Third Transit Transformation Task Force meeting focuses on defining metrics of success
Higher frequencies, faster trip times, expanding coverage, and easier transfers are needed to increase transit availability. These priorities were the focus of the Transit Transformation Task Force’s (TTTF) third meeting in San Diego on April 15th.
The TTTF, a major effort to transform transit in California, is focused on developing benchmarks for service levels, funding recommendations, governance reforms, and other changes needed to grow statewide transit ridership. The slides from the meeting and a video recording have now been posted.
Ride-along with local San Diego transit advocates kicked off meeting
To take advantage of the opportunity of 25 Task Force gathered together in San Diego for the meeting, advocacy groups serving on the task force, including Seamless Bay Area, Public Advocates, and MoveLA reached out to local San Diego transit advocacy groups, including Circulate San Diego, RideSD, and 350 San Diego, to organize a ‘ride-along’ to the meeting with Task Force members to highlight rider needs and transit challenges.
The ride attracted approximately 30 participants, including eight task force members, who met up in Downtown San Diego near the Park & Market trolley stop. Task force members learned about the positive impact of the opening of the new Blue Line extension of the trolley; the collaboration between union representatives and riders in advancing a transportation ballot measure via citizen’s initiative in San Diego; and the poor transit connectivity to San Diego Airport that riders have long sought to improve. Task Force members who attended the ride along arrived at the meeting with a deeper understanding of rider needs and perspectives in San Diego.
Defining transit availability and current rider access
At the Task Force meeting, staff engaged the task force members in a discussion about defining ‘transit availability’ - in order for Californians to take transit, it must first be made available to them. The staff presentation defined the key elements of availability as:
Having connections from origins to destinations
Connecting to multiple services to form a network
Providing a span of service that enables trips when riders want to take them
Allows all users to use the service (e.g. people with disabilities, Non-English speakers, etc.)
Once customers have access to a network, then other factors like reliability, speed, safety, affordability, and experience impact whether people choose transit over other mobility options.
Trip travel times present a major barrier to transit use. Even in areas like downtown San Diego with numerous transit options, only about 1/4th of all types of destinations accessible via are accessible via transit within the same time of cars, according to Michael Eshleman, Service Planning Manager at AC Transit, who gave a portion of the presentation as a member of the Task Force’s technical working group.
For example, Eshleman explained that some 440,000 jobs are accessible within a 1 hour travel time via transit of the Caltrans District 11 office in downtown San Diego compared to 1.4 million jobs accessible within 1-hour via car.
Key metrics for transit success
Given the current poor availability of transit across much of the state, the TTTF Technical Working Group has proposed aspirational metrics and thresholds for key transit goals.
TTTF members generally agreed with these proposed metrics, but stated that the definitions of urban, suburban, and exurban areas should be specified in more detail in future meetings.
“I think setting these aspirational goals are very important. We will get to the incremental approach but I think it's really important we start here,” said Task Force member Ian Griffiths of Seamless Bay Area. “When we look at these examples from other places that have succeeded in doing this it’s because they have started with these big goals and it hasn't happened overnight. It’s taken 30 years of investments and policies and reforms and then they can say 32 years ago we set these goals and we actually met them. This is our one opportunity that we’re going to probably have for decades to set these goals.”
Availability is not enough
In addition to ‘availability’, staff indicated that speed, reliability, safety, experience, and affordability are key considerations whether people decide to take transit or not. Task Force members expressed their varying prioritization of these considerations.
Speed, reliability
Speed, frequency, and reliability are the most pressing concerns for many Task Force members.
“I think we need to get to a ratio of transit to auto travel times,” said Task Force Member Kari Watkins of UC Davis. “That’s really what needs to be measured as what we are trying to get to. And maybe it doesn't even have to be one-to-one [ratio], but it has to be reasonable way beyond what we are providing today.”
Increased car-use and congestion have decreased average bus travel times throughout the Bay Area. VTA bus speeds have decreased by 20% between 1988 and 2016, traveling at an average of 6.8 MPH. Downtown San Francisco buses are moving almost half as fast as cars at an average of 6 MPH and AC Transit buses move 10.3 MPH on average.
At their last meeting, Task Force members highlighted the need for transit signal priority, transit lanes, bus bulb outs, and other strategies to speed up transit.
Connectivity
Poor regional and statewide transit connectivity is often caused by misalignment between state, regional, and transit agency plans, according to Griffiths. Clarifying the roles and responsibilities for the state, region, and local transit agencies into a coherent process is key to creating a statewide connected network and streamlining project delivery to achieve these goals.
He highlighted a recent transit study tour of Switzerland by Bay Area transit leaders where they learned that the Swiss federal government is responsible for identifying service goals and key transit corridors across the country, and then making sure these plans are aligned all the way down to the local agencies. Then regions are then responsible for achieving that service level expectation, with funding made available to them to implement plans.
This rationalized approach to transit planning also recognizes the importance of institutional capacity at all levels of government, enabling a more effective implementation of transit infrastructure and service level improvements.
On a more local level, Eshleman noted that AC Transit’s Line 7 has experienced an 8-fold increase in daily ridership (400 daily riders pre-pandemic to 3,200 today) by connecting people to popular destinations like downtown Berkeley, the Emeryville Amtrak station, and El Cerrito del Norte BART station.
Watkins noted that agencies shouldn’t be afraid of transfers, but they have to be timed more meticulously to avoid 20 minute wait times between services.
“In the U.S. we transfer for stupid reasons like the boundary between 27 agencies in the Bay Area,” Watkins stated. “We need to stop transferring because it’s an agency boundary. And even if we want 27 agencies, we have to figure out how they can operate as if the rider has no idea which agency they are on because they don’t care.”
Affordability
Task Force members had a wide range of opinions about policies focused on increasing affordability.
Alix Bockelman, Chief Deputy Executive Director of MTC, hopes that the state will play a bigger role in investing in transit pass programs, especially for students. She specifically noted the successful BayPass Pilot Program which is currently providing unlimited, regional transit to university students, affordable housing residents, and workers at several major Bay Area employers.
Rashidi Barnes, CEO of Eastern Contra Costa Transit Authority, noted that an equity centered approach to transit will require providing fast and affordable access to public transit for the many residents who have been priced out of urban cores such as Oakland, San Francisco, and Berkeley.
Many members expressed an interest in focusing not only on the “supply side” of increasing transit frequency and availability, but also the “demand side” of making car trips reflect their true costs and making driving more difficult.
Affordability is also important for our transit operators. Eshleman noted that the city most AC Transit operations live in is Tracy – an hour drive from most destinations in AC Transit’s service area. More affordable housing is needed to get employees closer to their place of work.
Safety
The feeling of safety often comes from the presence of people on transit, Watkins said. Creating high ridership systems may incidentally solve many of the safety concerns of riders.
Bob Powers, General Manager of BART, stated that safety of riders and transit operators is his top priority and everything else must follow.
Other factors
Amy Hance, Deputy Director of General Services for the City of Clovis, said that “predictable, stable, protected” funding sources are needed in order to provide her communities with reliable and expanded transit options.
Last year, her agency had preliminary service plans in place, but then heard two months later that the revenue streams they were relying on would not be available.
“If I don’t have an idea of what my funding is going to look like next year – and right now I really don’t, in a really good picture – I really can’t plan these beautiful wonderful things we are going to implement,” Hance said at the meeting.
Kate Miller, Executive Director of the Napa Valley Transportation Authority/Vine Transit, noted the challenges her agency has faced when working with city and county jurisdictions to get transit infrastructure installed. For example, simply adding a bus shelter to a stop often requires her staff to talk with nearby businesses in order to get it approved. Additionally, she said local elected officials will often tell her agency to change a bus stop location, without taking into consideration the impact on riders. She also noted the ongoing issue of parking enforcement near transit infrastructure.
Next Steps
This San Diego meeting was the last session of the “diagnostic phase.” The rest of the meetings will be focused on developing specifics for the Task Force’s final report and recommendations to the state legislature. Task force member comments from these past three agendas will help staff hone into specific areas of conversation for the remaining meetings.
The next Task Force meeting will be on June 17th in San Francisco to discuss desired level and types of service. We at Seamless are working with our fellow advocates to organize a ride-along prior to the meeting with task force members and riders to highlight transit experiences and needs in the Bay Area.