Although hot spots remain, many parking meters are stabilizing at the right price. (Red = increase, light blue = no change, dark blue = decrease.) Courtesy of SFMTA.

It has been nearly two years since San Francisco first launched the SFpark program to study how a parking crunch could be alleviated without increasing the supply of parking spaces. In that time, SFpark has attracted the attention of transportation professionals and geeks in the Bay Area and beyond, who are following along with interest as Donald Shoup’s theories are put to the test in a major city with a notorious parking availability problem. SFpark has also been recognized for its innovative streak, which one does not typically associate with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. The SFpark program has pursued a data-driven approach by collecting granular data and changing meter rates in response to that data on a block-by-block basis — all in pursuit of the price that the market will bear to maintain at least one on-street parking space per block in a handful of pilot neighborhoods.

Parking meter rates were first adjusted in July 2011 in response to data collected by the program, and subsequent adjustments have been incremental in nature. Rates have risen no more than 25 cents at a time and fallen no more than 50 cents at a time, with several weeks elapsing between each adjustment.  Absent a special event that significantly increases demand for parking spots, one would expect under normal, static conditions that the need for rate adjustments would diminish over time, with meter rates stabilizing at the market price that manages the demand for parking at a particular time and place.

This behavior can be observed in the rate adjustments that have occurred so far. Yesterday, the SFMTA announced its 10th adjustment to meter rates, which will go into effect next month.  For 58 percent of metered hours, no adjustment is needed, and those rates will stay the same as the previous cycle. Rates will increase for 20 percent of metered hours and decrease for 22 percent.  At this point, most meter rates are not changing, but that was not always the case.  At the start of the SFpark program, about 60 percent of meters were in flux — more were changing than not. Since last spring, however, as more meters reached the right price, the percentage of metered hours with no rate change has grown steadily, and the original situation has flipped.

Based on data from SFMTA.

The effect is even more pronounced looking at adjustments to hourly rates at parking garages. Initially, to make off-street parking more attractive to drivers than hunting for a spot on the street, hourly rates were cut while many on-street meter rates were increasing. Garage rates have since mostly stabilized, within fewer adjustment cycles than for meters. In the two most recent adjustments, 96 percent of hourly rates at garages stayed the same while 4 percent increased.

Based on data from SFMTA.

The SFMTA’s maps for the 10th meter adjustment period (PDF) identify specific blocks and times of day for which meter rates are still too high or too low to achieve the desired level of parking availability.  There is some of both in all pilot areas.  Neighborhoods where higher rates are warranted include Japantown and the Marina on Saturday afternoons and portions of Hayes Valley on all afternoons.  Neighborhoods where lower rates are warranted include Fillmore in the morning and Civic Center. At the Wharf, the data suggests that rates should be lower during the week but higher on Saturday afternoons.

Near Church & Market, looking north toward Duboce Avenue. Click image for full-size photo on Flickr.

The painted lanes are a preview of the commonsense flavor of improvements that the SFMTA’s Transit Effectiveness Project (TEP) proposes to implement as a means of improving travel time and reliability on the “Rapid” network. This network includes Muni’s most heavily used routes, including the J-Church and 22-Fillmore, both of which use Church Street and experience among their most crowded loads on this particular segment where the two routes overlap. If the center lanes are kept clear of cars with a combination of visual cues, signage, and enforcement, transit vehicles can access boarding platforms more promptly while motorists use the outer lanes. The transit-taxi lanes are coupled with restrictions on left turns between 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.

Church & Market. Click image for full-size photo on Flickr.

The Church Street project does not address any number of other pinch points and constraints that impact the quality of J-Church and 22-Fillmore service, but it is characterized as a “pilot” because it gives the SFMTA, even before environmental review for the TEP is completed, an opportunity to monitor how this type of street treatment performs in a confined area — a microcosm with different transit vehicles, as well as a mixture of commercial activity and residential driveways. The bright color literally gives more visibility to the SFMTA’s efforts, and with over 15,000 riders passing through this short stretch of Church Street each weekday on the J-Church, 22-Fillmore, or 37-Corbett [1], a substantial number of people stand to benefit from the pilot, while also getting a small taste of what is in store.

This part of town has become something of a TEP preview showcase, first with the more spacious boarding areas built for the N-Judah, and now with painted transit lanes joining the mix. Each one of these improvements taken unto itself may be small in scope, but when implemented incrementally at key locations throughout the city, collectively, they can make a tangible difference at relatively low cost.

Near Church & Market, looking north toward Duboce Avenue. Click image for full-size photo on Flickr.

[1] This reflects only the lines that use Church Street. It excludes the F-line and Muni Metro subway and thus represents only a portion of the total number of transit riders that pass through Church & Market each day.

It was a great weekend for San Francisco streetcar fans. Despite the crowds, E line operators appeared to enjoy rider enthusiasm for the new service, and if you wandered around long enough, you were bound to meet other railfans and volunteer docents along the route. With E-Embarcadero demonstrations as rare as they are, this weekend provided an excellent opportunity to photograph historic streetcars in the shadow of the Bay Bridge, alongside Muni Metro vehicles, in sight of the growing condo canyons of Mission Bay and Rincon Hill, and at other locations outside of the usual vintage streetcar habitat on Market Street and the northern waterfront. And that, in a nutshell, is how I spent the weekend. I posted a new set of E-Embarcadero photos on my Flickr account, tagged by number if you are interested in a particular streetcar.

Five cars ran on the E line throughout the weekend, including car No. 1008, a 1948 Muni PCC with green and cream livery that hit the streets for revenue service for the first time this weekend:

No. 1008 at 4th & King platform.

1948 Muni PCC painted in Philadelphia Red Arrow livery (No. 1007):

No. 1007 at the ballpark.

Blue and gold 1948 Muni PCC (No. 1010):

No. 1010 at Howard Street, with the Bay Bridge.

“Illinois Terminal” 1948 Muni PCC (No. 1015):

No. 1015 on King Street.

And the Melbourne tram (No. 496):

No. 496 on King Street.

Of course, there were operational issues. Although the E line fleet this weekend consisted of only 5 cars (one of which was not in service on Sunday), those cars were not evenly spaced along the route. For example, on Saturday, 3 of the 5 cars bunched together, which significantly lengthened wait times despite the advertised 15-minute headways. This uneven service led to crowds even on E platforms located south of Market, lengthening dwell times and delaying some Muni Metro trains that waited to access the high platforms. In addition, the combination of Giants game Muni Metro service and the E line generated a lot of streetcar and LRV movement at 4^th and King that was slow to coordinate. Nonetheless, combining America’s Cup and two Giants games in one weekend provided a valuable opportunity to test the E line in a crowded but relatively forgiving setting.

By eliminating a surface-to-subway transfer at Embarcadero (or a surface transfer with a long walk), the E provides a one-seat ride from neighborhoods north of FiDi through to the ballpark, Caltrain, and other destinations south of Market. Major events held on both the north and south ends of the E line this weekend helped clarify the value of that direct connection, as there was not a complete rider shuffle at the Ferry Building. Although that was a popular transfer point, anecdotally, many riders stayed on the car straight through to the ballpark. If operated as a permanent service, the E could join the Stockton-Kearny and Van Ness corridors to provide additional north-to-south capacity in the northeast quadrant of the city. Like the F, the E would serve local and tourist trips alike.

In other words, this is not just about running vintage streetcars in highly visible locations for the benefit of streetcar foamers, nor is it just about the aesthetic sense of unifying the waterfront with a single transit line. The F serves real transportation needs, and even this past weekend’s spotty service suggested that the E could do so as well — in addition to enhancing connections to neighborhoods like Rincon Hill and Mission Bay, where so much of the new growth on the east side of town is being concentrated.

E-Embarcadero service will return in the first weekend of October. As usual, we must thank Market Street Railway for its continued efforts to advance improvements to streetcar service and its work in general on behalf of the vintage fleet — a true local treasure.

For more photos of the E-Embarcadero, please check out this Flickr set with photos from the weekend. Additional photos may trickle in over time, but there are about 50 photos there now.

30th and Broadway, Oakland

The Broadway-Valdez specific plan area, which encompasses a relatively narrow band of blocks draped around Broadway directly north of the Uptown district, contains many smaller parcels that pose both a challenge and an opportunity. But one particular parcel I have had my eye on is the lot located at the northwest corner of 30th Street and Broadway (pictured above), which is a key opportunity site to do a major development. Its location farther from downtown perhaps makes the site better suited as a mixed use building that adds neighborhood retail space to Broadway and apartments above the ground floor instead of destination retail. But the buildings on this northern edge of the plan area could serve another function, acting as a “gateway” entrance to the greater downtown area.  The fact that the site backs up to Pill Hill, where there are presently larger medical buildings, makes it an even more promising location for high density — dare I say, a tower or two? — than some other locations in the plan area, where there are modestly sized parcels located near structures that it may be deemed are desirable to preserve.

But shaking us out of our reverie of graceful towers lining Oakland’s main street — a modern urban neighborhood pointing the way south toward the historic downtown spine — is the proposed Shops at Broadway project. As described in the environmental impact report (EIR) notice (PDF):

The proposed Project involves construction of an approximately 35,750 sq. ft. single-story commercial development consisting of an approximately 26,000 sq. ft. anchor tenant (grocery store) and approximately 9,750 sq. ft. of retail space (which may include up to 6,000 sq. ft. of restaurant space). 171 parking spaces are proposed.

The Broadway-Valdez specific plan may not yet be complete, but even this short, preliminary description betrays the possibility that the Shops at Broadway project will be in tension with (or just plain undermine) the plan’s goals that have already been articulated. Retail and restaurant space is well and good, but how would 171 parking spaces enhance the plan’s goal of promoting walking, transit, and cycling with complete streets and an attractive pedestrian realm? Would the building be constructed so as to create a continuous streetwall and retail frontage on Broadway, or would pedestrians (and bus riders waiting at the adjacent bus stop) be treated to a view of parking and forced to contend with vehicle queues entering and exiting the grocery store? And even if the building is not set back and curb cuts are confined to the rear and sides of the site, how can a single-story commercial building that occupies a large, prominent corner parcel be reconciled with the specific plan’s goal of creating a “high-density mixed use boulevard” in the northern portion of the plan area?

A map depicting the boundary of the Broadway-Valdez specific plan and the location of the Shops at Broadway parcel. Image: courtesy of City of Oakland.

Indeed, earlier this spring, the developer sought to have this parcel excluded altogether from the Broadway-Valdez specific plan area — probably anticipating that the specific plan would proceed slowly and wanting to advance its own project on a faster timeline, but perhaps also not wanting to be burdened with designing a project subject to the plan. The request to exclude this parcel from the plan was not granted, so the parcel remains within the plan area. Nonetheless, Shops at Broadway will proceed on its own environmental review track parallel to that of the specific plan. If the project advances ahead of the plan and takes a form that contradicts the plan’s goals, this parcel may, in practical effect, be carved out from the plan anyway.  That would be a disappointing result, as large parcels like this one will be instrumental in absorbing much of the growth in this area.

Fortunately, Shops at Broadway is in the beginning stages, and there may still be an opportunity to encourage the project sponsor to shape this proposal into something more consistent with the vision of a dense, mixed use district. The City is accepting public comment to determine what the EIR should analyze.  There is a planning meeting at Oakland City Hall on the evening of August 29, and comments can also be emailed. If you have a chance to submit a comment, please do so before August 31 at 5:00 pm; the details on how to submit comments are explained in the EIR notice (PDF). If this project must be advanced on a separate track from the specific plan, it should at least look beyond an anachronistic single-story building with lots of parking. In particular, it should evaluate a project and project alternatives that explore higher densities, less parking, and a respectable urban form that befits this central city location.

Van Ness bus rapid transit. Courtesy of SFCTA.

In San Francisco, the Transportation Authority and SFMTA are moving forward to recommend a Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA) for bus rapid transit on Van Ness Avenue, signaling that a long planning process will be drawing to a close later this year.  This critical north-south corridor between Mission and Lombard is served by Muni’s 47 and 49 routes, as well as Golden Gate Transit, and offers transfers to many east-west Muni services to downtown and the west side of the city. Although the 47 and 49 offer frequent service on paper, actual headways do not reflect these theoretical combined headways. Buses bunch frequently, and the mix of 40-foot and articulated buses operating on the corridor can create a mismatch between the size of the crowd standing at the stop and the capacity of the vehicle that arrives to pick up that crowd.

Although not a cure-all because of the considerable portions of both routes that will operate outside of the Van Ness facility, the package of amenities offered by BRT — particularly dedicated lanes, signal priority, and more widely spaced stops — will help improve these conditions. Toward this end, the TA and Muni are recommending a real BRT alternative, with dedicated transit lanes in the center of Van Ness and stations placed to allow for transfers to intersecting routes. The stations will allow boarding on the right, avoiding the need to procure special vehicles opening on both sides, although lanes will weave slightly around parts of the existing median.  The recommended LPA also promises to improve transit performance further by eliminating nearly all left turn opportunities for automobiles in the corridor.

Center-running LPA recommended by staff,with most left turns eliminated. Courtesy of SFCTA.

One reason why it is particularly gratifying that Muni and the TA are endorsing a center-running LPA is that, until the announcement this week, it was not necessarily clear that a center-running design would be recommended over the inferior side-running alternative.

From the perspective of improving transit performance, building dedicated bus-only lanes in the center of Van Ness (as depicted above in the sample schematic for the recommended alternative) is unquestionably the winning formula. While the side-running design would benefit from improvements to stops, it would also allow motorists to enter the marked transit lane for the (officially stated) purposes of parallel parking and right turns, and thus would practically be only marginally better than the so-called “transit only” lanes already in place in certain corridors. On the other hand, buses operating in a dedicated space free of traffic, vehicle turning movements, and parking maneuvers will perform better even than buses relieved of a subset of those conditions. By 2015, bus speeds would increase on average from the current 5 miles per hour to 7 mph, but only 6 mph for side-running.  Center-running transit travel times in the corridor would decrease 33 percent with limited left turns, but just 19 percent for side-running. Center-running also performs better on reliability, increasing ridership, and reducing operating costs (or, alternatively, allowing service to be increased at no additional cost). [1]

Van Ness BRT proposed stations at Mission, Market, McAllister, Eddy, Geary, Sutter, Sacramento, Jackson, and Union (south to north). Courtesy of SFCTA.

Originally, an LPA for Van Ness was supposed to be announced a couple months ago, but it was not actually announced until this week. A reason for the delay was a disagreement between Muni and the TA regarding which alternative should be moved forward as the preferred alternative. Although not aired and debated in a public forum, this disagreement centered on misgivings expressed by Muni about adopting a superior center-running alternative. This was not the word of the agency, as the MTA Board has yet to weigh in on the LPA, but rather, misgivings expressed by certain individuals at Muni.

It may seem counterintuitive that a transit operator would be reluctant to endorse an alternative that offers the best opportunity to improve reliability and transit travel time on one of its most important corridors, reduce operating costs, and increase ridership.  On the other hand, basically any time I had occasion to discuss Van Ness with TA staffers on an individual basis throughout the study process, they came as close to favoring a centered transitway as one could reasonably expect from individuals working for an agency that has not yet completed its review or taken an official position on the issue. Once it was confirmed that a disagreement requiring resolution explained the delay in selecting the LPA, it was not all that surprising that Muni was at the root of the discord. Less clear is why. Innate distrust of buses with doors that open on the left? Pressure to institute impromptu stops between branded, more widely spaced “rapid” transit stops? Paralysis by fear of the unknown? Simple agency inertia? A fear that transit speeds might actually catch up to those of a century ago?

It is an unfortunate reality that, among the modes that might be considered for a transit upgrade, BRT is particularly susceptible to dilution in the face of political weakness. Even for Van Ness — a critical transit link, where the City is taking advantage of the street overhaul to complete other public works improvements in the corridor, including resurfacing — the urge to dilute and reluctance to commit can come into play. It is therefore encouraging to see the two agencies arrive at mutual agreement to do what’s best for transit riders.

The LPA for Van Ness BRT will be considered by other boards and commissions throughout May, including the Planning Commission on May 10, the MTA on May 15, the TA’s P&P committee also on May 15, and the TA on May 22, with the latter three presumably voting on the recommended alternative. With Muni and the TA uniting to endorse a center-running project, the essential features of this recommended alternative have a good chance of moving through the approval process unscathed, thereafter to be analyzed in the final environmental document and hopefully officially approved later this year. San Francisco is ready to put transit-first into action, by reallocating street real estate for exclusive use by transit riders and committing to build real BRT on this important corridor.

—

[1] Measuring reliability as the probability of encountering an “unexpected” stop (i.e., a stop forced by traffic conditions or traffic signals, rather than to drop off and pick up passengers), the TA estimates that buses have a 30 percent chance of encountering an unexpected stop on each block for center-running BRT with limited left turns, compared to a 50 percent chance for side-running. The TA also estimates a 37 percent increase in ridership on routes using the BRT facility for center-running (compared to 29 percent for side-running).

Eddy & Leavenworth. Photo courtesy of FoundSF, Chris Carlsson.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency finally seems to be pursuing two-way conversion for a handful of one-way blocks in the Tenderloin on Ellis and Eddy streets.  Ellis and Eddy, as well as other streets in the Tenderloin, host relatively minimal vehicle traffic.  Yet despite the neighborhood’s very low vehicle ownership rate [1], these streets are designed for the principal purpose of allowing motorists to pass quickly to and from downtown with nary a thought for the neighborhood through which they are passing.

Collisions in the Tenderloin involving pedestrians are not limited to those that are graphically captured on video.  The fact that pedestrian “accidents” occur relatively uniformly at intersections throughout the Tenderloin, with many of those involving serious injury or death, suggests that it would be desirable to rethink street design throughout the neighborhood in a way that prioritizes vulnerable users.

Tenderloin pedestrian accidents. Courtesy of SFCTA.

A plan to convert thoroughfares like Ellis, Eddy, Jones, and Leavenworth into two-way streets could carry multiple benefits, including improving safety, consolidating difficult-to-describe transit routes running on one-way couplets into more legible routes running on two-way streets, and infusing the feel of a genuine neighborhood into one of San Francisco’s densest neighborhoods.  Despite the fact that converting streets to two-way operation has long been recognized and supported in community surveys (PDF) as an important tool for calming traffic, the plan has mostly been collecting dust on the shelf, left unrealized for years. [2]

It looks now to be moving forward, at least partially.  Excerpted from the list of proposals that will be heard at the SFMTA engineering hearing this Friday, April 13 is the following:

REVOKE – ONE-WAY

Eddy Street, between Larkin and Leavenworth Streets (2 blocks)

Ellis Street, between Polk and Jones Streets (4 blocks)

The SFMTA’s Transit Effectiveness Project (TEP), which is now undergoing environmental review, has considered revising the current route of the 27-Bryant line.  The concept of two-way conversion is harmonious with the proposed revisions (PDF) as the route could be consolidated onto Ellis and Leavenworth, which is currently the routing of just the inbound direction.  The above proposal for Ellis does not completely facilitate that change but, pending implementation of the TEP, still provides independent benefits.

—

[1] According to the 2000 Census, 82 percent of Tenderloin households did not own a car, compared to Manhattan, where 77 percent of households did not own a car.

[2] One opportunity that was identified to make a transit route more legible through two-way conversion has been implemented.  The inbound 5-Fulton’s jog over to Market Street via Hyde was eliminated in favor of a simpler and more direct path via McAllister.

Courtesy of SFMTA.

As one would expect in a market price experiment — as opposed to an exclusive revenue generation measure, or “stealth tax,” as it has been dubbed by the literati that haunt the SFGate comments section — the SFMTA both increased and decreased different meter rates depending on the level of demand for those parking spots.  In fact, for this first round of adjustments, most parking meters in pilot neighborhoods will be no more expensive to use than before.  Rates will decrease at 32 percent of meters within the pilot area, stay the same at 37 percent of meters, and increase at only 31 percent of meters.

Responding to the data (available as both PDF maps and an Excel spreadsheet) creates a fine-grained result in which one block may have higher rates, while a nearby or even directly adjacent block has lower rates.  Not surprisingly, there is a need to boost the price at many times of day on popular and walkable commercial segments (e.g. Hayes Street between Franklin and Laguna, Valencia Street, Fillmore Street between Bush and Jackson, Chestnut Street west of Fillmore, and the Financial District/Jackson Square).  In contrast, prices will stay the same or decrease on weekdays for high-volume traffic arteries like Geary Blvd., Van Ness, and Lombard, as well as significant portions of the Wharf, Civic Center, and South of Market pilot areas.  Although the SFMTA could have decreased rates this month by as much as 50 cents under its adopted policy, the data collected so far suggests that in three cases (Fillmore, Mission, and Marina), the rate should not be lowered more than 25 cents at any meter throughout the time period in which the meters operate, while in other pilot areas a 50-cent decrease is sometimes warranted.

Corridors like Telegraph Avenue, which are well-served by transit and have plenty of room for urban infill, will be targeted for growth. Image: Flickr account.

SB 375 now calls for a blend of the RHNA with the Sustainable Communities Strategy (SCS):

It is the intent of the Legislature that housing planning be coordinated and integrated with the regional transportation plan. To achieve this goal, the allocation plan shall allocate housing units within the region consistent with the development pattern included in the sustainable communities strategy.

The final allocation plan shall ensure that the total regional housing need, by income category … is maintained, and that each jurisdiction in the region receive an allocation of units for low- and very low income households.

The resolution approving the final housing need allocation plan shall demonstrate that the plan is consistent with the sustainable communities strategy in the regional transportation plan.

(Government Code, §§ 65584.04(i)(1), 65584.04(i)(2), 65584.04(i)(3).)

SB 375 leaves open the question of exactly how the two ought to be blended.  But if you acknowledge that growth should be targeted in transit-oriented locations rather than simply allowed to sprout at random, then it is almost a direct corollary that an “unfair share” distribution of housing will result.  Perhaps because it is still early in the process, ABAG and MTC thus far have not emphasized the fair share distinction.  It was not surprising, then, to find some initial pushback in a report prepared by Berkeley city staff.  This piece in the Berkeley Patch, written by Livable Berkeley, summarizes the conclusions of the staff report as follows:

City staff’s “educated guess” is that the level of growth posited in the scenario exceeds what can be feasibly accommodated in Berkeley.  Staff is also concerned that other communities are not being asked to do as much as Berkeley.

Staff’s remarks were offered in response to the Initial Vision Scenario, which included a preliminary estimate of the new housing Berkeley should plan to accommodate: 15,730 additional units under ABAG’s aggressive growth projections, concentrated in the downtown and along more robust transit corridors like San Pablo, University, and Telegraph Avenues.  Interestingly, even though staff offers its “educated guess” that this level of growth cannot be feasibly accommodated, the report admits that “staff has not generally quantified the capacity of these areas to accommodate new units” and that “staff has not begun to test the feasibility of the numbers generated for the [Initial Vision Scenario].”  (PDF of staff report)

In short, Berkeley city staff has offered an “educated guess” that is ostensibly based on little education.  Which would make it … just a plain old guess?  The report proposes that the guess is based on the City’s Housing Element work, but that is an iterative process, and it does not terminate just because a city claims it has no more space after completing the last iteration.

The staff report illustrates the tension between SB 375 and fair share.  Hypothetically, if all cities were served by transit equally well, it would be reasonable to expect each city to absorb its fair share of housing need in the traditional sense.  In reality, though, transit service is not provided uniformly throughout the region, and a principal objective of the SCS is to bring transit networks and housing distributions into alignment.  This means that a city like Berkeley — which is home to the University, a major trip generator, and is served by three BART stations, the Capitol Corridor, and major bus transit corridors — is a natural place for growth.  Clayton (to pick one example), which was assigned just 124 new households, is not.

That disparity may seem “unfair” to some, but the Initial Vision Scenario arguably does not go far enough.  If one goal of the SCS is to increase the share of the Bay Area’s population living in places that resemble Berkeley, the Initial Vision Scenario does not accomplish that goal with respect to Berkeley itself — because the growth it describes in Berkeley closely mirrors the regional trend and is actually slower than Alameda County as a whole.  Indeed, in 2010, 1.728 percent of Bay Area households called Berkeley home; in 2035, if the Initial Vision Scenario’s allocation were to become reality, that share would barely increase to 1.732 percent.  In contrast, the allocations for other East Bay cities like Oakland, Emeryville, Fremont, Livermore, Dublin, and Pleasanton pick up the slack with growth that outpaces both Alameda County and the region as a whole.  Notably, the Initial Vision Scenario does not take into account unmet demand for more housing in walkable, centrally-located neighborhoods like those in Berkeley.

To the extent there is a break from fair share as it has traditionally been implemented, the concerns of the Berkeley staff report will resonate with other cities in California, and it will be interesting to see how fair share is ultimately folded into the SB 375 framework.

The actual balance sheet is worse, of course, as the $484 million figure does not include operating costs.  Despite charging $6 fares to pay off a $100 million federal loan, an additional subsidy — on the order of $9.85 per ride, compared to $1.95 for a bus rapid transit project — would be required given current passenger traffic levels at the airport.  In short, public dollars are being “invested” in a way that pointlessly maximizes future costs. The fact that $95 million has already been consumed, while certainly interesting given how little there is to show for it, is immaterial when evaluating whether that additional ongoing cost is a worthwhile one to bear.  (Comments)

If you have been reading this website for awhile, you might remember that a few years ago I used to maintain a fairly active Flickr account used in conjunction with the blog, uploading renderings and construction progress photos.  That Flickr account has been sitting dormant for the past few years, but the time has come to revive it.  My hope is to update it regularly, and while some photos will be connected to articles here, others will be posted there independently.  Click here to see the photostream, and for easy future access, a Flickr link has been added to the sidebar.

Since last summer I have dropped by the Transbay site to photograph various stages in the demolition of the old Terminal.  On the Flickr account, I have now uploaded a couple hundred Transbay-related photos, including one set of photos for the East Loop and temporary terminal, and another set of photos for the demolition of the main building.  The full Transbay Terminal collection includes photos from the final operating days of the Terminal and the groundbreaking ceremony, which were posted here last year in the form of slideshows.  There is also a set for the recently-opened West Dublin/Pleasanton BART station.  Finally, I posted urbanist-oriented photos from two recent visits to New York.

There should be more substantive content here next week, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy these photo sets.