A steady rain this evening. Showers continuing overnight. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 53F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch..
Tonight
A steady rain this evening. Showers continuing overnight. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 53F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch.
Public transportation services serving San Mateo County and the Bay Area are facing challenges in the wake of the pandemic. Agencies including Caltrain and BART (and Muni and AC Transit and SMART) are facing a fiscal cliff in the next few years when federal and state emergency funding runs out.
Rick Bonilla
Ward
Without new funding, Caltrain, BART and other agencies will face major service cuts, which will limit access, reduce transit ridership, add to greenhouse gas emissions and compound traffic congestion. Service cuts will damage the region’s economy, hurt transit-dependent people most severely, and take us further away from being able to achieve our goals for affordable housing, livable communities and climate.
New funding will also ensure progress on regional transit coordination initiatives that make the system more user-friendly and that are helping to regrow transit ridership, such as better service coordination and free transfers.
Caltrain electrification — which started full service in September — is already increasing ridership. But this growth in clean transportation — and the value of the major investment in electrification — would reverse if Caltrain had to cut service.
One of the topics being debated is support for BART. Some leaders have asked publicly about BART’s benefit to San Mateo County residents. Here are some facts, BART carries nearly double the number of passengers as Caltrain in San Mateo County according to Clipper data. True, some of these riders come from outside the county to the airport, but we all benefit from keeping those airport passengers off the highways. While the BART stations are in the northern part of the county, nearly a third of Caltrain riders at Millbrae transfer to and from BART, meaning many passengers come from further south.
San Mateo County is not an island. According to Commute.org, over 60% of residents in San Mateo County work outside the county, and over 60% of workers in San Mateo County commute from outside the county. The amount of working from home has increased since the pandemic, but only about 20% of people work full time from home, with others commuting to the office several times per week. We continue to need transit to prevent/reduce major traffic congestion.
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The region’s transit coordination initiatives are providing more convenience and mobility for San Mateo County residents and workers and reducing congestion for drivers. The Clipper BayPass all agency transit pass resulted in about a 40% increase in transit ridership among participants in its first pilot year. Among residents of affordable housing in San Mateo County who use the Bay Pass, about a third of their trips are on agencies other than SamTrans. And among employees at the city of Menlo Park participating in the BayPass all agency transit pass pilot program, over 40% of the trips are on agencies other than SamTrans and Caltrain.
To get voter support, we will need a strategy that makes the public transportation system better, with improved and more convenient service. It will be difficult to ask voters to increase taxes for a measure that will cut service and increase congestion.
Improving public transportation will help boost our economy, make the Bay Area more affordable for all residents, connect our communities, help reach our housing and climate goals, and increase accessible and safe mobility options for all — but we must act quickly.
Agencies and counties have been negotiating to ensure that funding options fairly address our local needs. We also must realize that as Benjamin Franklin said in 1776, “we must all hang together, or we shall all hang separately.”
It is time to look at the bigger picture and work to better meet the needs of all.
Exactly. The fact we have 28ish transit agencies in the Bay Area makes no sense. Moreover, the health of San Mateo County transportation is dependent on transportation elsewhere. For people, who have access to a car, if BART, Muni, or VTA aren't running, they aren't going to take SamTrans to the county line and walk, they will drive the whole way. People in neighboring counties won't drive their car to the border and hop on our functioning transit either. Success of transit in our neighboring areas leads to less traffic congestion here. So, yes, we have to work together.
Folks, here we have 600 words which can basically be boiled down into 6 words, “We want more of your money.” I’d like to remind voters that these transit agencies caused the “fiscal cliff” that Mr. Bonilla is speaking of. Now Mr. Bonilla and these same transit agencies are hoping they’ll fool others into paying more money to pay ever increasing transit workers’ salaries and pensions and benefits. During COVID and even to now, why are these transit agencies operating close to, if not at, 100% capacity when ridership is much less than that, perhaps 50%? Vote NO on what will likely be proposed as it will provide money to pay transit workers’ ever increasing pensions and benefits.
Also, note what’s missing in this guest perspective. Ways to cut costs or reduce service commensurate with ridership, such as axing personnel – likely the biggest if not all of the growth in expenses. Let’s wait for transit agencies to make an honest effort to be fiscally responsible before rewarding them with more of our hard-earned money. Don’t worry, if you have voter remorse, I have no doubt that whether these tax measures pass or not, you’ll continually see requests for money, over and over.
Adina Levin, where’s the evidence for your assertion? As it is now, there’s plenty of room for more ridership, up to double the number of existing riders. As I stated before, until transit operators cuts costs or reduce service to become fiscally responsible, vote No on any fee or taxes to support mass transportation. As for not being able to afford double decking 101, are you sure? If we stopped paying for 100% service for 50% ridership, we may be able to afford it. And we’d likely get more use from the double decking than from mass transit.
Public Transit is way less subsidized than car-centric development. Remember our discussion about FREE Parking on North Central? Turns out it isn't free for Society, it's only free for a group of rich Home Owner Association people around Amo Lee.
The latest highway expansion called "Express Lane", increased cheap highway capacity, reduced transit ridership, still led to more congestion and more air pollution - all at a price of $600M. That money should have gone to public transit instead.
BUT, additional funding - actually current funding - should be held back as much as possible until these 28 transportation agency combine to one agency and are led by actual professionals and board members that do ride a bus or train once in a while.
The funding issue cannot be resolved until we grab the bull by the horns. We spend more money on the corrupt homeless industry that could easily cover the reported projected deficits. We need to start prioritizing our limited funding and find legislators courageous enough to start cutting and asking for accountability. For the record, I am a strong supporter of public transit. I can't help it when inept managers and duplicitous politicians are allowed to destroy otherwise marvelous systems.
Really well put Rick. It's amazing that considering every single large metro area on the planet has a similar conundrum when it comes to how to finance what is almost universally a money losing operation yet is considered a "must have" if that city is to consider itself a viable entity, that we don't do a better job of analyzing how the rest of the world manages this problem. I doubt any of them actually has a pay as you go mechanism, and I also doubt that few have just one bureaucracy coordinating the area as a whole. I would think the fewer administrative links in the chain and the more folks being taxed to make it viable the better. Of course, this is where the rubber (or real) meets the tracks or whatever they ride on. One thing I'd bet on is that a Rick Bonilla looking at the issue would be the best start I can think of.
Cutting schedules is an easy fix. Rather than a train every 20 minutes, make it every 30 minutes, costs cutting is easy. I'm sure people can adjust their schedules if needed. Or they can raise the cost to ride or cut the pay of workers. But asking "the people" to keep paying more and more of their hard earned money so that union workers can continue to receive bloated salaries and benefits is immoral.
The easiest fix is to remove car lanes on I-280 and SR-101, suddenly people realize Caltrain or BART works perfectly for them. This way the county also saves on maintenance cost for these lanes, therefore saving cost, reducing pollution, and increasing ridership.
Instead Medina, Canepa, Aguirre, the Papan sisters, etc did the opposite. Adding lanes, increasing pollution, reducing ridership and now asking for more tax dollars.
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(9) comments
Exactly. The fact we have 28ish transit agencies in the Bay Area makes no sense. Moreover, the health of San Mateo County transportation is dependent on transportation elsewhere. For people, who have access to a car, if BART, Muni, or VTA aren't running, they aren't going to take SamTrans to the county line and walk, they will drive the whole way. People in neighboring counties won't drive their car to the border and hop on our functioning transit either. Success of transit in our neighboring areas leads to less traffic congestion here. So, yes, we have to work together.
Folks, here we have 600 words which can basically be boiled down into 6 words, “We want more of your money.” I’d like to remind voters that these transit agencies caused the “fiscal cliff” that Mr. Bonilla is speaking of. Now Mr. Bonilla and these same transit agencies are hoping they’ll fool others into paying more money to pay ever increasing transit workers’ salaries and pensions and benefits. During COVID and even to now, why are these transit agencies operating close to, if not at, 100% capacity when ridership is much less than that, perhaps 50%? Vote NO on what will likely be proposed as it will provide money to pay transit workers’ ever increasing pensions and benefits.
Also, note what’s missing in this guest perspective. Ways to cut costs or reduce service commensurate with ridership, such as axing personnel – likely the biggest if not all of the growth in expenses. Let’s wait for transit agencies to make an honest effort to be fiscally responsible before rewarding them with more of our hard-earned money. Don’t worry, if you have voter remorse, I have no doubt that whether these tax measures pass or not, you’ll continually see requests for money, over and over.
Cutting service leads to even less ridership - and more traffic congestion. We certainly can't afford to double deck 101.
Adina Levin, where’s the evidence for your assertion? As it is now, there’s plenty of room for more ridership, up to double the number of existing riders. As I stated before, until transit operators cuts costs or reduce service to become fiscally responsible, vote No on any fee or taxes to support mass transportation. As for not being able to afford double decking 101, are you sure? If we stopped paying for 100% service for 50% ridership, we may be able to afford it. And we’d likely get more use from the double decking than from mass transit.
Public Transit is way less subsidized than car-centric development. Remember our discussion about FREE Parking on North Central? Turns out it isn't free for Society, it's only free for a group of rich Home Owner Association people around Amo Lee.
The latest highway expansion called "Express Lane", increased cheap highway capacity, reduced transit ridership, still led to more congestion and more air pollution - all at a price of $600M. That money should have gone to public transit instead.
BUT, additional funding - actually current funding - should be held back as much as possible until these 28 transportation agency combine to one agency and are led by actual professionals and board members that do ride a bus or train once in a while.
The funding issue cannot be resolved until we grab the bull by the horns. We spend more money on the corrupt homeless industry that could easily cover the reported projected deficits. We need to start prioritizing our limited funding and find legislators courageous enough to start cutting and asking for accountability. For the record, I am a strong supporter of public transit. I can't help it when inept managers and duplicitous politicians are allowed to destroy otherwise marvelous systems.
Really well put Rick. It's amazing that considering every single large metro area on the planet has a similar conundrum when it comes to how to finance what is almost universally a money losing operation yet is considered a "must have" if that city is to consider itself a viable entity, that we don't do a better job of analyzing how the rest of the world manages this problem. I doubt any of them actually has a pay as you go mechanism, and I also doubt that few have just one bureaucracy coordinating the area as a whole. I would think the fewer administrative links in the chain and the more folks being taxed to make it viable the better. Of course, this is where the rubber (or real) meets the tracks or whatever they ride on. One thing I'd bet on is that a Rick Bonilla looking at the issue would be the best start I can think of.
cheers, for the holidays and carry on.
Cutting schedules is an easy fix. Rather than a train every 20 minutes, make it every 30 minutes, costs cutting is easy. I'm sure people can adjust their schedules if needed. Or they can raise the cost to ride or cut the pay of workers. But asking "the people" to keep paying more and more of their hard earned money so that union workers can continue to receive bloated salaries and benefits is immoral.
These taxes are not needed.
The easiest fix is to remove car lanes on I-280 and SR-101, suddenly people realize Caltrain or BART works perfectly for them. This way the county also saves on maintenance cost for these lanes, therefore saving cost, reducing pollution, and increasing ridership.
Instead Medina, Canepa, Aguirre, the Papan sisters, etc did the opposite. Adding lanes, increasing pollution, reducing ridership and now asking for more tax dollars.
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