Progress toward a transformed Bay Area transit system in 2020
To understate the obvious, 2020 was a challenging year for all of us. Bay Area transit was no exception. Soon after the first dramatic shutdowns spread across the region in late March, hundreds of critical services were canceled, adjusted, or re-routed almost overnight. At Seamless Bay Area, as the early days of lockdown became weeks and months, we looked to the rest of the year with worry and uncertainty. Our mission was more important than ever: transit was and is the backbone public service keeping our essential workers on the move and getting people to doctor’s appointments and grocery stores. We were all committed to continuing the fight for seamless, world-class regional transit in the Bay Area. But we could not know what the year would bring in terms of fundraising, volunteering, advocacy, or even just our ability to work together effectively. We imagined the worst.
After an unprecedented year, transit is recovering. Despite the challenges of 2020, we continued to make progress towards transformative change for transit in the Bay Area. (Photo by Jim Maurer)
A year later, we appear to be slowly but surely working our way towards the end of this pandemic, at least in the United States. Transit is recovering, and we’re grateful to all the public servants across the region who kept the trains, buses, and ferries running.
We are also proud to report that, against all odds, Seamless Bay Area came through the pandemic stronger than ever. As we look to an exciting remainder of 2021 and even bigger things to come in 2022, we want to take a moment to pause and reflect on what we all got done together in 2020. Thanks to our dedicated board and staff members, committed and engaged volunteers, and amazingly generous donors, we are still solidly on the path to transformative change for transit in the Bay Area.
Generating momentum for reform
We’ll start with some big achievements in legislation and governance reform:
We made great strides in our campaign for equitable integrated fares. Our proposal for integrated fares jointly won the MTC’s Transformational Projects Competition, and then we pushed hard, with your help, for the launch of the MTC’s Business Case for Regional Fare Integration. To make the benefits of integrated transit fares more understandable to riders and policymakers, we then published our vision for integrated transit fares. This included a map of a zone-based fare system covering the entire region, and a compelling web-based fare calculator tool.
We made breakthroughs in legislative and governance change. In early 2020, we sponsored Assembly Bill 2057 (Asm. David Chiu), the Bay Area Seamless Transit Act, to integrate the region’s 27 public transit agencies and set up a state-mandated task force to study further governance reforms. Facing COVID headwinds, the bill was shelved along with all non-COVID business. But all was not lost.
Thanks to our leadership on AB 2057 and building public support for seamless transit, we were invited to serve on the Blue Ribbon Transit Recovery Task Force. Created by the MTC in May 2020, the task force is charged with recommending how to coordinate the Bay Area transit system’s response to COVID, and with charting a long term path toward a more integrated and seamless transit system. Its work is ongoing.
Together with fellow Blue Ribbon task force members SPUR, Transform, and a host of other influential organizations, we helped ensure the Task Force adopted an ambitious vision of transit transformation. The vision seeks to unify “services, fares, schedules, customer information, and identity,” and identify what immediate next steps will be necessary to get on the path to deeper reform.
Finally, we built the groundwork and support for Asm. Chiu to move forward in introducing AB 629, the Seamless and Resilient Bay Area Transit Act. This bill is packed with important steps towards seamless regional transit, including the advancement of integrated fares, standards for real time transit information, and integrated wayfinding. While it’s recently been turned into a two-year bill, the bill continues to attract broad support, polling at 89% public approval, and offers our best opportunity yet for long term transformative change.
Fighting for emergency funding
In 2020, we didn’t just focus on our signature issues. We watched the existential collapse in transit revenue due to COVID travel restrictions, and—along with a number of other Bay Area advocacy groups—immediately threw ourselves into fighting for emergency funding. After all, transit can’t be seamless if it doesn’t exist.
We campaigned hard in support of Measure RR, helping ensure its passage in November 2020. Approved by voters in San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara county, the measure will raise dedicated funding for Caltrain to keep trains running and fund equity and access programs.
We played our part in national and state coalitions campaigning for federal COVID relief funding for transit agencies, an advocacy effort which secured nearly $4 billion to keep transit service going throughout the pandemic.
We continued to co-lead Voices for Public Transportation, a coalition of over 40 groups including labor, community-based organizations, and equity advocates working to support a major regional funding measure.
Seamless Bay Area co-founder and policy director Ian Griffiths talks at a virtual rider forum on July 9, 2020. The webinar was co-hosted by Seamless Bay Area, Friends of Caltrain, San Francisco Transit Riders, United Seniors of Oakland and Alameda County, Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action, and the Youth Leadership Institute.
Conducting new original research
World-class transit needs world-class policy. We’ve always grounded our advocacy in high quality research, and 2020 was no exception.
We collaborated with renowned industry expert AECOM to envision how transit services could maximize equity and connectivity post-COVID, using those insights to shape our Transit Recovery Vision.
We showcased new research by UC Berkeley graduate students on the transit use patterns and needs of essential workers. By interviewing workers using transit during the pandemic, researchers uncovered new insights into how to make the Bay Area’s fragmented transit system work better for riders.
We partnered with Voices for Public Transportation to research how much the Bay Area would need to increase transit service levels in order to increase ridership: in just one global comparison, we found that the Bay Area would need to fund a 55% increase in transit service hours from pre-COVID levels to match the service levels in Toronto, Canada, a region with comparable population and density but significantly higher transit ridership.
Mobilizing partners and advocates—and getting the word out
How does this all happen? Sure, our board and staff work hard, but we also have help. Our incredible grassroots network of supporters—now over 5,000 strong—helped us advocate on all fronts. In addition to writing and calling legislators, joining phone banks, and turning up at Zoom council and board meetings, our supporters spread our vision and message across the region:
Our Seamless Transit Principles have now been endorsed by 14 public agencies, including BART, and 36 other organizations and businesses.
We hosted or co-hosted over a dozen major public events in 2020, including a transit rider forum in July, an emergency forum to save public transit in August, a Caltrain rescue discussion in September, and more.
More than 30 media stories were published about our work, appearing in outlets in San Francisco, San Mateo, Marin, San Jose, and beyond.
We published 33 thought-provoking blog posts focused on everything from calls for action to analyses of agency actions and explainers of complex seamless transit topics.
Looking back, we’re really proud of what we got done last year. In the darkest days of April and May last year, we expected 2020 to be hard—and it was, in so many ways. But thanks to our committed, generous supporters, our diverse partnerships with so many incredible organizations also fighting for change, and inspiring leadership from Asm. Chiu and others at all levels of government, we weathered the storm, and—incredibly—made more progress than ever.
Looking ahead, we hope that the Bay Area recovers swiftly from COVID. With your continued support, we’ll be there every step of the way: fighting to restore and improve transit service, and keeping us on the long path to truly seamless, world-class transit across the region.
Want more details on our work in 2020? Read our annual report.
Want to help us keep our momentum going in 2021? Become a recurring donor today.