would attract), rail would certainly be suitable for the Geary corridor. But there are also good arguments that favor moving forward with BRT at this time.  Corridor improvements (increased ridership, ride quality, and so forth) are diluted for the BRT project as compared to LRT, but those improvements would be implemented faster, and at lower cost ($150-$200 million) — and similar improvements could then be carried out more quickly on other major transit corridors throughout the city, as well. Disruptions associated with light rail construction were opposed by neighborhood merchants. Moreover, the T-Third and Central Subway contain a host of diverse planning infelicities that, to be frank, call into question the SFMTA’s ability to oversee additional major capital projects. The current design and alignment of the Central Subway damages a potential B-Geary/T-Third transfer station at Union Square (just as the T-Third transfer to Market Street will be inadequate) — and in the long term, it may make more sense to include Geary in the regional rail network with a BART line instead of Muni Metro. I suspect that there will be strong views on both sides as to whether the SFCTA is making the correct decision by pursuing BRT rather than LRT. I certainly do not want to discourage debate on this topic, since Geary is an important corridor that has been unwisely neglected, and it is worthy of the discussion. But BRT remains the mode of choice going forward.

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.

Measure KK, by instituting ill-advised planning from the ballot box, seeks to inappropriately undermine and usurp the authority that California Vehicle Code § 21655.5(a) confers upon the City Council — that is, the authority to reserve lanes for high-occupancy vehicles (of which transit-only lanes are a special case) on its city streets. Measure KK also violates the transportation element of Berkeley’s General Plan, which quite clearly and unambiguously provides for the construction of transit-only lanes on major corridors, including those that would be served by the proposed BRT route. If Measure KK passes, this language in the General Plan would have to be amended to be less supportive of transit. Furthermore, given 2006 Measure G (in which an overwhelming 82.3% of Berkeley voters supported the 80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050), it would indeed be counterintuitive for a self-proclaimed “progressive” city like Berkeley to approve Measure KK, particularly during a time in which ever-clearer recognition of the climate change crisis has encouraged cities across California to pursue superior transit.

This BRT project has already been (and will continue to be) thoroughly analyzed and vetted both in EIR and at community meetings. Any future projects would certainly be subject to treatment just as robust and as thorough. Measure KK needlessly adds extra delay and expense that would jeopardize improvements to transit. Berkeley voters are strongly encouraged to support better transit in the East Bay by voting NO on Measure KK.

With BART comes cost overruns; it happened with the San Mateo County extension to Millbrae/SFO, and it will happen with BART to San Jose. The difference between these two extensions is primarily in the magnitude of cost. BART to San Jose would be the largest expansion since the system originally commenced revenue service in 1972, conservatively estimated for at least $6 billion (already four times the cost of the Millbrae/SFO extension). VTA may not have a true handle on the cost, but $8-10 billion seems well within the realm of possibility. And with Measure B on the November 4, 2008 ballot, VTA is stifling the information that it has managed to piece together with regard to the extension’s increasing costs, so as to not jeopardize passage of the sales tax increase, the proceeds from which would be applied to the BART extension. But the Metropolitan Transportation Commission has allocated a limited amount of funds to transit expansion. The money for budget overruns must come from somewhere, and it will be siphoned from other transit projects. It’s not that this is a remote possibility: it is a very real danger. In fact, it’s already happening. Dumbarton Rail is a worthy plan to reinstate a southern Bay rail crossing. Had the Altamont alignment been selected for high-speed rail, high-speed trains would have used the rail bridge — but even without high-speed rail, Dumbarton Rail would connect Caltrain to rail services in the East Bay at an intermodal hub in Union City. But just last month, MTC snatched $91 million of Regional Measure 2 funds that were originally earmarked for the rehabilitation of Dumbarton Rail and tentatively reallocated it to the BART Warm Springs extension, an extension that Alameda County has supported, and which would be a first phase springboard into BART to San Jose. And if BART to San Jose commences construction, this would be only the beginning.

Other than Dumbarton Rail, what transit projects could BART to San Jose jeopardize? Besides the planned bus rapid transit and light rail extensions, foremost among the projects at risk is Caltrain electrification. Electrifying Caltrain is an overdue upgrade that is crucial to increasing ridership, establishing independence from rising fuel costs, and transforming the Peninsula commuter rail service into something closer to robust metro service. Electrification, which is to be paid for jointly by San Mateo, San Francisco, and Santa Clara Counties, is supported by both San Mateo and San Francisco. Santa Clara County, on the other hand, has its eyes set on the “loftier” goal of a BART extension, so it has resisted committing funds to electrification — despite the fact that electrified express Caltrain would provide superior service between San Francisco and San Jose that is superior to BART. Voters supported Caltrain electrification as part of the package of projects that would be funded with the 2000 Measure A half-percent sales tax. The BART extension is itself a 2000 Measure A project, which is the problem. Although originally intended to use only one-third of the Measure A transit funding pie that would benefit all of Santa Clara County, the BART extension threatens to consume the whole pie, to the detriment of cities located between Palo Alto and Santa Clara, who would benefit from electrified Caltrain, but not BART. It also threatens to force cuts to VTA’s already pared down bus service. In other words, transit improvements in all of Santa Clara County are being put on hold so that Downtown San Jose can finally have its own BART subway.

The BART extension has been plagued by financial difficulty almost since voters approved 2000 Measure A. VTA simply has not had (and still does not have) the financial wherewithal to finance construction and operation of this expensive project, no matter the message to the contrary that it would like to send to voters. In 2002, the agency slashed bus service while facing a $6 billion budget deficit over a couple decades, but still refused to give up on BART. In 2004, and again in 2005, the extension suffered a blow when it was not recommended for federal funding, in the absence of proof that VTA could afford to operate the extension. In 2005, VTA itself recognized the difficulty and temporarily withdrew its request for federal funds, but later still continued to persevere. In 2006, another transportation tax was placed on the ballot, which voters defeated. In 2007, VTA received a scathing audit report from the Hay Group, in response to which VTA launched the so-called “New VTA” campaign that basically amounted to a reallocation of resources to higher ridership corridors. And now, in 2008, VTA is once again asking voters for more money, with the eighth-percent sales tax in Measure B. The agency has alleged not only that the tax will be sufficient to cover the BART operation and maintenance subsidy without jeopardizing existing service — it even alleges that there would be a $154 million surplus by the year 2036. Unbelievable? BayRail Alliance thought so, scrutinized the balance book, and found that under the terms of VTA’s Comprehensive Agreement with BART executed in 2001, there was no surplus to be found: only more deficits.

In light of both this troubled past and probable troubled future of the BART to San Jose extension, the very least that VTA owes South Bay residents is a serious, rational, and unbiased discussion of the Valley’s transportation future; but this discussion has been stifled by VTA and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. In particular, VTA’s unwillingness to consider attractive standard-gauge alternatives is troubling. In 2005, BayRail Alliance proposed the Caltrain Metro East plan, which is a serious alternative that is in many ways superior to the proposed BART alignment. Caltrain Metro East would use electric multiple units capable of traveling faster than BART trains, and with standard gauge, it could be built at far lower cost than BART; stations were proposed for Milpitas, North San Jose, Mineta San Jose International Airport, and then joining the main Caltrain line at San Jose Diridon. Although Caltrain Metro East would not directly serve Downtown San Jose, the alignment instead directly serves Mineta and North San Jose’s Golden Triangle, which is a larger job center than downtown; it is also a region of San Jose that is targeted to substantially grow and change in the future. (The BART proposal, on the other hand, directly serves downtown, but Golden Triangle-bound riders would still have to transfer to light rail at the Montague/Capitol station situated next to the Great Mall.) Caltrain Metro East would also not serve the transit-dependent neighborhoods of East San Jose, but light rail would actually do a better job of serving that area than the single token BART station that has been proposed at Alum Rock.

The decision to build (or not build) BART to San Jose will greatly affect the future of Valley transit in the upcoming decades. The question is: do we plunk down all the money for a single BART corridor, or do we apply funds throughout VTA’s service area? Doing the latter would result in less snazzy transit than BART, but it would at least allow for construction of projects approved by voters in 2000 Measure A, and many others still. Not just Caltrain electrification, but also: (i) a complete Vasona Junction light rail extension; (ii) Capitol Expressway light rail extension that loops around to Guadalupe, absorbing both of the proposed incremental extensions to Eastridge Transit Center and Nieman; (iii) the Downtown-East Valley light rail extension; and (iv) an extensive bus rapid transit portfolio that would improve service on several key corridors, including El Camino Real, Stevens Creek-San Carlos, Sunnyvale-Cupertino, and Monterey Highway. Some key BRT corridors could later be upgraded to light rail as demand requires. But rather than just listing projects, it’s perhaps most powerful to have a visual tool. Below are two maps that I made using the Google satellite maps:

• The map on the left depicts the BART alignment. The assumption there is that constructing BART will use all available funds (and then some), thus jeopardizing the many worthy projects listed earlier. Although we might get BART on the chosen corridor, there will be little improvement — indeed, quite possibly, service cuts instead — on many of the other corridors that crisscross the sprawled Valley.
• On the right is the Caltrain Metro East alternative, complete with the light rail and rapid bus extensions that could then be built with funds that would have been swallowed by BART. These include 2000 Measure A projects, projects that been conceived since 2000 Measure A, and a couple other corridors I have inserted as potential enhancements after the busiest corridors have been upgraded.

There is a pronounced difference between the two scenarios:

Color scheme in the maps: blue = standard gauge heavy rail (Caltrain, Amtrak, ACE); red = BART; green = VTA light rail; yellow = bus rapid transit.

And so, to finally close off this somewhat lengthy, rambling series of posts on BART to San Jose, I would like to leave readers with the following three questions:

1. Which of the above two maps would likely result in more stations around which to focus more widespread transit-oriented development, so as to help transform the overwhelmingly suburban, auto-oriented South Bay into a denser, more livable place?

2. Which of the above two maps provides better and more equitable transit coverage, so that a greater number of people are closer to a superior transit option? and,

3. In the end, isn’t that really the point?

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

The Berkeley City Attorney, however, has not been so keen on the voter measure. Their report (link to PDF here) points out that the measure could contradict various provisions in the Transportation Element of Berkeley’s General Plan. Policy T-2, which “encourages regional and local efforts to maintain and enhance public transportation,” has a subsection that specifically references a BRT action:

Policy T-2(A)(3): Add transit-only or transit/HOV-only lanes where appropriate on any streets or portions of streets that are part of the city’s transit network.

Policy T-4 is an explicit transit-first policy provision that incorporates a transit network map; the map is listed separately under Policy T-55. The map identifies Telegraph, Shattuck, Bancroft, and Durant — the very streets outlining the probable BRT route through Berkeley — as “streets that are necessary for efficient and effective transit services,” and which are the “highest priority for transit improvements, such as bus shelters and planned improvements that may serve light rail or ferry services.” In other words, the proposed BRT project is essentially a direct implementation of Transportation Element policies. The pro-automobile, anti-transit voter initiative, on the other hand, would represent a new departure, possibly requiring a General Plan amendment to dilute the Transportation Element’s unequivocally transit-first language.

The Berkeley City Attorney also raised the possibility that the voter initiative violates California Vehicle Code § 21655.5(a), which endows the City Council with the authority to reserve HOV lanes for roadways in its jurisdiction, i.e. the city streets. This section states:

The Department of Transportation and local authorities, with respect to highways under their respective jurisdictions, may authorize or permit exclusive or preferential use of highway lanes for high-occupancy vehicles. Prior to establishing the lanes, competent engineering estimates shall be made of the effect of the lanes on safety, congestion, and highway capacity.

The City Council considered taking legal action in light of the City Attorney’s analysis, but at tonight’s closed session, decided to “honor the initiative process” and not take legal action after all, notwithstanding the initiative’s conflict with the several provisions enumerated above. So the march to November and the fight for better transit continues. The ever-committed Friends of BRT deserve a word of thanks for their tireless efforts, both in following the twists and turns of this saga, and in their attempts to imbue the citizens of Berkeley with at least a modicum of planning sense.