Study assesses benefits of regionalizing Bay Area rail; suggests piloting 5-county decision-making as a next step
A new study funded by the State of California concluded that there are potential benefits to be gained from regionalizing capabilities of the Bay Area’s fragmented rail system. ‘Regionalized’ capabilities would be led and managed by a single entity across the region. The study provides several different institutional options for further study - ranging from a new Regional planning and coordinating entity, to a consolidated Bay Area Rail Authority.
The study identifies four potential alternatives for better organizing capabilities of regional rail with the Bay Area to lead to better outcomes. With action from MTC and transit agencies in the coming weeks, one or more of these alternatives have the potential to be studied further.
This has the potential to open the door to progress on regional rail network planning, service integration, and project delivery. For this to happen, MTC and rail agencies will need to take action to start pilots and continue study of next steps toward regional rail governance.
Results are being presented for the first time this week - they were first introduced at Monday’s MTC Policy Advisory Council Transformation Action Plan subcommittee, and will be presented at the MTC Executive Committee meeting on Wednesday (Agenda #3C, Zoom link).
The Regional Rail Partnership Study was conducted by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission in partnership with the region’s rail agencies, with analysis by international consulting firm Steer.
The study found potential benefits to a regional approach to decision-making around project planning, funding, and delivery. A regional approach could fix the awkward process of regional rail planning whereby MTC attempts to stitch together projects developed by separate agencies, and to create more capable and cost-effective megaprojects.
However, in its conclusions about running integrated service for riders, some important conclusions seem to be buried in the fine print of the full 70-page report, which is still being drafted and not yet been made public.
The study concludes that “network policies” and “operational standards” would benefit from “shared” decision-making, with some policies being handled at a regional level and others handled separately agency-by-agency. But the summary slides don’t go into detail about which policies should have regional decision-making and which policies would be better left to individual agencies.
From a rider perspective, standardizing fares among BART and Caltrain has already been shown to have benefits in the regional fare integration study. Synchronizing connections at Millbrae is already a priority for both agencies. It is arguably less important to standardize policies around, say, food - Caltrain allows food on the train and BART doesn’t.
The region’s core rail services are facing a fiscal crisis and need to regrow ridership. It would be helpful for the study to be explicit about the elements of service integration that could increase ridership, so the next steps could move forward.
Regionalizing pursuit of funding to address the fiscal cliff is already happening, and should be pursued assertively with whatever coordination and institutional steps are needed to pursue funding for the rail system at risk.
The important benefits of regionalizing planning and project delivery will only be available if the core rail system survives the current fiscal crisis and shows increasing value to the public by regrowing ridership
The Rail Partnership study concludes that next steps could include piloting decision-making at the 5-county, sub-regional scale, with larger geographical scope covering the 9-county Bay Area or an even wider geographical area over time. The study does not suggest what form 5-county decision-making might take as a pilot, considering that there is no existing body that we are aware of that exists at this geographic scale. One possible idea that Seamless Bay Area would like to be considered is the establishment of a new BART-Caltrain inter-agency committee, made up of a subset of existing BART and Caltrain board members, along with a significant number of external rider and professional expert representative members.
With regard to longer-term governance options, The study concludes that more detailed studies would be warranted about the costs, benefits, and phasing of changes to regionalize Bay Area Rail. Such studies could cover what sort of decision-making, management, and implementation structures would be effective.
The study was not specific about how to structure a region-wide decision-making body. It states that “Options for a region-wide decision making body could be: An agreement driven forum; A new decision making body; an empowered existing decision making body. Such questions would be covered in additional work (that ought to dovetail with the region’s Network Management study).
In order for this study to catalyze progress, the MTC and rail agencies will need to make decisions to advance next steps, including:
Advance BART-Caltrain service integration. Be specific about the network policies and operating standards that have the potential to regrow ridership, focusing on the 5 counties with the lion’s share of the rail ridership, and move forward with pilots for these actions ASAP
Continue and strengthen a regional approach to funding to address the fiscal cliff
Advance next steps to pilot and study next steps on planning and project delivery
Incorporate the next steps on regional rail governance into the Network Management Business Case study
If you want to hear the presentation and make comments, you can share at:
MTC Executive Committee meeting on Wednesday (Agenda #3C, Zoom link). This meeting is listed for 10am but it will be after the full Commission meeting that is likely to run long - if you’d like an email or text when the item comes up, fill out this form
You can send comments in writing to info@bayareametro.gov by 5:00 p.m. the day before the scheduled meeting date, and feel free to copy us at friends@friendsofcaltrain.com