Compelling candidates challenge incumbent BART directors in District 8 (San Francisco, left) and District 4 (Oakland/Alameda, right).

If there is a silver lining to be found in the protracted Oakland Airport Connector debate and other BART drama that has ensued over the past couple of years, it’s that BART’s Board of Directors and the agency generally have been subject to an extra measure of public scrutiny.  There’s a related silver lining: candidates emerging to challenge lackluster incumbent directors.  And not just any challengers, but serious, compelling challengers that deserve our attention.  This election, we’re talking about District 8 (the north and west side of  San Francisco) and District 4 (Oakland, east of Broadway, and Alameda).

Vigorous but misguided advocacy of the senseless Oakland Airport Connector, coupled with an insensitive brushing aside of well-reasoned opposition expressed by members of the public, is reason enough to unseat current District 4 director Carole Ward Allen.  Do we even need a clearer example showing her faulty grasp of riders’ true priorities? Insert a too little, too late approach to police reform, and one cannot help but draw the conclusion that Oakland and Alameda deserve better.

 Meanwhile, current District 8 director James Fang is a lonely Republican in San Francisco who has presided for far too long over a district that is gerrymandered if there ever was one (see above map).  He has pursued an approach that values flash over substance (cell phone fare payment), not to mention flash over basic common sense  (the infamous fare rollback, overwhelmingly disdained by rider surveys).  Okay, so he did recently express his support for a BART line to serve the Richmond District — that’s at least something we can agree would be a good thing.  But then again, given that he apparently sees BART as primarily a supplier of construction jobs (rather than, you know, a transit operator), Fang is happy to build BART anywhere and everywhere, indiscriminately.  So he was bound to come around to his own district sooner or later, and what better time to do so than during election season?

If the BART Board’s suburban tilt isn’t enough to contend with, what’s unforgivable is that even its urban directors (save one) aren’t true urbanists.  Like Carole Ward Allen and James Fang, they willingly sign off on ever more distant extensions that not only drain dollars and strain the system, but also lead to the deterioration of their own constituents’ experiences riding the train.

Bert Hill (left) and Robert Raburn (right). Images courtesy of their respective campaign websites.

Enter Bert Hill and Robert Raburn.  Personally, I am thrilled that both these candidates have stepped up to the plate to challenge the old guard.  I won’t repeat all their background information in this post, as you can read about it here and here.  Both bring years of valuable transportation advocacy experience, as well as relevant professional and academic expertise.  Bert Hill’s platform discusses local connectivity to BART stations; he also emphasizes that funds should be prioritized for maintaining existing track and stations and accommodating future capacity needs, rather than building unsustainable extensions to the hinterlands.  Meanwhile, Raburn vehemently criticizes the Oakland Airport Connector, which lies in his home district, and correctly reminds us that in relentlessly pursuing the OAC, the BART Board unnecessarily exposes the agency and its riders to the risks and consequences of taking out a federal TIFIA loan to finance the project.  I could not agree more on these points, and I believe both Hill and Raburn will bring perspectives that are underrepresented and sorely needed on the Board.

This is not to say there isn’t necessarily room for growth and improvement.  For example, at a candidate forum, Raburn was so insistent on the need to focus on maintaining the core system (instead of pursuing expensive capital projects) that his gut reaction to the idea of building infill stations was “Oh my gosh: another construction project.”  I cannot agree with the implication of that remark – that infill stations and suburban extensions belong to the same generic category of undesirable capital projects, and that infill stations “won’t pencil out.”  Rather, a few well-chosen urban infill stations are the exact type of capital project that likely will pencil out, by increasing ridership at a fraction of the cost of a new extension, while creating comfortably transit-dependent neighborhoods with denser land uses.  But despite that slip-up (in what was otherwise a series of solid, well-presented viewpoints), I didn’t get the sense that an insurmountable ideological barrier was reached.  Rather, the reaction seemed more like a vehicle for Raburn to contrast his own world view with that of the current Board, which has moved the OAC and other extensions forward in spite of deferred maintenance needs.  Perhaps more importantly, though, I sensed in him an intellectual curiosity and genuine interest in transportation issues, as well as a willingness to engage with details and facts.  Ever try to reason with Carole Ward Allen about the facts on the Oakland Airport Connector?

The bottom line is that both Bert Hill and Robert Raburn agree that it’s irresponsible to extend track into far-flung corners of the region when major investments are required to shore up the core system and accommodate future capacity needs.  Both candidates understand that BART’s role in the region is not to provide an endless stream of construction jobs and groundbreaking and ribbon-cutting ceremonies, but to operate an efficient, clean, functional system that fortifies our urban environment, ties together our region as the backbone of a multimodal network, and ultimately improves our quality of life. 

In short, both Hill and Raburn simply get it on so many issues.  Either one, and preferably both, would be a breath of fresh air on the Board.  With the Board’s current membership, Tom Radulovich too often speaks as the sole voice of reason drowned out by a chorus.  A Radulovich-Hill-Raburn trifecta would be a positive development, bringing to bear a team that could exert more influence on Board votes.

I am unfortunately not eligible to vote in either of these races, but I would strongly recommend that readers who live in BART districts 4 and 8 skip past the incumbents on their ballot, and instead cast a vote this time for Robert Raburn in District 4, and Bert Hill in District 8.  This November both sides of the Bay can stand together and vote for change at BART.  As BART continues to evolve beyond a commuter rail service into an urban metro, the composition of the Board should reflect the evolving nature of the system.  We stand to benefit from the expertise and passion that these candidates offer.

Well, it’s official. Santa Clara County Measure B — assessing a 1/8 percent sales tax, the proceeds from which will be applied to operation and maintenance of the BART to San Jose extension — finally passed, with 66.78% of the vote; not enough uncounted ballots remain to turn back the vote.  Shortly after the election, when the vote was still under the required 2/3 threshold, SVLG and Measure B supporters had all but conceded, and San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed grudgingly threw his support behind a shortened route (terminating at Milpitas, Berryessa, or Alum Rock, thus postponing the Downtown San Jose subway) while he simultaneously fished for $14 billion of federal bailout money to spend on BART, among other things. But no matter now: the Measure B results are all but certified, though with the tax proceeds not quite in hand; the tax will not be assessed until a federal contribution appears. Will this be the last that we hear of shortened routes and BART taxes? Perhaps not, and a great deal of necessary project funding has yet to materialize. Nonetheless: the Valley Transportation Authority can interpret (in fact, already has interpreted) voter affirmation of the sales tax, however marginally above the 2/3 required for passage, as a clear indication that its plans are moving in the right direction. Never mind, of course, what other more cost-effective expansion projects “moving in the right direction” might jeopardize — to say nothing of existing transit service, whose funds are already tirelessly targeted by the Governor, including very recently for an additional $230 million cut across the State ($83 million in the Bay Area). But since when has BART to San Jose ever been about transit effectiveness? If it wasn’t already clear, the Mercury News made it crystal clear that the primary interest at stake is not transportation, but civic self-esteem. The article rejoices in the fact that San Jose Diridon Station — already served by Caltrain, Amtrak, ACE and VTA, and planned to be served by BART and high-speed rail — is poised to become the Grand Central Station of the West. “We’ll no longer be in the shadow of San Francisco. I’ve waited a long time for it,” proudly proclaimed Ian North in the Merc article. Wait: hasn’t the moniker “Grand Central Station of the West” already been reserved for Transbay — you know, in that other city in the Bay Area? San Jose wants to stretch its wings and fly, by creating a dense, active downtown adjacent to a grand terminal at Diridon. We should not begrudge it that; after all, this website exists, if for no other purpose, than to celebrate exactly that sort of vision. But at what cost to the greater region?

We should at least pause to enjoy a substantial victory — a movement, really — of which Measure B was part. On November 4, voters passed several major and expensive transportation measures — not just Measure B, but also Measure Q in Sonoma and Marin for SMART, Measure R in Los Angeles, and of course Proposition 1A for high-speed rail — and this all in the midst of both a state budget crisis and depressed economic climate. Fuel prices have declined considerably since their summertime high, prompting at least some Angelenos to revert to driving; but the memory of gas prices past encouraged Californians, both in the north and the south, to vote in favor of expanding rail networks throughout the state. And yet, BART to San Jose serves as a special reminder that not all transit projects are created equal, and that those projects that suffer from imperfect planning may even be ill-advised. It was a distinctly local nuance, not easy to communicate to voters — and further lost in the shuffle of both a monumentally important national election, and the positive pro-transit prescience that swept through California. But as we encourage officials to pursue better and brighter projects, it is a nuance of which we should be continually aware. Yes, even with an Obama Administration that understands and values the potentially profound change that widespread investment in high-quality transit would trigger.

Onto the election results: mixed results, to be sure. Like so many others around California, I beamed at the passage of the $9.95 billion high-speed rail bond measure (Prop 1A), but then recoiled at the passage of Prop 8, which cast a lingering gloom on what was an otherwise unbelievable night. How sad and frustrating that a majority of Californians chose to value animal rights above human rights; we can only hope that the fierce commitment of equality advocates will yield positive results and a more coherent California Constitution. But like millions of others around the country — and the globe — my voice grew hoarse from cheering at Barack Obama’s historic acceptance speech. For a myriad of reasons, I could not be more thrilled at the change in vision that is imminent for our nation’s highest office; suffice it to say that “President Obama” rolls right off the tongue. But since this is largely a transit blog, I should at least mention how important it is that the United States has opted to skip over the candidate who hates trains, and instead chose to elect the candidate who understands that a thriving America in the future depends in large part on making present-day commitments to invest in sustainable transportation and rail networks.

November 4 was a pretty great day for transit all across the country. Despite defeats in Kansas City and St. Louis, there were many victories, including: Los Angeles (Measure R), Seattle (Prop 1), Milwaukee, West Sacramento, Honolulu, Albuquerque/Santa Fe, and, of course, California High-Speed Rail; click here for a tabulation of national results. As for the Bay Area, here are some election results, divided by region, with a focus on the candidates and ballot measures relevant to transportation, development, and open space:

East Bay

Candidates: Although it would have been preferable to have Terry Doran oversee densification of downtown Berkeley from the District 4 City Council seat, voters instead handed that position to Jesse Arreguin, aide to Kriss Worthington. Tom Bates was reelected Mayor of Berkeley, beating Shirley Dean. Meanwhile, Rebecca Kaplan, Vice President of the AC Transit Board, swept into the at-large seat on the Oakland City Council, convincingly defeating Kerry Hamill. For the AC Transit Board of Directors: Chris Peeples (at-large) and Greg Harper (Ward 2) both held onto their seats, although Peeples’s opponent Joyce Roy received a rather bafflingly high percentage of the vote (35%). Lynette Sweet had no problem reclaiming her seat on the BART Board of Directors in District 7.

Measures: In the greater East Bay, both Measure VV’s parcel tax to fund AC Transit operations and Measure WW’s extension of the East Bay Regional Park District bond passed with over 71% of the vote. In Berkeley, Measure KK (which would have stalled AC Transit’s BRT project by requiring a vote in Berkeley to reserve transit-only/HOV lanes) lost by a landslide 76.52%, helping to reestablish Berkeley’s progressive credentials — but the Measure LL referendum of the Berkeley Landmark Preservation Ordinance failed. In Oakland, Measure OO (the children services set-aside) passed, unfortunately. Finally, both Moraga and Pleasanton faced pairs of dueling open space protection measures. Moraga defeated both Measures J and K, while Pleasanton passed both Measures PP and QQ, with PP winning more votes.

North Bay

After the frustratingly narrow defeat in 2006, Marin/Sonoma’s Measure Q, which will institute a 1/4-percent sales tax to fund Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART), passed with 68.4% of the vote in both counties (2/3 approval was required); trains will finally return to the North Bay in about five years, with a bicycle/pedestrian path built alongside the track. Both the track and the path will provide new auto-free travel options in the congested Highway 101 corridor that cuts through Sonoma and Marin Counties.

In Napa County, Measure P passed with 62.3% of the vote, extending the 1990 Measure J Agricultural Lands Preservation Initiative. 1990 Measure J, which required that the people vote on whether agricultural land would be redesignated as fit for development, has been the vehicle for protecting agricultural land in Napa County, and 2008 Measure P, which extends 1990 Measure J until 2058, will continue to do the same, but with a proviso to give the County flexibility in providing affordable housing. Meanwhile, Solano County’s Orderly Growth Initiative, which aims to focus residential development in cities to protect agricultural land, was extended until 2028 as Measure T, passing with 69.6% of the vote.

Peninsula & South Bay

Santa Clara County’s Measure B, which would institute a 1/8-percent sales tax to pay for BART to San Jose operating costs, seems poised for defeat — it had 66.27% of the vote early Wednesday morning and later inched up to 66.3%, falling just a hair short of the required 2/3 approval, but with some absentee ballots still not counted. Meanwhile, voters willingly sacrificed their minimal oversight of VTA’s planning efforts — they passed Measure C, approving VTA’s countywide transportation plan for 2035 before seeing its exact details, and they passed Measure D, which removes the right to vote on future countywide transportation plans.

Had it passed, Measure H would have allowed residential control exemptions for five hundred allotments, in order to incentivize residential development in downtown Morgan Hill; but this relatively modest attempt at smart growth was narrowly defeated, missing the mark by just a couple hundred votes. Meanwhile, confusion and contention reigned in Redwood City between Measures V and W, debating what the response should be to the bayshore Cargill salt flats development, which I wrote about briefly last year. In the end, both measures failed. Unsurprisingly, Measure W’s more stringent charter amendment (requiring a two-thirds vote to approve development on land designated as open space) lost by a more considerable margin than Measure V (requiring only a majority of voters to approve development on Cargill land), which was more narrowly tailored to address the Cargill development.

San Francisco

Board of Supervisors: Modulo changes to vote tabulations due to ranked-choice voting, a new generation of progressives swept through the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday night, dealing a swift blow to Gavin Newsom. Eric Mar beat Sue Lee by a considerable margin in District 1; David Chiu won in District 3, beating Joe Alioto, Jr. by over fifteen points in a race that was supposedly neck-in-neck; David Campos captured District 9; and John Avalos beat Ahsha Safai by about five points in District 11. Ross Mirkarimi won by a landslide, keeping his District 5 seat. On the other hand, Chu and Elsbernd have also both held onto their seats in Districts 4 and 7, with Chu earning just over half of votes, and Elsbernd winning over two-thirds of votes.

Other Candidates: As expected, Mark Leno claimed the State Senate seat in District 3, Fiona Ma kept her Assembly seat in District 12, and Tom Ammiano replaced Mark Leno in Assembly District 13. Incumbent BART directors Lynette Sweet (District 7) and Tom Radulovich (District 9) held onto their seats by a landslide.

Propositions: Prop B’s affordable housing set-aside lost very narrowly, while Prop H (municipal utility) and Prop K (decriminalizing prostitution) both lost quite convincingly. Several other key propositions passed: Prop A’s earthquake safety bonds for San Francisco General Hospital, Prop D’s Pier 70 plan, Prop N’s real property transfer tax rate increase, and Prop J, which will create a Commission with full authority to declare landmarks (replacing the current Landmarks Board, whose decrees are merely advisory). Prop P failed, leaving the San Francisco County Transportation Authority intact. Click here to see the results for all the other San Francisco propositions.

And that about wraps it up. Thanks to everyone who donated their time, money, and energy to important causes, and also to those who braved the long lines and made their voices heard at the polls.

In 2006, voters in Marin and Sonoma Counties very narrowly turned down a 1/4-percent sales tax whose proceeds would fund Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART), the project that would rehabilitate the 70-mile right of way (formerly of Northwestern Pacific) between Cloverdale in northern Sonoma County and Larkspur in Marin County. This year, that project is once again on the ballot in the form of Measure Q, again as a 1/4-percent sales tax requiring 2/3 approval for passage. SMART would operate DMUs (essentially, light diesel commuter rail) every 30 minutes at peak, with limited weekday and weekend service, comparable to the Sprinter in Oceanside-Escondido. The project also includes a pathway for cyclists and pedestrians along the right of way. The train would not connect directly to San Francisco, a fact that has prompted opponents to dub it the “train to nowhere.” But this claim is really without basis considering North Bay commute patterns: in 2000, a little over 75% of Sonoma County home-based work trips remained in the county; for Marin, a smaller percentage but still over half of home-based work trips remained inside the county. More trips still were carried out between the two counties, but still without a bay crossing. San Francisco is not presently the predominant travel market, and it won’t be in the future either, as this trend is expected to solidify and strengthen as new jobs are added to the North Bay. Even though most SMART riders will not be riding the train to Larkspur to transfer to a San Francisco-bound ferry, we still might wish that the Larkspur station had been brought all the way to the ferry terminal, and not a shuttle ride or ten-minute walk away. Nonetheless, we’re excited by the possibility of trains returning to grace the North Bay’s landscape of town centers and verdure pastures. Just like downtowns emerged on the Peninsula along the Southern Pacific right-of-way between San Francisco and San Jose, so, too, towns in the North Bay were developed along the Northwestern Pacific right-of-way. In that sense, SMART, just as Caltrain currently does on the Peninsula, would provide convenient service to North Bay downtowns. SMART is a worthy project, and North Bay voters are encouraged to vote Yes on Measure Q for SMART.

SMART track runs through downtown San Rafael, which is already a regional bus hub; SMART would upgrade the station to an intermodal transit hub, a natural spot to plan for transit-oriented development. Courtesy of Northbayist.

Leading the charge against SMART are Mike Arnold and Joy Dahlgren, and the “North Bay Citizens for Effective Transportation” (NBCET). Although formerly known as the Marin Citizens for Effective Transportation, the name was presumably changed to trick voters into thinking that the anti-SMART campaign has picked up enough steam to become a bi-county effort — this despite Sonoma County’s consistently strong show of support for the train. NBCET’s claims are usually formulated from actual facts, but they are stated in a way that is intended more to deceive than to educate. As such, its claims are not too convincing, and I hope that voters in Marin and Sonoma will not find them too convincing, either. Arnold has chanted ad nauseum that the project is an expensive boondoggle, but we have to wonder — has he actually looked at the price of building transit these days? Rehabilitating the 70-mile right of way would cost about $541 million, which, at less than $8 million per mile, is basically the cheapest major transit infrastructure project in the Bay Area. Out of fear of freight operations, NBCET has urged that the right-of-way be paved for bus service, but every BRT project currently in planning is significantly more expensive, per mile, than SMART. (We also ought to know better by now than to pave over a right of way when we are lucky to have one at our disposal, least of all one that is seventy miles long.) And speaking of freight: the North Coast Railroad Authority could run freight even without SMART; rather, freight run times would necessarily be limited by having SMART operate on the same track. Most Marin voters, at least, need not worry in any case, as freight would not run south of the wye at the Highway 101/37 interchange.

Initially, the train has been predicted to have only about 5,300 riders each weekday, but there are at least a couple reasons to believe that this projection is an understatement. First, the projections were calculated when gasoline costs were a fraction of what they were this summer (in reaction to which ridership increased across the Bay Area, including on Golden Gate Transit), and prices are expected to increase long-term, most likely triggering still further increases in ridership. Second, the projections assumed that freeways would be widened, notably the notorious Novato Narrows bottleneck; but the Metropolitan Transportation Commission is now under increased legal scrutiny for prioritizing exactly these sorts of freeway widening projects, the construction of which would be detrimental to climate change and air quality. In the event that the Novato Narrows is not widened, a revised estimate from 2006 predicted that SMART ridership would increase 7%, but that correction factor was itself a conservative estimate. Both of these factors point to an understated ridership projection.

A mostly unspoiled hillside in San Rafael; courtesy of Northbayist.

It has been further suggested by SMART’s opponents that the North Bay would be better served by more buses roaming leafy suburban streets, rather than by running trains on a fixed guideway. But the North Bay is a fundamentally auto-oriented place, and simply running more bus service will not effect a large change in the North Bay’s attitude toward transit — at least, not without a corresponding shift in land use patterns. And on that point, an important nugget of advocacy has been downplayed by SMART’s supporters, perhaps not surprisingly, given that they face both NIMBYs and Marin County’s so-called “environmentalists,” who oppose all development and growth of any type, including smart growth. Notwithstanding SMART, both Sonoma and Marin Counties are expected grow considerably in the next two decades, adding about 130,000 new jobs and 130,000 new residents to the North Bay by the year 2025; this will increase the number of trips between Marin and Sonoma. Where will those new jobs and homes be placed: in downtowns, or sprawled across once-pristine hillsides? And will those new trips be made on transit, or in automobiles? Building SMART presents a unique opportunity to channel new growth into North Bay downtowns. In the process, we’d create more vibrant, walkable city centers, while preserving for future generations the lovely natural setting of which the North Bay is quite rightly so proud.

The time has come to restore rail transit to the last major part of the Bay Area that lacks it. I’m not sure how many Marinites and Sonomans read this site, but for those that do: Yes on Measure Q.

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 proceeds from Measure VV will be used to fund operations and maintenance, with expenditures monitored by a citizen oversight committee. This money is necessary to allow AC Transit to maintain its current level of operation without having to penalize its most transit-dependent customers by slashing service and hiking fares. Yes, it’s another tax — but as such, it requires 2/3 approval by voters in order to pass. When the state budget is unkind to transit, sometimes it falls on local taxpayers to tie up the loose ends. So all we can do is ask East Bay voters to find it in their hearts to protect vital transit service by voting Yes on Measure VV.

If passed, Measure B would institute a thirty-year 1/8-percent sales tax in Santa Clara County to generate money to operate the BART to San Jose extension, in the event that state and federal contributions are secured. However, even with 2000 Measure A and 2008 Measure B funds combined, VTA will not likely have sufficient funding to build and operate the BART extension, which suggests that funds will be removed from other long-overdue projects like Caltrain electrification. VTA may also be forced to cut bus and light rail service, the successful operation of which ought to be a primary priority. This last point should be carefully considered: building BART will attract new riders (though not nearly as many as projected), but cutting VTA service will mean losing current riders; it is no coincidence that transit advocates are the very people who oppose the BART extension. In the end, the question to ask is not only what BART’s ridership will be, but what the net ridership will be — how many cars, on balance, will be taken off the roads? New BART riders cannot be viewed as a true victory unless there is an increase (and at this cost, a pretty monumental increase) in net ridership. The onus is on VTA to show that it can succesfully overcome all of these obstacles, and it has not done it so far. For more on why BART to San Jose is an ill-conceived project, read this series of posts.

Moreover, constructing just one BART corridor will not be nearly enough to transform Santa Clara County from the auto-oriented place it is now. Instead of diverting all accumulated funds to a single corridor, VTA would be well-advised to replace its BART plans with a robust (but nonetheless more cost-effective) rail link between Fremont and San Jose — and to pursue an aggressive portfolio of bus rapid transit and light rail extensions that would encompass the entire County, including those very projects that voters decreed should be allocated the bulk of 2000 Measure A funds. Such a program would yield dozens of stations instead of just six: meaning there would be far more than just six BART stations around which to build dense transit-oriented development; this is key if we ever hope to effect real change in Santa Clara County’s land use and travel patterns. The County absolutely deserves better transit than it has now, both rail and buses. But BART to San Jose is quite simply not the right fit.

And for that matter, voters are also encouraged to vote No on Measure C and No on Measure D, which are two additional ballot measures from VTA, both of which have the express goal of relieving VTA of accountability to Santa Clara County voters:

• Measure C: If passed, Measure C would constitute voter approval of the Valley Transportation Plan 2035 — before the VTA Board has formally adopted it, which it plans to do next month in December. Since 1976, VTA has been legally obliged to prepare a comprehenisve county-wide transportation plan every six years, and to submit said plan to voters for a non-legally binding “advisory vote.” As such, this obligation is neither new nor unexpected, and VTA should have had the 2035 iteration prepared in advance of the election. Why should voters approve a plan whose exact contents and funding priorities are unknown to them?

• Measure D: As mentioned above, VTA is obliged to prepare a comprehensive county-wide transportation plan and submit it to voters every six years for an advisory vote. Although advisory votes are not legally binding, they at least afford voters a modicum of oversight of VTA’s actions. Additional oversight exists in the form of the Citizen’s Watchdog Committee, which reviews VTA’s expenditures; the Citizen’s Watchdog Committee was established in 2000 Measure A. Now, if Measure D passes, it would eliminate the requirement that the plan be submitted every six years to voters, and only the Citizen’s Watchdog Committee would review future plans. This would deprive voters of the opportunity to offer advisory votes on any future VTA transportation plans — thereby removing the VTA Board’s already very minimal accountability to voters.

Unlike BART’s and AC Transit’s Board of Directors, whose members are directly elected, VTA Board members are appointed. Measures C and D seek to eliminate what little power voters now have to review VTA’s actions and hold the agency accountable. Santa Clara County voters are strongly encouraged to be a voice for true transit justice and vision — and to express disapproval of VTA’s lack of the same — by voting No on Measures B, C, and D.

Tom Radulovich (District 9): There always seems to be a crop of BART Board candidates who are bewilderingly enthusiastic about expanding BART to the edge of the Bay Area and beyond. District 9 incumbent Tom Radulovich has been challenged by Peter Klivans, a Cole Valley resident who has opined that we should be able to “take BART wherever we want to go.” Just about every other Google ad I see in my Gmail inbox has referenced Klivans’s desire to extend BART down the Peninsula, where it would wastefully duplicate Caltrain (but without the latter’s express service that has already put to shame the Peninsula BART service that already exists). His candidate statement adovcates for BART to the Richmond District, which is one of his better ideas — but then again, Sacramento, which Klivans has hypothesized could also have BART service, if only we had the “imagination” for it? Anyway, the choice for BART District 9 is a no-brainer. Tom Radulovich has served on the Board since 1996 and is also executive director of Livable City. Throughout the years, Radulovich has been active as an ally and advocate for all sorts of good causes, including Transbay, Octavia Boulevard, an infill BART station at 30th Street to bridge the long gap between 24th Street and Glen Park, sensible parking policies, and intensifying land use next to BART stations. His commitment to creating a sustainable and vibrant urban environment makes him a necessary foil to the suburban directors. There’s really no need to even think twice about this one: Tom Radulovich for D9.

The notion of building a high-speed rail system in California has long been in the works, finally getting off the ground in the 1993 with the formation of the California High-Speed Rail Commission, which carried out initial studies, and then superseded in 1996 by the California High-Speed Rail Authority. The Authority spent the next several years carrying out environmental review and generating a business plan; and although a bond issue was delayed in both 2004 and 2006, finally, this November 4, 2008, Californians will have the opportunity to weigh in on the $9.95 billion high-speed rail bond issue; construction of the roughly $40 billion system will draw also on funding from local and federal sources, as well as from the private sector.

High-speed rail at San Francisco’s Transbay Transit Center, courtesy of CHSRA.

Why high-speed rail? In some sense, it’s as easy as checking points off a checklist. California’s population has been predicted to swell to almost 60 million people by the year 2050, and California’s transportation infrastructure must also expand to accommodate the additional volume of trips. The longest trips made across the state are overwhelmingly carried out by car or in the air. Expanding both air capacity and road capacity (with almost new 3000 lane-miles, which essentially amounts to a whole new eight-lane freeway stretching from the Bay Area to Los Angeles) was estimated to cost $82 billion in 2004 dollars, making high-speed rail look like a deal in comparison. But that even assumes that expanding roads and airports will be possible or compelling. Freeway expansion is a very unattractive option that will only further exacerbate traffic congestion, increase fuel dependency, deteriorate air quality, and subsidize sprawl. Airport expansion is also a non-starter. Here in the Bay Area, plans to extend SFO’s runways into San Francisco Bay met extreme resistance from environmentalists; but proposed airport expansion has not really fared much better across the whole state. That basically leaves rail: but California is a very large state, and even with substantial investment in improving Amtrak, conventional rail would not be sufficiently competitive when compared to other travel modes … unless, that is, the trains were to be high-speed. Maximum speeds of 220 mph, and a two-hour and 38-minute trip between San Francisco’s Transbay Transit Center and Los Angeles Union Station should just about do the trick, right? Building high-speed rail also potentially eliminates the problem of future airport capacity; if trips inside California are diverted to high-speed rail, it effectively increases capacity at existing gates for international and out-of-state domestic air trips.

However, the checklist approach severely understates the benefits of high-speed rail, which are many. High-speed rail, far from being uncertain and untested, is a proven and well-established technology. Back in 1964, when the Bay Area was still planning BART, Japan’s Shinkansen debuted service and has since been expanded into a high-speed network over 1,500 miles long; in 1981, the first branch of France’s TGV started service between Lyon and Paris. High-speed rail has been phenomenally successful the world over, generating surpluses and capturing impressive percentages of market share. Here in California, high-speed rail would draw closer together our state’s several major population centers. By linking downtown centers to each other, high-speed rail would provide a level of comfort, access, and connectivity that neither driving nor air travel could ever hope to achieve. The economic and job creation benefits have been exhaustively cited, as have the environmental benefits; the full system, including later phases to Sacramento and San Diego, could capture 88-117 million trips annually by the year 2030, sparing emissions equivalent to removing over one million automobiles from California’s highways each year. The California Air Resources Board has included high-speed rail as part of its scoping plan to bring California in compliance with AB 32′s mandates to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

As we’ve remarked before, HSR’s opponents have taken all forms. Some have remarked that such a large bond issue would amount to supreme fiscal irresponsibility in light of the state budget crisis, a criticism that overlooks the fact that bonds are the natural way to finance such a large infrastructure project, and HSR will only get more expensive the longer we wait. It’s hard to garner much sympathy for the NIMBY outfit headquartered in Menlo Park and Atherton, but the project’s current form continues to be opposed by a few local transit advocate and environmentalist groups who nonetheless have long supported high-speed rail in principle; to be sure, that set is far smaller than before. Most of the formerly reluctant ones have come around since the passage of AB 3034 has promised, among other things: $950 million that could be applied to upgrade service on the Altamont corridor, independent review of CHSRA, and no Los Banos station. We should greatly appreciate the work that these groups have done to date, both in terms of pushing for centrally located downtown stations and for their Altamont advocacy, despite the Authority’s firmly implanted favor of the Pacheco alignment. But I disagree that stalling any further is the right solution. At some point, we have to look beyond Altamont, Pacheco, or Palmdale: no project will ever be perfect, and in the case of high-speed rail, tremendous benefits may be gained notwithstanding the imperfections. HSR will not get any cheaper as we continue to delay, and even if high-speed trains seem like a luxury item at the moment, they will be an outright necessity sooner than we might think.

Downtown Sacramento, with new TOD: the high-speed rail station would be built as a future phase; image courtesy CHSRA.

The convergence of so many factors suggest that now is the right time to build California High-Speed Rail. Gas prices have declined since their summer high — for now — but transit ridership remains high, perhaps due to recession-induced frugality. The very recent passage of AB 32-supportive climate change legislation also resonates so well with high-speed rail. We’ve discussed SB 375 and AB 1358 here in the past, and how those new laws would serve our ultimate goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But the ultimate success of that legislation is premised on the existence of effective, high-quality transit, which does not exist in most places across California — but a high-speed rail station (and the downtown transit-oriented development such a station would attract) could spur greater investment in new or enhanced transit to feed into the station. High-speed rail is the unifying thread that underlies California’s recent climate change legislation, and which would allow the goals of that legislation it to be convincingly realized. We can imagine a day many years in the future, but still within our lifetime, when we could descend from the rooftop park of the new San Francisco Transbay Transit Center into the subway station, board a high-speed train, and emerge two hours later in the downtown core of one of California’s major population centers served by HSR. Upon exiting that HSR station, we would be greeted by a panoply of local transit options; a complete streetscape enhanced to give prime accessibility to the station; and, perhaps best of all, a vibrant street life complemented by densely packed homes and jobs within a short walk of the station. Could this really be possible anywhere in California, even in places like Bakersfield, Fresno, Anaheim, or Irvine? In order to effect statewide change, we need to make statewide investment — and high-speed rail, by giving California its long-missed “spinal cord,” could well prove to be a most effective method of triggering a statewide movement toward smart land use and increased investment in local transit.

Who can say exactly how long it would take to get to that point? But it’s such a lovely vision that California cannot afford to give up on it before it has even truly begun. Which is why I ask any and all Californians who happen to read this post before November 4, 2008, to join me in voting “Yes” on Proposition 1A.

If you read the two previous posts about this past election, you probably noticed one rather glaring omission from the discussion: the two San Francisco measures that were actually about city planning, Propositions F and G concerning the massive redevelopment of the Hunters Point Shipyard and Candlestick Point. Unfortunately, after writing those other two election posts, there was no time to write a post about Hunters Point as well. But one thing is pretty certain: there will be opportunity in the future to discuss the landmark redevelopment of this area of the City. As you have likely already heard, 62% of San Franciscans voted “No” on the 50% affordable housing mandate in Prop F, while an almost equal number of San Franciscans voted “Yes” on Prop G, signalizing a desire to move forward with the cleaning up and redevelopment of this Superfund site. (Link to SF Election Results, scroll down to the bottom for city measures.)

Very little of the content of either Prop F or Prop G should have appeared on the ballot at all, particularly because this redevelopment project is so massive, complex, and still quite early in the process despite the fact that discussions have been ongoing for the past several years. The highly politicized Prop F vs. Prop G battle essentially became yet another example of San Francisco political theater at its finest: Daly v. Newsom, Progressives vs. “Progressives,” and any other iteration you can think of. As has been repeatedly raised by Prop F supporters, Prop G, as it pertains to the plan of the developer Lennar Corp., is not legally binding — it is filled with words like “encourage” and “should,” rather than “shall.” But then again, it could not be legally binding. The potential environmental impacts of cleaning up and redeveloping this area must be documented, and changes to the current plan will have to be made in response to the findings of the EIR when that document has been prepared. In addition, the plan is centered on the construction of a new 49ers stadium, but it is anything but a certainty that the team will remain in San Francisco. (The plan is not dependent on the stadium, and can be redrawn without it; the plan merely encourages retention of the 49ers “as a source of civic pride.”) The only binding part of Prop G — and really, the only part that should have appeared on the ballot at all — was the statements repealing Propositions D and F in 1997, in which voters approved the bonds and zoning that would have facilitated the construction of a new stadium and shopping center. Last month, Lennar did agree to a deal to increase affordability from an encouraged 25% affordable to a legally binding one-third affordable if Prop G were to pass, putting the Shipyard roughly in line with 55 Laguna and the Transbay redevelopment area in terms of affordable housing levels. The Chron reported about the deal, but at the time that article was published, Lennar and the San Francisco Labor Council had not formally agreed to the deal, and I think that was the last we heard of this in the mainstream media.

The inclusion of vague details about the plan, combined with local distrust of Lennar (not only in response to the asbestos scandal from last year and Lennar’s own in-house troubles, but also the “false promise” of rental housing on Parcel A) spurred Prop F’s momentum. As for the plan itself: it does bring much-needed homes, jobs and open space to an economically depressed neighborhood and an environmentally hazardous site, but given that this is one of the last major plots of land in San Francisco that remains unaccounted for, we can do even better. A strong argument can be made for higher levels of affordability on City land, although the exact amount to include is a determination best honed through hearings at the Board of Supervisors, rather than mandated by a ballot box initiative, where feel-good emotions and politically charged rhetoric tend to sweep aside logic and serious analysis. A lightly-used stadium is a poor use of scarce urban space — the parking is also a poor use, even with turf — and the land that has been set aside for the stadium and its associated parking would be better utilized if it housed a still greater density of residents and jobs, provided that the right transit infrastructure is put in place to accommodate the extra people. A spur/loop off the T-Third light rail line could connect the site to downtown, the Bayview commercial core along Third Street, the growing job center at Mission Bay, and the future Caltrain/Muni Metro joint hub at Bayshore Station. The current plan is rather geared towards automobiles, improving circulation access for vehicles, but it has a less firm grasp of how transit should link the redevelopment area to nearby districts to ensure that we do not simply add thousands of housing units inhabited by drivers who pile onto Highway 101. The layout of the neighborhood and its transportation flow should be designed so that transit is the natural and most attractive mode of travel, despite the somewhat isolated location, and despite the presence of a freeway near to at least the southern Candlestick portion of the redevelopment area. This was a guiding principle of the Market-Octavia Plan, and it is a principle that should guide any large-scale rezoning or redevelopment plan. The tools that can be used to plan a dense, truly livable and transit-oriented neighborhood at Hunters Point are well-established, and while lip service has been given to these concepts, the commitment to build in this way is not quite there. It remains now to coax the plan into fulfilling this vision.