Public transit, improved transfers vital for reaching CA carbon neutrality by 2045
Expanding public transportation will play a key role in reaching California’s 2045 carbon neutrality mandate. Case studies of Canadian cities showcase just how California can boost ridership.
California’s ambitious climate goals framed CalSTA staff’s introductory presentation for the State Transit Transformation Task Force. Staff noted that significant increases in transit ridership would be needed over the coming years to reduce vehicle miles traveled and reach carbon neutrality.
These subject areas were the focus of the Transit Transformation Task Force’s (TTTF) second meeting on February 29th in Sacramento. The TTTF is tasked with developing policy and funding recommendations to grow transit ridership statewide, with a focus on supporting the state’s ambitious climate goals. The slides from the meeting and a video recording has now been posted.
The TTTF includes 25 members, with representation from transit agencies, labor, business, academics, and nonprofits (including Seamless Bay Area), as well as key staffers from the state administration and legislature.
This was the second meeting of TTTF, and the direction of their policy recommendations is yet to be defined. At the last meeting, task force members were asked to submit their priorities. Seamless Bay Area is compiling a list of priorities, but wants to hear from riders - what do you think the task force should focus on? Please fill out this form by March 17th, 11:59pm (PDT) to let us know what you think the Statewide Task Force should focus on - and we will convey your answers to CalSTA when we submit our comments.
Comparable cities in Canada achieve higher transit ridership per capita
With much more frequent service and greater network coverage, system integration, and transit-oriented development (TOD), several Canadian cities have garnered much higher ridership than their California peers.
CalSTA staff presented case studies of Vancouver and Winnipeg to the Task Force to tee up a discussion about how California could significantly increase transit ridership. Greater Vancouver has a similar urban area population density to the Bay Area, but boasts 2.35 times higher ridership per capita. Winnipeg has 6 times greater ridership per capita compared to Fresno, its California counterpart with similar populations and urban area densities.
Canadian cities have higher ridership per capita compared to their respective California counterparts, thanks to greater system integration, network coverage, and with much more frequent service in the urban core and in the surrounding suburbs.
What explains the difference between the Canadian cities and their US counterparts? Staff explained that higher levels of service frequency in Canadian cities are correlated with higher per capita transit ridership. For instance, Winnipeg’s bus network provides 6 times more vehicle revenue miles than Fresno, generating a per capita transit ridership that is also 6 times greater. Vancouver transit runs much more frequently than most transit in the Bay Area. Their automated Skytrain rail system has peak headways of every 2-3 minutes, and 5 minutes in off-peak times. Vancouver’s extensive bus network also has headways of 3-5 minutes during peak hours.
Staff also explained that better regional network integration factored into the Vancouver’s success in comparison to the Bay Area. Vancouver’s focus on high quality, reliable connections at key points encourages ridership inside and outside of the urban core. Some 19% of suburban Vancouver residents commute on transit compared to 4% in the Bay Area. Winnipeg’s bus network integration strategy has paid particular attention to creating connector routes, community routes, and on-demand services to enhance system integration and feed passengers into major corridors.
Vancouver has also been focusing its development around transit hubs. Since 2017, the city has built 77,000 units of housing near transit stations, with an additional 100,000 units near 52 stations expected to be built by 2030.
In the discussion, Task Force members broadly agreed with the need for increasing levels of service of transit in order to attract more riders.
“Based on my own personal experience the two things that need to change the most are frequency and dependability,” said task force member David Sforza, Principal Consultant at the California State Assembly Transportation Committee. “The goal is to try and shift people that, like me, own a car but by choice want to take transit because I’d much rather spend my morning reading for 20 minutes while I’m on transit rather than frustratingly sitting in [I-50] traffic.”
Greater connectivity between transit systems vital for reaching VMT reduction and carbon neutrality targets.
California needs to decrease total VMT by 30% in order to reach our 2045 carbon neutrality mandate, according to the CARB’s 2022 Scoping Plan. In practice, the average California resident drives 24 miles per day and this needs to be reduced to 17 miles by 2045.
Tackling VMT reduction will require a particular focus shifting more medium-and long-distance trips to transit - and this will require improving connectivity between regional and local systems. This is because a whopping 75% of total VMT are generated from trips greater than 10 miles long, despite only accounting for 27% of the total trips taken. Regional rail and bus rapid transit better serve these longer distance routes because of their faster average speeds, but we’ll still need reliable and frequent local transit to connect people to their final destinations.
Task Force members noted that creating seamless transfers between regional and local transit will require greater coordination amongst agencies. Our current system is poorly designed for timed, regional transfers as service plans are often done on an agency-by-agency basis with little consideration for the other transit services riders depend on.
“Looking towards the trips that make a bigger difference in reducing VMT, the combination of frequency and network connectivity is what can really deliver a significantly higher level of ridership,” said task force member Ian Griffiths of Seamless Bay Area. “That requires network planning in combination with operations dollars to run that core network at the levels that are needed. [...] We are going to have to have comprehensive networks, not just at the agency scale, but really at the regional and even between region scale.”
The vast majority of daily car trips (73%) are less than 10 miles long and account for a relatively small percentage of total VMT (26%).
California would need between 5 to 10 times higher transit ridership by 2045 to achieve our VMT goals, assuming all VMT reductions are replaced with transit trips. This would look like an annual 10-15% increase in transit ridership from now till 2045.
Task force members want to see common themes implemented
Some common themes that emerged from task force members included:
Transit-oriented development.
Prioritizing public transit over private vehicles with improvements such as jump queue lanes, traffic signal priority, and bus lanes.
Shifting state funds from highway expansion to transit funding.
Greater transit frequency and increased transit operations funding.
Accessibility for people with disabilities and older adults both on accessible transportation services and fixed-route transit.
Disincentives to make driving harder, in addition to incentives to make transit easier.
Safe and accessible active transportation options to get people to their transit stops and destinations.
Safety and cleanliness on vehicles and in stations.
Workforce development to keep drivers. Policies like livable wages, affordable housing close to work, and harsher penalties for assaulting operators.
Changing perception, culture, and narratives around transit so that all people understand that they should ride public transit.
Breaking the habit of driving and getting people on transit during lifestyle changes (starting college, moving to a new area, aging adults, etc).
Shifting transit away from its historic commuter-based model towards systems that serve a variety of trips for a variety of people.
“The primary challenge is really achieving this scale of growth by the timeframe of 2030. If we are going to take these numbers and timeframes seriously, we do really need to look at the role of the state,” said task force member Laura Tolkoff of SPUR. “Really investigating what is the state’s role relative to transit in terms of resourcing, capacity, infrastructure development, and operational capacity. The reality is that we have really ambitious goals but we don't have a solid, coherent, and reinforcing body of policy that gets operationalized and attached to funding. [...] So that's the type of dramatic leap we need to get to.”
The meeting concluded with CalSTA staff sharing a timeline of future meetings and key topics for the remainder of the 20-month Task Force. A key date for Bay Area transit riders to note is June 17, 2024, when the meeting will take place in San Francisco, and the key theme is expected to be “What level/types of service do these outcomes [of transformed transit] require?” Seamless Bay Area and Voices for Public Transportation’s 2020 research “Operations Funding for a World Class Transit System” will be a particularly important reference document for this meeting.
The next meeting will be on April 15th in San Diego. Seamless Bay Area is seeking to promote more participation in future meetings so riders can speak up for their needs. Finally, don't forget to fill out this form by March 17th, 11:59pm (PDT) to let us know what you think the Statewide Task Force should focus on - and we will convey your answers to CalSTA when we submit our comments.
