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.

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.

Downtown Berkeley: looking south from Shattuck toward Downtown Oakland.

The presence of an anti-growth attitude in Berkeley has famously been vocal and insistent. And while this perspective may have once been deemed to be “progressive,” in a city that prides itself on setting the definition of that word, we now know better. What’s actually progressive is accepting growth that is dense and well-situated to avoid sprawl; reduce energy use and emissions; concentrate new development where it can utilize existing infrastructure; and encourage walking, bicycling, and transit use. In that sense, downtown Berkeley has a lot going for it. It lies directly adjacent to the Cal campus, which is populated by almost 50,000 faculty, staff, and students. It is also a hub for about a dozen AC Transit bus lines; it will one day be the northern terminus of a BRT line; and it is home to the second busiest BART station outside of San Francisco. So — no matter what murmuring you might hear about Berkeley being at heart a small town whose quality of life will be shattered, irreparably destroyed, by increased density — its downtown remains one of the most natural places in the Bay Area for dense development. Besides: a rising downtown emerges as the natural solution for a city that is intent on preserving existing neighborhoods as they are and have been, but which nonetheless must find a way to absorb its fair share of the regional housing need.

In other words, it’s high time that Berkeley grew up — both literally and figuratively. The goal, of course, is not to turn Berkeley into Oakland or San Francisco, but rather, to make a better Berkeley. The Downtown Area Plan, while certainly not perfect, will at least help guide the transformation of downtown Berkeley into a lively, more sustainable urban destination than it is now.

Downtown Berkeley last went through a major planning process in the early 1990s, with the adoption of a plan in 1990 and design guidelines in 1993. It was a plan that gave what essentially amounts to lip service to the idea of density, but was ultimately interested in preserving the downtown’s existing fabric and character. Since then, downtown has remained comfortable and walkable, but not exactly dynamic. Attempts to market downtown as a fertile location for an arts district and related cultural uses have borne some fruit. Yet, the downtown has never quite crystallized into the vibrant place one would expect it to be given its central location, adjacent to a major university.

The new Downtown Area Plan (DAP) slightly decreases the heights that have been generally allowed downtown, while specifically including a number of taller buildings as exceptions to that general rule. In its broad outlines, the DAP would add to the core downtown area (the half dozen blocks immediately surrounding the BART station) a small handful of taller buildings — mostly mid-rises, shorter than or comparable to the downtown’s current two tallest buildings: the 173-foot Wells Fargo building and the 180-foot Great Western building.  Heights would step down on the edges in “buffer” zones, to transition into existing residential neighborhoods.

Going into any more detail than that requires picking up at least a few threads of a four-year-old planning process, which resulted in competing visions for downtown. Those competing visions confronted each other right to the end, and are symbolized in the 7-2 Council vote that formally adopted the DAP. What lies at the heart of the controversy? Height, naturally.

The Berkeley City Council has been chewing over two versions of the DAP — one version set forth by the Planning Commission, and another version set forth by the 21-member Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) that encapsulated community input. Although the DAPAC plan was less ambitious than the Planning Commission’s, both versions embraced an increase in height. The most surprising nugget from the DAPAC version was the inclusion of two 225-foot hotels — along with four 120-foot buildings, and four 100-foot buildings. Other than these exceptions, all buildings would be limited to approximately 85 feet, subject to the State density bonus.

DAPAC’s plan included 10 taller buildings, while the Planning Commission’s included 12 — two 225-foot hotels, four 180-foot buildings, and six 120-foot buildings — but in many other respects resembled DAPAC’s version. The Planning Commission’s decision to include more and taller buildings was connected to a market feasibility study, which demonstrated that the mid-rise buildings suggested by DAPAC (particularly the 100-foot buildings) would likely not pencil out for residential use. While a 75-foot building could be constructed with wood frame, any taller would require concrete or steel. In particular, apartments would probably not be feasible if taller than 75 feet, while condominiums would be feasible for heights under 75 feet or taller than 140-180 feet. As a result, the Planning Commission pushed a version that tended toward the upper end of the height spectrum under consideration. The Commission’s plan would, in particular, pave the way for a number of taller residential projects in the downtown.

The tallest heights are concentrated in the central “core area” near BART. Courtesy of City of Berkeley.

The challenge has been to somehow blend DAPAC’s plan, the Planning Commission’s plan, the market feasibility study, staff recommendations, and the amendments of Councilmembers. The combination of all the above reflects Berkeley’s growing pains and a lack of consensus. Public comment was offered from both ends of the urbanist spectrum. A few recognized the environmental and placemaking benefits of density. But there was also a parade of the NIMBYs for which Berkeley has become locally famous. Protesting high-rises and crowded streets, chanting songs about developers and green-washers (“Our city they are taking and the hearings they are faking, while the money they are raking around here”), advocating for “real density” — to be achieved through an undisclosed method, but definitely without new development — or simply pushing new buildings off to Oakland, since Berkeley is already “dense enough.”

The Council, meanwhile, engaged in all the usual discussion that you would expect, albeit in a somewhat confused fashion. How much growth is too much? How tall is too tall? Will tall towers impact views, cast shadows, and negatively impact residential neighborhoods? Will towers gentrify downtown by infusing it with condos that only the affluent can afford? Shouldn’t we strengthen inclusionary housing requirements and historic preservation requirements? And so forth. The stunning part of it was that throughout much of the past two sessions at the City Council, many Councilmembers were not clear as to just how many towers actually were in the plan as it stood at that point — perhaps not surprising, given the various versions and a flurry of amendments. But that did not stop Councilmember Jesse Arreguín, whose district encompasses the DAP plan area, from trying to delete towers in any case. Resisting the efforts of Mayor Bates to shift heights back toward the higher end that the market study deemed would be most feasible, Arreguín ultimately dissented from the adopted plan.

Art museum &  Center Street envisioned. Courtesy of City of Berkeley.

So where do we end up? Berkeley being Berkeley, we might just see the whole thing go up in referendum. But the adopted plan certainly bears the hallmark of compromise — perhaps too much. The Council, in part wary of the sentiment on the part of the community that the work DAPAC did was ignored, consciously tried to strike a middle ground between DAPAC and the Planning Commission, but it ultimately approved fewer tall buildings. The Downtown Area Plan now includes two 180-foot buildings (for which a 45-foot bonus was discussed in connection with a hotel use), four 120-foot buildings, and two 100-foot buildings. Many of those building heights fall squarely outside of the height range that the feasibility study determined was viable for residential use. Those buildings might be appropriate for office or University use; but infill housing is a critical regional need, and it’s an important component of revitalizing the downtown. In light of the feasibility analysis, it remains to be seen how many housing units will ultimately be built under this configuration. But it will be less than the roughly 3,100 units contemplated in the EIR — and thus will ultimately have less transformative impact. Beyond the taller buildings, an 85-foot maximum would be in effect, taking into account the density bonus, and certain amendments would ensure that project proposals in the buffer or “Downtown District” areas (colored orange and yellow in the above map) would more closely match the scale of existing residential use.

Although we’ve spent a lot of time talking about heights in this post, the DAP is certainly more than just a height map. It is a multifaceted document that includes policies that emphasize the downtown’s transit orientation, urban livability, housing affordability, environmental sustainability, water conservation, energy efficiency, and emissions reduction — all that you would expect to see in a major urban planning exercise carried out in the 21st century. The plan incorporates transportation demand management strategies — residential parking unbundled from housing units, thus permitting residents to purchase a home without purchasing the parking; as well as car share pods, bicycle facilities, and developments that provide courtesy transit passes to employees or residents.

The DAP identifies the parking lot on Berkeley Way, owned by the City, as a site for a “green demonstration” project. It suggests capturing street space to create linear parks, as well as park blocks in the very wide section of Shattuck Avenue, between Dwight and Durant. The plan identifies other opportunities to enlarge the public realm, including closing off to cars the block of Center Street between Shattuck and Oxford. This would create a public plaza — a “living room” for the downtown — and would provide a safe and direct pedestrian link between the UC Berkeley campus and the BART station.

It has been a long four years of community process leading up to the adoption of the Downtown Area Plan. Had the planning pen been put in our hand, we might have done some things differently. Still, the plan does contain many good ideas. We will need to see more downtown areas throughout the region (and beyond) take similar steps to accommodate infill growth, and those other cities will likely undergo similar growing pains in the process. Even with the passage of the DAP, Berkeley’s efforts are not yet complete. The next step for the City is to adopt new zoning regulations and design guidelines that would actually implement the policies in the DAP. But when all is said and done, we will hopefully see this plan blossom into the more successful, vibrant, and progressive downtown that Berkeley deserves.

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.

The Transition Plan will facilitate WETA’s transition from an agency that plans to one that actually operates. The three East Bay ferry services — Alameda/Oakland, Alameda Harbor Bay, and Vallejo Baylink — are now owned and managed by the Cities of Alameda and Vallejo, but when the transition plan is implemented, WETA would own, consolidate, and operate these services; no change to current service levels is anticipated. As set forth in SB 976, North Bay ferries will continue to be operated by the Golden Gate District, not WETA. WETA will also develop a five-year financial plan. This includes an operating budget that will account for five ferry routes — those three existing services, as well as two new services (Oakland-South San Francisco and Berkeley/Albany-San Francisco) that are planned to debut in the next few years. It also includes a capital budget, which allocates money to the maintenance of vessels and terminals, in addition to the four vessels and two terminals that will be required for the new routes debuting in 2011-12.

The Emergency Water Transportation System Management Plan is what accounts for the “E” in WETA; the provision of emergency ferry service is a critical component of the agency’s mission. WETA will be more than a mere ferry operator. In the event of an earthquake or other emergency, WETA will activate its own Emergency Operations Center in response to that emergency; this will in turn mobilize all of the Bay Area’s maritime transportation services, and it will allow WETA to coordinate the response to and recovery from an emergency, as well as the restoration of normal operations.  It will implement the approach of California’s Standardized Emergency Management System (SEMS) and the National Incident Management System (NIMS); these methods provide a framework for handling emergencies, by dictating the pattern and flow of communication between all agencies that are involved. WETA will carry out its own emergency planning, and it will coordinate with other similar planning throughout the region.

WETA’s future plans are centered on two primary goals: reducing emissions and expanding geographic coverage. Both goals are mandated by SB 976; but the latter goal, which will add regular ferry service to Bay Area cities that do not currently receive it, is particularly central to WETA’s role as a coordinator of emergency response and recovery. In December 2008, WETA launched the Gemini, a 25-knot vessel that has capacity for 149 passengers and 34 bicycles; this marked the beginning of plans for an expanded fleet of ferries that are 85% cleaner than EPA’s emission standards. There are also several proposed ferry routes that were featured in the WTA’s 2003 Plan; these would augment existing ferry service. The additional services include a direct route between Oakland and South San Francisco (utilizing a new terminal at Oyster Point), which will not serve San Francisco — as well as six other routes that would link San Francisco to Treasure Island, Richmond, Berkeley/Albany, Hercules, Antioch/Martinez, and Redwood City. If additional land in Alameda (e.g. Point Alameda) is developed, such a development would also be a natural location for a ferry terminal. The Oakland-South City service is currently projected to debut in 2011, with Berkeley-SF service following in 2012.

WETA seeks public comment on these two draft plans. To contribute your thoughts, use this contact form (through May 18, 2009), send an email to contactus@watertransit.org, or you can attend one of the three public hearings scheduled for next week:

• San Francisco (April 15, 2009 at 12:00 pm): BCDC, 50 California Street, Suite 2600
• Vallejo (April 15, 2009 at 6:30 pm): Vallejo City Hall, 555 Santa Clara Street
• Alameda (April 16, 2009 at 7:30 pm): Alameda City Hall, 2263 Santa Clara Avenue

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.

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.

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.

Senate District 3 (Eastern San Francisco, Marin & Sonoma Counties): MARK LENO. Leno’s record demonstrates a commitment to environmental and transportation issues. Most notably, in 2007 he authored the Complete Streets bill (AB 1358), which would require the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research to create guidelines for safely accommodating the movement of all users of the street, including pedestrians, bicyclists, transit riders, and the disabled — and in turn, when cities and counties revise the circulation element of their general plans, they would do so in accordance with the updated OPR guidelines. He also co-authored the Safe Routes to School bill (AB 57). Leno has served as a member of the Assembly’s Smart Growth Caucus, and the SF Bicycle Coalition has noted Leno’s support of other transportation proposals, including SMART, congestion pricing, and the Bay Bridge bicycle path. As to Carole Midgen: she has done some fine work in the Senate, but her substantial noncompliance with campaign finance rules is more than a little worrisome — and seeing as how this three-candidate race has basically boiled down to a two-candidate Mark Leno v. Joe Nation race, the progressive vote should unite behind Leno. Leno is upbeat, smart, passionate about his work, blends idealism with pragmatism, and is simply a stand-up professional. I would be very happy to have him represent District 3 in the Senate.

Senate District 9 (Northern/Eastern Alameda County, West Contra Costa County): WILMA CHAN & LONI HANCOCK. A race between Wilma Chan (former Assembly Majority Leader, 16th District) and Loni Hancock (Assembly, 14th District), for Don Perata’s seat. This race is not in my district, so I admit I have not been following it as closely, at least not since Chan made campaign finance violation allegations against Hancock — and this is actually one of Hancock’s pet issues, since she authored the California Clean Money and Fair Elections Act. (And for whatever it’s worth, Chan has been sending out suspect mailers that misleadingly imply a Barack Obama endorsement.) Chan has been endorsed by Jerry Brown, and Hancock has been endorsed by Barbara Lee, each of whom I respect for different reasons. Both Chan and Hancock have served as members of the Assembly’s Smart Growth Caucus, and both have worked on the environment, e.g. by co-authoring AB 32, the greenhouse gas cap bill. Hancock chairs the Natural Resources Committee in the Assembly and has demonstrated a strong commitment to environmental issues, while Chan has concentrated time on other very worthy issues while she was in the Assembly, including health care and banning chemicals from toys and other goods. Given Hancock’s commitment to environmental causes, I might be inclined to vote for her if I lived in this district, but it really depends on how one prioritizes the issues. Chan has done some very good work, and I could also see her determination winning me over. Bottom line: either candidate would represent this district well in the Senate.

Assembly District 12 (Western San Francisco, Daly City, Colma): FIONA MA. So she isn’t perfect, but she is also an unopposed incumbent (and Majority Whip), so there is not much choice. But I do want to acknowledge Ma here for her commitment to improving transit — particularly in pushing for high speed rail in preparation for the bond vote this November. In spring of last year, she boarded the record-breaking 357 mph TGV run, and this year she joined other California legislators on a trip to Spain and Japan to study foreign high speed rail systems. She has become a valuable HSR ally in the Assembly, emphasizing HSR’s economic benefits, its role in reducing transportation emissions by providing a much-needed alternative mode of travel beyond automobile and plane, and the need to jumpstart this project sooner rather than later. Ma also authored AB 1221, which would allow for tax increment funding of transit villages, and AB 101, which is an amendment to the Vehicle Code that would allow footage from video cameras mounted on Muni vehicles to be used as evidence to enforce parking violations in transit-only lanes.

Assembly District 13 (Eastern San Francisco): TOM AMMIANO. Okay, so this one wasn’t so hard, since Ammiano is, after all, running unopposed for Leno’s 13th District seat, but he will be a good guy to have on our side in the Assembly. Although he is probably better known for San Francisco’s universal health care ordinance and his work on behalf of the LGBT community, Ammiano has also been a strong transit advocate throughout his time serving as Supervisor of SF’s 9th District. He is an MTC Commissioner and one of four SF Supervisors on the board of the Golden Gate District, not to mention a member of Rescue Muni. Although his district is especially sensitive on smart growth and displacement issues, Ammiano has generally taken SF’s transit-first policy to heart, discouraging road construction that would only increase car use, supporting use of tools like congestion pricing, working towards the procurement of cleaner Muni technology, and advocating for transit riders even in the face of budgetary constraint. He was also a co-sponsor of Proposition A (Muni Reform Initiative) which voters passed in the November 2007 election.

Assembly District 19 (Northern/Central San Mateo County): JERRY HILL. This is a three-way race involving County Supervisor Jerry Hill, Mayor of Millbrae Gina Papan, and Richard Holober, who is president of the San Mateo County Community College Board. From the transit and environmental perspective, Jerry Hill is a no-brainer to endorse as the successor to Gene Mullin’s seat, as he will provide a strong voice for these issues in the Assembly, and he has been the most vocal about making it a part of his campaign. Hill also has the most experience in elected office. From the transit perspective, Hill has served on the SamTrans Board of Directors, the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers board, and the Transbay Joint Powers Authority board. He has also served as President of the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, as Chair of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and as a member of the California Air Resources Board. As 2nd District County Supervisor, he has worked to preserve open space in San Mateo County, and he co-sponsored a Sustainable Building Policy requiring that new County buildings be constructed to LEED standards.

Don’t forget to get out and vote on Tuesday June 3! If you do not already know your polling place, click here to find out where it is.

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.

“Rapid Bus Plus,” then, suggests that the mildest types of improvement typically associated with BRT be expanded, but it continues the pattern of forcing transit vehicles to fight cars in traffic — increasing travel times and hampering reliability. Bus-only lanes, in BBTOP’s view, are “invasive” — a “sclerosis” of East Bay streets. BBTOP proposes that bus-only lanes be deleted from the BRT plan in areas where the transitway is “redundant” to BART. Naturally, according to BBTOP, one redundant example is the Telegraph Avenue corridor. Really? So the three BART stations that are on the so-called “BART/Telegraph Avenue Corridor” — MacArthur, Ashby, and Downtown Berkeley, the latter two of which are both a several-block walk from the Avenue — provide complete and comprehensive coverage, even though each of these stations is 20-30 blocks distant from the adjacent station? BART coverage is so thorough that substantial improvement to bus service is unwarranted, even though it would improve ride quality for many low-income and minority riders who have been disenfranchised throughout the years by slashed bus service? BART coverage in this corridor is so thorough that no one must even be riding this highly redundant bus route — right? This route, which happens to be the East Bay’s busiest? BBTOP very sloppily combines BART and Telegraph Avenue as though it is one duplicative corridor. It is not: BART’s regional service and AC Transit’s local service are complementary, but they serve different purposes. The number of origins and destinations that are an easy walk from BART are outnumbered by the locations that are too far removed to make BART a convenient or practical option. And even when BART is convenient, the lack of a monthly BART pass forces riders to pay for each individual trip — an expensive burden that it is especially difficult for low-income and transit-dependent riders to bear. The theory that BRT is redundant to BART is old and tired, having been raised repeatedly by BRT opponents in Berkeley. You need only ask one of the roughly 25,000 daily riders who choose the 1 or the 1R over BART to learn why that theory is incorrect.

So as to not appear to be completely against transit, BBTOP suggests that AC Transit leave Telegraph Avenue and Berkeley in peace and instead study other potential BRT corridors that do not “duplicate” BART — for example, the Iron Horse Trail in Contra Costa County, which is not even in AC Transit’s service area. It also suggests investigating BRT on Oakland’s MacArthur Boulevard. This latter suggestion is part of AC Transit’s planning vision, and MacArthur Boulevard does deserve improved service. But the Boulevard’s awkward interactions with Interstate 580 result in some stretches of constricted street that would not support full BRT as robustly as Telegraph would. MacArthur also has less infill potential and fewer riders than the BRT route currently on the table, so it makes sense to prioritize projects to benefit the greatest number of riders.

Amazingly, BBTOP hails Muni’s “venerable N-Judah” as an exemplar of how successful “Rapid Bus Plus” would be if it were implemented, calling the N-Judah “Rapid Bus Plus on rails” because it uses Proof of Payment but does not have a dedicated right of way for its entire route. Apparently, the folks at BBTOP have not actually ridden the N-Judah much, because if they had, they would realize that the line is unreliable precisely because it shares road space with automobiles on the surface, delaying and ensnaring LRVs at congested choke points, like in the Inner Sunset District. Travel times would be even longer without POP, but that hardly implies that the N-Judah’s current configuration is ideal, let alone a model for new transit lines. Providing LRVs with a dedicated right of way for the whole length of the route would greatly improve the quality of N-Judah service, and the same is true of East Bay BRT. Conveniently, BBTOP fails to provide detail about any of the many BRT success stories — and it sees no irony in dismissing Curitiba, Brazil, as a third world city in the same document that it advocates for the East Bay to maintain a bus system inferior to Curitiba’s.

BBTOP’s report contains many misleading turns of phrase, as well as incorrect assumptions that run counter to professional transit planning. It will not really do much good to parse and correct each sentence here. When we come right down to it, all BBTOP’s plan (if the rambling five-page PDF can be called a “plan” at all) has really done is slap a new name onto the same old desire to dilute at least the Berkeley stretch of the BRT route. It retains a couple BRT-like characteristics to give the illusion of a compromise solution, but it discards BRT’s crucial dedicated right of way. Would “Rapid Bus Plus” be an improvement over current service? Yes, but it would not go far enough — and it would provide little to no opportunity to transform the way the East Bay views buses and transit in general.