Photo by bvohra via Flickr

Andrew Casteel, Executive Director of the Bay Area Bicycle Coalition, urged commissioners to start funding SRTS, SRTT and bicycle network improvements within the first two years of the RTP.  Citing climate action plans in Portland, Oregon, to realize 20 percent of all trips in the city by bicycle by 2030, Casteel said, "The more available infrastructure for bikes, the more people will shift into bikes as a mode of transportation.  The investment in bicycling can be done quickly.  Completing out that network has a lasting effect after it's put there.  It does continue to create that mode shift."

Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Christine Culver echoed praise for increasing funding for the regional bicycle network and for SRTS and SRTT funding, explaining how she traveled by bicycle to Golden Gate Transit from Marin into San Francisco, then took BART to Oakland.  "I like Safe Routes to Transit; this rocks!"

While most of the public comment was laudatory, some expressed concern the RTP fails to make meaningful inroads in meeting climate change goals set out in AB 32 and SB 375.  Stuart Cohen, Executive Director of TransForm, called it a "test run," and said the commission needs to reevaluate the way it plans RTPs and should think outside the box.

"Our objectives used to be congestion relief and mobility, and now it's saving our planet and some pretty imperative stuff," said Cohen. "There's a lot of discussion about how far regions can go in really addressing vehicle miles traveled. What is becoming clear is that if any region is going to lead the way, it's going to be ours.  There's not a lot of innovation that I'm seeing coming out of the other MPOs."

Bob Allen, Executive Director of Urban Habitat, said that the RTP falls short of taking important steps that would make the MTC a leader in the country and globally on climate change.

Your own analysis shows that this plan is not enough.  We can all agree that infrastructure spending in an infrastructure plan is not going to be enough.  You're going to need to get the authority for future congestion pricing, for changes in land use patterns.  You're also going to have to invest the money you do have in your infrastructure plan more efficiently and more equitably.  That's going to mean things like seriously taking a look at what committed projects mean, what happens when you have serious cost overruns on projects that are not meeting your goals.

The most contentious part of the meeting centered around the MTC's commitment of $2.1 billion for future High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lane money to Santa Clara County's Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), or roughly one-third of the total expected revenue from the lanes, to make up for revenue shortfalls from a floundering economy and over $1 billion in cost overruns for BART to San Jose.

Advocates claimed that committing the money to one county before there was even legislation granting authority to establish HOT lanes was putting the cart before the horse and thwarting the process that they said should be open and transparent.

MTC Executive Director Steve Heminger acknowledged the commission was moving ahead before they had legislation, but saw no problem with it. "I would consider the issue that is before you today in the plan and the placement of the $2B as a placeholder, which is subject to change and probably will change. I will acknowledge that we are jumping the gun to some extent. But I think that's a reasonable planning assumption to make and I don't think it has to prejudice this process.  We need to make some kind of commitments now, at least on a provisional basis."

MTC Commissioner Dean Chu of Santa Clara County defended the commitment of the money, explaining that legislation authorizing HOT lane funds would grant 95 percent of revenues collected in a corridor to go back to the same corridor for discretionary spending and that $2.1 billion was commensurate with the revenue expected to be generated by Santa Clara County drivers.

MTC Communications Director Randy Rentschler confirmed to Streetsblog that HOT lane studies estimated that Santa Clara County would generate $2.6 billion of the expected regional revenues of $6 billion over 25 years and indicated that the share the commission was committing was actually less than the 95 percent the legislation would grant.

The MTC passed the RTP with the provision committing HOT lane money to the VTA, though commissioners and staff agreed that the decision was open to review and most advocates preferred to focus on the positive benefits for bicycling.

"While much of the RTP is still fairly lame, and HOT lanes for submarines will soon be the vogue, this is a very big victory for regional bike advocacy," said SFBC Program Director Andy Thornley.

Photo by George Donnelly, via Flickr

While these temporary solutions will balance the spreadsheets for this year, the state's commitment to transit operations for the next five years will be a pittance and operators will continue to suffer.  Unless advocates can get on the same page and build a comprehensive coalition to call for more funding, elected officials like Governor Schwarzenegger will get away with pitching themselves as green politicians and then sabotaging one of the best ways to make our mobility more sustainable.

Unfortunately, advocates are not unified in their call for a commitment to transit.  Several hundred people have turned out at meetings about funding cuts, but those same numbers have not made it to Sacramento to lobby legislators for an affirmative change. Some of the groups will be spending their resources lobbying Washington for changes to the transportation act rather than dealing with the troubled situation at the state level.

"For me, part of it will be where the biggest opportunities are for organizing. There is some possibility for major transitions at the federal level," said CALPIRG's Emily Rusch, cautioning that transit constituency wasn't strong enough at the state level. "It will take some time before we can find more money from legislators or at the ballot."

Despite President Obama's apparent predilection for rail and some good rhetoric about the need to synchronize land use and transportation policy at a regional level, states are spending stimulus money on highway expansion.  Upending the status quo in Washington on transportation will be a monumental task. 

USDOT Secretary Ray LaHood said recently that the feds are in the business of funding capital and expansion projects, but not transit operations, which he characterized as a local issue.  Senator Barbara Boxer, who heads the Environment and Public Works Committee and will write the lion's share of the transportation act, was reported to support an amendment to the stimulus package that would have given highways an additional $50 billion.  Even Boxer's website is shameful, with Senator and global warming denier James Inhofe's specious global warming rants occupying space alongside an apparent environmentalist California Democrat.

If Transportation for America and other transit and environmental groups cannot get the federal government to make a sea change in its formula funding, Sacramento will be one of the last hopes to prevent further fare increases and service cuts.

TransForm recently opened an office in Sacramento with the goal of developing a transit funding coalition, which at the time of this writing has nearly one hundred members.  It's not clear how many of those groups signed on will do the heaving lifting when many of them have other issues that require general fund money.

Transform's Nick Caston sees the elimination of the STA as a blessing in disguise, asserting, "One of the few advantages for getting zeroed out is that we can start from scratch to come up with a better model. The STA was always considered "spillover" funding. Our target is a sustainable and predictable form of transportation funding."

Caston said that Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg had discussed setting up a select committee or task force in the upper house to identify a new source of transit funding.

A Sacramento source close to the negotiations, however, said that a transit funding select committee wouldn't get traction before the budget discussions this summer and even if it did afterward it would have trouble competing with other interests:

You can't discuss this at the state level without discussing it in the context of the general fund.  We have a tremendous problem with the State General Fund.  That's one of the issues the state transit advocates understand and have a hard time coming to terms with.  They're going up against public employee unions, prison guards, SEIU, etc.

While it should make sense to legislators that they won't meet the obligations set out in the AB 32 global warming and SB 375 anti-sprawl legislation recently passed if they continue to incentivize driving, none has come out in public linking transit funding to the state's purported environmental objectives.  Those politicians who suggest they are "green" by supporting alternative fuel or electric vehicles, but don't make a real commitment to transit are disingenuous at best.

"It's impossible to address a green agenda without funding transit operations," said Caston.

Several states, including Oregon, Washington, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Texas are studying the feasibility of the transition and what infrastructure and technology would be needed to plan for a VMT tax.  In 2001, Oregon DOT (ODOT) launched a study called the the Oregon Mileage Fee Concept (PDF), and in April of 2006, ODOT tested GPS systems in vehicles belonging to several hundred volunteers.  Based on those findings, Oregon governor Theodore R. Kulongoski this year called for outfitting every Oregon vehicle with a GPS device that would assess a tax at the pump based on how many miles had been driven, regardless of the fuel efficiency of the vehicle.

In California last month, Assembly member Nancy Skinner of Alameda and Contra Costa counties introduced AB 1135, which would require every motorist to report their odometer reading when they register or renew their vehicle.  The state DMV would provide overall VMT data publicly. It would theoretically be available through fairly specific tracts to aid planning, though whether it would be by block face, census tract, voter district, or county has yet to be determined.

As the bill points out, accurate VMT data is essential not only for immediate compliance with the greenhouse gas reductions mandated in AB 32, but also for smarter regional planning and the reduction of sprawl mandated in SB 375: 

More accurate data about vehicle-miles-traveled--the mileage driven annually by Californians--would provide essential information to guide local transportation and land use planning. Location of transit corridor improvements, light rail, bicycle paths, and high-occupancy freeway lanes now depend on the estimates done by various state agencies, but all of these projects would benefit from more accurate data. Better data would also provide more consistent local and statewide estimates for transportation planning, city planning, and air quality planning efforts. The data would be essential in establishing long-term, historical trends in vehicle use, traffic congestion, energy consumption, and air quality measures, including ozone precursor pollutants and greenhouse gases.

This ABAG graph from a Joint Policy Committee presentation shows steady rise of VMT

One criticism of moving to a VMT tax from a gas tax is that the person who purchased a more fuel efficient vehicle shouldn't have to pay the same as the person who still drives a big SUV.  By that logic, if a consumer wants to drive a vehicle that pollutes more, they need to pay more at the pump.

Carli Paine, TransForm's Transportation Program Director, said that line of reasoning was flawed. "Even people who drive highly economical vehicles have an impact on the roadways and ought to pay their share for upkeep. A Prius contributes to traffic congestion just like a Mustang, but is paying less into the account that addresses congestion and roadway wear and tear."

Paine argued that odometer reporting would likely not be the final method used for monitoring VMT, but that the bill would allow planners to set targets to promote transit-oriented development (TOD) and smart growth.  She said that living in close proximity to one's place of work cuts down on emissions and fuel consumption better than any vehicle technology can.

"It's hard to see how we can be serious about setting regional targets for reducing driving, without knowing how much driving is really taking place.  This bill would provide a significant boost to our efforts to curb global warming pollution associated with driving and land use."

Paine suggested that a Hummer driver living within a short distance of work would use less gas than a Prius driver who commuted 120 miles each way, as illustrated in this graph:

ABAG graph showing the difference in gas consumption by commute distance and vehicle type

Another criticism of altering the gas tax to a VMT tax centers on the concern that government would know too much about individual driving patterns if every vehicle had GPS or other tracking technology.  Those critics have complained that placing GPS in vehicles to collect VMT data, or even self-reporting of odometer information, would violate privacy rights, though AB 1135 explicitly states that personal information would not be public record.

In a recent Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) meeting, several commissioners brought up privacy concerns.  MTC Executive Director Steve Heminger explained that a good deal of information is already collected through routine smog checks, self-reporting to insurance companies, and Fast Trak and Translink monitoring, etc.

MTC spokesperson Randy Rentschler said at the same meeting that "to some extent, this is an imposition on motorists, but we have to get a good sense of how many vehicle miles traveled we have... as [transportation] is the biggest source of CO2 in the state.  FasTrak and Translink have privacy issues, but those databases exist.  When we are given subpoenas by the police, that's the only time that we will release private data."

MTC Commissioner and Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates said: "The privacy issue is important, but the information is necessary and needed to plan and make future decisions.  I think this is an important bill because we need to get VMT and the methods that we use now are so complicated and arcane.  We make assumptions about the impacts of TOD; now we could actually start verifying these things."

The MTC Commission endorsed the legislation at their March meeting. Commissioners Spring and Worth were the only two members who voted against it, citing privacy concerns.  Scuttlebut in the hall suggested they understood this was the first step toward a VMT tax and they were positioning themselves against the bill to please their suburban driving constituents. 

Most operators anticipated the crunch brought on by the elimination of the STA fund and have adjusted as best as possible, with AC Transit already raising fares and the MTA discussing a fare hike, service cuts, and additional hiring freezes.   The $4.5 billion in lower sales-tax revenues (TDA funds in transpo-speak), will make transit operations even more difficult. 

The Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) in Santa Clara County and SamTrans in San Mateo County will see some of the worst hits proportionate to their size.  The first graph below shows the overall expected operational deficits over 25 years, assuming current conditions with no positive change in STA or TDA funding over that period:

Light blue is shortfalls for the major operators prior to the new TDA and STA forecasts made available yesterday.  Red is the current expected shortfall, should there be no change to expected revenues.

This graph shows the trends relative to operator size and operating expense:

Large operators like the MTA appear better equipped to absorb the blow of decreased revenues

Although this meeting was nothing like the tumultuous affair last month, where nearly 200 bus riders protested the use of $70 million in stimulus funds for the Oakland Airport Connector, MTC spokesperson John Goodwin said he had never seen such a marked tightening of expected transportation revenue since he'd been at the commission.   "These are new numbers just since December and reflect some very difficult challenges we face," he said.

MTC staff acknowledged that the perennial operating deficits and funding problems could not be ameliorated within the scope of a 25-year plan, but needed a bold new plan in the near term.  In addition to advocating for steady funding from the state and federal levels, MTC staff called for a comprehensive new study across every transit operator's jurisdiction to improve productivity from existing capacity before raising fares or cutting service.  Referring to the MTA's Transit Effectiveness Project as a model, MTC staff asked its commissioners to consider authorizing such an expansive study at their meeting in April.

When asked how much such a study would cost, MTC Executive Director Steve Heminger refused to give details.  "We need to scope the study first.  I'll give you that answer in April," he said.

Advocates seemed to support an inter-agency study to squeeze as much productivity as possible from existing operations, while eliminating redundant services, but urged caution, keeping in mind the sensitivity of transit riders. 

Carli Paine of TransForm applauded the notion that MTC would advocate for federal and state operatining funding and argued fare increases should only be a last resort.  "We need to be careful to look at raising fares for new revenue as a deterrent to riding transit," she said.  She also reminded commissioners that while the TEP is a good model on how to increase efficiency, there are still major concerns for how MTA will pay for implementing the TEP's recommendations.

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates was the only commissioner to give guidance to staff on how the study should be conducted, requesting they analyze dynamic car-share programs and transit-oriented-development in conjunction with transit efficiency. 

Public comments on the proposed revisions will be taken by the MTC until April 8th.  Readers can send comments via mail to 101 Eighth Street, Oakland, CA 94607, Attn: Public Information; via E-mail to info@mtc.ca.gov; or via fax to 510.817.5848, Attn: Public Information.

For a more detailed analysis of regional funding challenges, see today's excellent report on Transbay Blog.

TransForm's action alert calls on legislators to adhere to principals agreed upon by the MTC and generally considered best practice in California:

• Fix it first by maximizing funding for SHOPP: The independent Legislative Analyst’s Office has identified $1.5 billion in needs for projects to maintain the existing state highway system as part of the State Highway Operation and Protection Program. Federal DOT data shows that roadway maintenance and repair creates 9% more jobs than roadway and bridge expansion projects.
• Provide complete streets for all users: Stimulus projects should create complete streets, in order to improve the efficiency and safety of travel by motorists, bicyclists, pedestrians, the disabled and transit users.
• Fund bicying and pedestrian infrastructure with TE dollars: The ARRA directs only 3% of funds to the Transportation Enhancement program. The state should instead use the traditional federal sub-allocation formula for transportation enhancements and direct 10% of all surface transportation recovery funding to TE. Bicycling and pedestrian infrastructure are key to giving people low-cost transportation options and result in local economic activity.
  

Advocates packed the MTC hearing room

The tremendous turnout and high energy of the public speakers gave incoming MTC Chairman Scott Haggerty a lot to deal with for his first meeting as chair, though in the end the vote went as expected.  With the exception of Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, every voting MTC commissioner approved the OAC allocation within the larger spending proposal by staff (PDF). 

Many MTC Commissioners expressed their concern for transit riders but seemed content to vote for the OAC with the provision advocated by MTC Executive Director Steve Heminger that any money for expansion projects that wasn't successfully obligated by the end of June would be turned over to the operators in accordance with funding formulas.

Reverend Scott Denman, president of Genesis, a local affiliate of the Gamaliel Foundation, bemoaned the dismal state of AC Transit's operational budget and urged the MTC not to put any money into an expansion project that he argued wouldn't benefit the greatest number of Bay Area residents.  He prompted some of the only laughter of the day when he said, "I do believe the (OAC] is shovel ready.  Let's dig the grave, toss it in, and I will personally do the last rites."

The minority of speakers who supported the OAC project were the parties who planned it and would build it, including Oakland Councilmember Larry Reid, BART, ACTIA, the California Alliance for Jobs, and construction unions, including San Francisco local 22 and Oakland local 713.

Councilmember Reid and the construction workers stressed that the project, which passed an environmental review, had been vetted by the community and planned for more than fifteen years and would provide jobs to those building it. 

BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger argued that funding the project was not a covert form of racism or classism, as many members of the public contended, but that BART ridership is reflective of the income and ethnic demographics of the region. 

In a conversation with Streetsblog yesterday, BART project manager Kathy Mayo said BART was confident that it could finance the remaining $70-100 million needed to build the project, either from Federal TIFIA funds or from private sources.  Mayo said that the bidding environment was as competitive as she could remember and that one of the original bidding teams, which included Parsons Brinkerhoff, Merrill Lynch, Bombardier, and Flatiron Construction, had expressed strong interest in a second chance to compete for the contract.

Despite expressing outrage over the final outcome, the advocates vowed to carry on the fight for more transit funding at the state and federal levels.  Urban Habitat's Lindsay Imai said that Genesis members would be attending AC Transit's board meeting later in the evening and that they would develop a strategy to fight for restoration of the State Transit Assistance fund and for more transit money in the re-authorization of the federal Transportation Act this fall.

When MTC staff revised its proposal to fund the Transbay Terminal train box from formula funds, the agency was working under the assumption that it would lobby Washington to allocate the $400 million needed to build it from the $8 billion high speed rail pot added at President Obama's behest in the final stimulus bill.  The MTC also assumed all the parties involved with the project would want the money.

In a surprise revelation that angered several commissioners, the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) and the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA) said in testimony that they couldn't agree over the design and capacity objectives of the train box.  CHSRA's Mehdi Morshed said that they are not ready to sign off on the train box because they don't think it will have the capacity needed for the high speed rail service, a concern that had not previously been public.

San Francisco MTC Commissioner John Rubin was aghast, saying the significance of the train box project to the region was unparalleled and that never in his time at the MTC had he heard such discombobulated testimony from staff and directors of the same agency and between agencies that had agreed to work together. 

"I'm mystified by the testimony of the TJPA and their staff," he said.  "They need to get on the same page."

Dave Snyder of SPUR echoed the concern, saying, "I was disappointed by the hesitation of the HSRA.  Right now the dispute between the TJPA and the HSRA is not helpful and ought to be resolved immediately to get the train box built."

MTC Commissioners defered one of the staff resolutions until the dispute could be settled and directed Heminger to serve as mediator to expedite the negotiations.  The MTC hoped to take up the matter at its next board meeting in March.

How will you get to the Oakland Airport in 5 years?

The debate over how to spend the federal transportation stimulus money at the regional level is heating up and may boil over tomorrow morning at the next Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) meeting. 

As we reported here two weeks ago, the nine-county Bay Area will get nearly half a billion in stimulus funds for transportation.  MTC staff originally proposed spending much of it on rehabilitation and operations, with $145 million for two capital expansion projects, the Oakland Airport Connector (OAC) and the Transbay Terminal train box.

Now that the final stimulus numbers are in from Washington, with transit funds lower than expected and high-speed rail money much higher than expected, MTC staff has scrapped the proposal to build the train box from the formula funds. 

Transit and social justice advocates are concerned, however, that OAC is still on the table. They argue that it is not a good use of funds, and that the $70 million dollars proposed by MTC should go instead to transit operations.  Genesis, a local affiliate of the Gamaliel Foundation, will hold a rally and press conference before the Wednesday meeting to decry the proposal, calling it a moral issue that deprives AC Transit bus riders of service and threatens fare increases.

AC Transit, for its part, admitted that the stimulus money would be helpful for combating the $57 million budget deficit it expects to run by end of 2010, but said that the agency has been considering fare increases and service cuts since spring of 2008, well before the stimulus package was a reality. 

"The more money we get to close the budget gap, the less severe the consequences will be," said AC Transit spokesperson Clarence Johnson.  "It's not a matter of any one source of money completely satisfying our needs, but every nickel counts."

Given current transit operator funding ratios, AC Transit's share of the the $70 million proposed for the OAC would amount to less than 2 percent of its total budget.  Transform provides the overall breakdown:

• AC Transit - $6.65 million
• BART - $16.94 million
• CalTrain - $2.66 million
• GG Transit - $2.45 million
• Muni - $17.43 million
• Sam Trans - $2.03 million
• VTA - $12.25 million
• Small Operators - $9.8 million
  

MTC spokesperson Randy Rentschler argued that it's a policy choice, but not a moral one.  "To a certain extent, we need to be grateful to have this argument.  The federal stimulus money is a one-time deal we weren't expecting a couple months ago and the challenge is how much we put into current consumption and how much we put into the future.  We're borrowing from our kids, so how much do we want to leave to our kids."

Carli Paine of Transform suggested that the current elevated train option for OAC is not the most cost-effective way to spend the stimulus funds and said that the MTC should "step back and look at the alternatives," adding the current proposal is "not a good use of funds, not good governance."  Paine suggested the MTC revisit at-grade BRT options for the connector that would do better at opening the Hegenberger corridor with access to all the points of interest between BART and the airport.

In the long run, Paine admitted, the fiscal stimulus spending debate shouldn't distract from the pressing need to reestablish the State Transit Assistance (STA) program so that municipalities across the state can rely on steady funding.  She said Transform recently opened an office in Sacramento for that purpose with a goal of building a new alliance of groups to join in the effort to develop long-term solutions to fund public transportation.

Wednesday's MTC general meeting will start at 10:00 am at 101 Eighth Street in Oakland, above the Lake Merritt BART Station.  Genesis will hold its press conference immediately before the meeting, at 9:30 am.

Flickr photo: isaacgertman

"We need to come up with the ideas quite quickly," said Nick Caston, the state transportation advocate for TransForm. "We're hoping we'll be able to utilize the committee system to get hearings to delve into the structural issues."

This year's prolonged budget process was painful, no doubt, but what emerged from the secret "Big Five" meetings, and what the governor signed today, is a budget that eliminates all transit funding until 2013.

What does it mean regionally? Fare hikes and service cuts.

Muni should have gotten $68 million. The agency is losing $25 million this year and $43 million next year from out budgeted operating dollars, said MTA spokesman Judson True. The loss could slow the implementation of the Transit Effectiveness Project (TEP) because the agency will have to scale back awarding some service contracts. Some other California transit agencies are worse off, with some dramatic cuts in service on the table.

Transit advocates note, however, that Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) gets it, and he's privately pledged to work with advocates on finding a long-term budget solution for transit. Said Jeff Wagner of the California Transit Association:

We’ve never considered Darrell Steinberg to be a card-carrying member of the Kill Transit Caucus. We’re obviously very upset that the Legislature has resorted to completely eliminating transit operations funding as a means to help solve this state budget crisis.  But, aside from this situation, Darrell Steinberg understands the dire circumstances faced by transit providers. He understands the value of public transit – and we know he’s not alone among legislators in that regard.  We’re cautiously optimistic based on his personal assurance to work with us to establish a reliable source of state funding for day-to-day public transit operations.

One idea that's emerging is to roll transit money into the distribution of Proposition 42 funds, the gas sales tax, said Caston. Other potentials include drawing revenue from climate or gas fees (since a proposed gas tax was nixed by the "Big Five").

Caston said advocates are hoping to unite with labor, public health, environmental, business and community groups to rally around public transit. The California Transit Association, meantime, is gearing up for its annual Transit Lobby Day and encouraging its membership to show up in force for appointments with all 120 state legislators.