MTC polling and outreach shows seamlessness is popular

Recent MTC polling and outreach shows that seamless transit is overwhelmingly popular.   As part of its PlanBayArea regional planning process for transportation and land use, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission conducts statistically significant polling, along with a variety of other outreach strategies including workshops, town halls, and online surveys.    

The different outreach methods universally showed that respondents strongly support requirements to bring about a more seamlessly integrated public transportation network. In the quantitative poll, conducted by respected research firm EMC among over 2,900 responses from residents across the nine-county Bay Area, a full 88% of respondents support “requirements for Bay Area public bus and train agencies to coordinate schedules, fare structures and payment systems throughout the Bay Area.” 

Similarly, in the non-statistically significant workshops, town halls, and online surveys, reaching approximately another 4,000 residents, the top strategy for addressing traffic congestion and transit crowding included redesigning transit to offer seamless transfers.

Interestingly, respondents felt positively, but less strongly about agency consolidation, with 63% supportive, but only 28% strongly supportive, in contrast with the 54% majority strong support for a mandate to deliver a system that is seamlessly integrated from the perspective of riders.  This shows that people feel more strongly about the outcomes - a system that is seamless for riders - than about a potential method of delivering the outcome of a seamless system. 

Other recent research conducted by the non-profit Transportation Choices for Sustainable Communities, shows that agency consolidation can be an effective strategy to deliver a seamlessly integrated, high-ridership public transportation system, but is not the only effective strategy to achieve this goal. 

As the region wrestles with how to rebuild the public transportation system from the catastrophic impacts of Covid, the Blue Ribbon Transit Recovery Task Force will face difficult questions - and powerful opportunities - to rethink the status quo. Something to keep in mind, when considering the options, is that bringing about a seamlessly integrated system is overwhelmingly popular with the general public.