SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA: Transit/Transportation News

[doriankage]

By Tony Bizjak - Bee Staff Writer

The city of Sacramento and Caltrans, the state highway department, are like bickering bunkmates:

Squabble. Make up. Go at it again.

The friction is over an increasingly vexing issue: How are people supposed to get in and out of downtown?

Daily, tens of thousands pour in, many on clogged freeways. Caltrans' job is to keep freeways moving. More and more of those freeways, like overwhelmed students, are getting F's during rush hour. Caltrans is proposing adding carpool lanes on Highway 50 from Sunrise Boulevard to Watt Avenue.

The project, for now, stops just short of enemy territory: Sacramento city limits.

Nevertheless, city officials recently sent Caltrans a 13-page letter -- a potential set-up for a lawsuit -- arguing the new lanes amount to a car dump on city streets.

"That project is not consistent with the city's goals," says Assistant City Manager Marty Hanneman.

What are the city's goals? That's complicated. City officials obviously are not anti-car. Most drive their own cars to work downtown.

But, City Hall has been struggling for years to do something about growing street traffic and a parking crunch. They could build more garages, but they say that only encourages more cars downtown.

Yet, at the same time, city leaders are eager to expand downtown to maintain its status as the vibrant economic and entertainment hub of the region.

The city is pushing plans to build whole new city blocks in the 200-plus-acre downtown railyard. And last week, officials enthusiastically gave developers the thumbs up to build another office tower on Capitol Mall for about 1,000 workers.

Caltrans was not so enthusiastic.

It filed a formal protest of the Capitol Mall project -- and by extension, other upcoming downtown projects, especially the railyard -- arguing the freeways are going to get socked with more commuters. State law requires the city to "mitigate" the impacts, Caltrans contended.

That led to some intense negotiations. Even Caltrans head Will Kempton got involved.

The state ultimately agreed last week to drop its challenge of the Capitol Mall project, but only after City Manager Ray Kerridge crafted a carefully worded statement acknowledging the city's responsibility "to address potential significant impacts to traffic including on the state highway system."

City and Caltrans officials shook hands and vowed to engage in more friendly discussions about how exactly to "address" downtown growth and its effect on traffic.

One possibility: Charging developers fees for transportation improvements.

Yet, the philosophical chasm between the two sides remains big.

The city has not dropped its opposition to Caltrans' planned Highway 50 carpool project.

You don't solve the traffic problem just by making more room for more cars, city leaders say.

Their approach: Build more housing downtown. Get more people on light rail and buses. Encourage carpooling. Discourage downtown and midtown drivers by making streets slower for cars and safer for pedestrians. They are even talking about a Sacramento-West Sacramento trolley line.

"That," says the city's Hanneman, "is what we see as a comprehensive system."

Agreed, says Caltrans' Wayne Lewis. But freeways will continue to be the biggest part of that system, he argues.

"Not everybody is going to be able to live around the corner from their job," he said.

At least they are talking. It's an important conversation.

[Richard Mlynarik]

Originally Posted by BTinSF

The hyperbole of most of your comments diminishes their effectiveness. Anyone who has been on this road during the evening commute can tell you that not only is more capacity needed (yes, they already have 2 "bores" in the direction of the commute but the lane switching still backs up traffic badly)

You either don't get it or just aren't paying any attention: there will be no -- zero -- increase in peak-direction capacity. This project is solely about providing construction jobs, while adding an unneeded extra road tunnel next to an unused (in terms of use versus capacity) parallel rail line as a smokescreen side-effect.

The temporary back-ups from lane direction reversal are completely disproportionate to the size of the "investment" which is to be wasted on this black hole to nowhere.

but all the exhaust from all those creeping cars must create a lot of pullution.

The plural of "anecdote" isn't "data".

This sort of observation is certainly widely made -- by the brains trust that is the MTC, for example -- but it has vanishingly little relationship to reality.

THE air quality problem is due to long distance high speed travel, which all of the state's freeway widening projects are explicitly designed to encourage.

This is not some new idea. It was being talked about when I worked in Concord in the '90's. And not everybody crossing the Oakland Hills can really utilize BART (whose East Bay parking lots are full and whose trains are packed).

BART to Novato is also an old idea. That doesn't mean it's a good one.

And you're still not paying attention: BART from Oakland to the eastern side of the hills is NOT packed, not by any stretch of the imagination. Trains run empty, for all practical purposes. The Caldecott tunnel bore does NOTHING for peak direction travel (the one in which BART runs full trains and in which the two present-day and two -- count 'em, two -- future peak direction Caldecott road tunnels will be full of SOVs.

Finally, like I said, roads may not be the ideal way to move people around but they are still essential to commerce. Your neighborhood Safeway cannot be re-stocked via BART.

Thanks for englightening me. I had absolutely no idea.
I'd always thought Safeway was stocked by SOV SUVs using some sort of peer-to-peer networked distribution system. I mean, that's the only way all those single-driver vehicle heading back and forth nearly empty on nose-bleedingly expensive "free"ways could possibly be providing any economic value, right? Blocking freight traffic with purely recreational vehicles (which is the sole role played by cars which commute vast daily distances to enhance the "quality of life" of their pilots) would be such an insane transportation policy that nobody would ever have designed a country about it, after all.

[BTinSF]

^^^Richard, sarcasm and verbal poison is absolutely unconvincing. And just because you say things are so doesn't make them so. In total, your approach just makes your posts unpleasant to read and unworthy of response.

[kenratboy]

doriankage - that article does a good job summing up my frustrations - that the city is healthy and growing, but nobody has a solution for transit. One side wants more car-based transportation, but other do not. Then when it comes to mass transit, nobody wants that either, especially paying for it.

Just seems like a never-ending back and forth battle where everybody looses at the end of the day.

[tuy]

Some progress on the I-205 expansion through Tracy is beginning to be seen. I was out walking tonight and saw two cranes lifting beams into position on the Corral Hollow overpass. I saw the same beams near the top of the Altamont earlier in the day on the way home from work. It is good to see visible progress. Most construction is not visible, as it is mostly bridge foundation work and is below Grade.

[kenratboy]

What is the project?

[rs913]

Cue up that Edgar Winter song..."Come on and take a free ride..."

Free Muni ride? It's possible, says Newsom
Rachel Gordon, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 6, 2007

(3-06) 13:58 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said today that he has asked the Municipal Transportation Agency to look into the possibility of providing fare-free public transit in the city.
He told The Chronicle that when all the costs associated with collecting the fares are factored in, the idea of letting people board for free may not be a big financial stretch.
"When you add everything up, this idea certainly deserves consideration,'' he said.
He said Municipal Transportation Agency officials are still crunching the numbers, and should have their report concluded within a month or so.
The city hopes to collect a projected $138 million in fares in the upcoming fiscal year. And while that may seem like a lot of money, it accounts for about 22 percent of the annual Municipal Railway budget -- below the average national fare-box collection rate.
Muni charges $1.50 for a regular adult fare, and $45 for a standard monthly FastPass. There are discounts for seniors, children and the disabled.
Newsom said the costs to purchase and maintain fare boxes, to count the money and to pay a crew to catch fare cheats are major expenses that could be eliminated if people could ride for free.
But allowing free boarding no doubt would increase the number of riders, which in turn could put an increased financial burden on the system. There likely would be a need to expand the fleet of buses and street cars and to hire more drivers, security officers and maintenance workers.
"All of these issues are being analyzed,'' he said.

[BTinSF]

^^^Given the chaos aboard the busses I used during the "Save the Air" free days, I rather hope they don't do this until they take some time to prepare the system with more capacity.

[Reminiscence]

How spoiled we are ... ah well, may as well make the most of it, shopping time:



Transit agencies prepare for spending spree

Edward Carpenter, The Examiner

Mar 7, 2007 3:00 AM (5 hrs ago)

-SAN FRANCISCO-

An expanded Muni line to Chinatown and all new BART cars are among the ambitious transit plans as Bay Area transit agencies are gearing up to spend the $1.3 billion they stand to receive from recently approved infrastructure bond funds.

Under Proposition 1B, approved by voters in November, the Bay Area will receive a major cut of the $3.6 billion in statewide transit funds to be spent over the next 10 years. Transit funds represent about 18 percent of the total $19.9 billion in statewide Prop. 1B funds.

Just over $922 million will go directly to a dozen Bay Area transit agencies, including the two largest by ridership — Muni and BART — as well as Caltrain and SamTrans on the Peninsula.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission, scheduled to open a two-month-long public hearing period today on how it should divvy up an additional $347 million, has preliminarily recommended that $100 million go for the extension of the Third Street light-rail line from AT&T Park to Chinatown.

Another $24 million could be set aside for the stalled BART extension to Warm Springs in Fremont, according to MTC spokesman John Goodwin. Valley Transit, in Santa Clara County, stands to receive about $45 million, with the rest to be spread around to agencies in Marin, Sonoma, Napa and beyond, according to MTC’s initial recommendations.

“This is certainly money that will help improve transit service and provide better, more comfortable and convenient rides for patrons,” Goodwin said.

Muni expects to double the $100 million from MTC with $100 million of its own to pay for the new $1.4 billion Chinatown extension, said Muni spokeswoman Maggie Lynch, whose agency is slated to receive about $336 million overall.

Lynch said there was much support from the community for the Muni extension, also known as the Central Subway, which she said is expected to result in approximately 93,000 trips per day.

BART, which will receive about $248 million according to the MTC, plans to put the money toward replacing its cars, some of which are 35 years old, spokesman Linton Johnson said.

“We plan to replace our entire fleet of 669 rail cars and modernize our stations,” Johnson said.

A final decision will be made on MTC’s $347 million at the agency’s board meeting May 23, Goodwin said.

[BTinSF]

Originally Posted by Reminisence

Lynch said there was much support from the community for the Muni extension, also known as the Central Subway, which she said is expected to result in approximately 93,000 trips per day.

Hehe! "Lynch" apparently doesn't read SSP!

[BTinSF]

I think this is more pandering and just ridiculous. Even though I'd do away with them, I suppose discounts for school age kids can be justified on the basis that kids riding muni (where they cause havoc for an hour or so in the afternoon) saves the city money on school busses. But beyond that every age group has it's reasons why it should get a dsicount. Why not discounts for breadwinners? How about working moms? City employees? "First responders"? It's both easy and fun to hand out money from the Muni budget.

Board a fan of young-rider discounts
Amid talk of a plan to offer free Muni rides for all, the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution Tuesday urging Muni to offer a discounted fare to young adults.

The resolution, authored by Supervisor Jake McGoldrick, was initially defeated in a 6-5 vote. But when news spread that Mayor Gavin Newsom was advocating a possible fare-free transit system, Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin called for another vote.

Peskin then changed his earlier “no” vote to a “yes” vote, allowing the resolution to pass in a 6-5 vote.

“The mayor has come forward with an intriguing concept — and so if we are going to have the discussions, let’s have the discussion about free Muni. Let’s have the discussion about making it cheaper for young adults. So let’s throw it all on the table,” Peskin said when asked after the board meeting why he switched his vote.

During the meeting, Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, one of Newsom’s allies on the board, asked Peskin to stick with his “no” vote to reject fare discounts for young adults.

“I would just suggest that you stay strong with your initial beliefs when you came here and not allow yourself to fall victim to what appears on just the surface, just the surface, to be a bit of an election-year gimmick,” Elsbernd said.

Newsom denied that his exploration of a fare-free Muni had anything to do with his upcoming re-election campaign. “I don’t want it to become an election-year issue. I don’t want to politicize it,” Newsom said.

Tuesday’s resolution on young-adult fares urges the Municipal Transportation Agency, which oversees Muni, to provide a discounted Fast Pass to those from 18 to 21 years of age, amended from an earlier proposal to offer discounts to 18- to 24-year-olds. Fast Passes cost $45 per month. The amended resolution advocates a $30 fast Pass for the 18-to-21 age bracket, beginning January 2008. It would cost Muni about $3.1 million to offer the discount for a full year.

Elsbernd said he voted against the resolution because additional Muni revenue should go toward improving service.

Source: http://www.examiner.com/a-604250~Newsom_to_explore_fare_free_Muni.html

[CHapp]

Originally Posted by rs913

Cue up that Edgar Winter song..."Come on and take a free ride..."

Free Muni ride? It's possible, says Newsom
Rachel Gordon, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 6, 2007

(3-06) 13:58 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said today that he has asked the Municipal Transportation Agency to look into the possibility of providing fare-free public transit in the city.

Etc.

KTVU had an item on that last night as well. With that system the question of adding more fare evasion inspectors would certainly be resolved.

[tuy]

http://tracypress.com/content/view/8171/2/


Closure

Tracy Press/Press staff report

Wednesday, 07 March 2007

... But not the kind commuters want to see as work progresses to widen I-205.

The next phase of work on Interstate 205 will cause more road closures than usual as construction crews build over Tracy’s main roadways.

Troy Bowers, spokesman for Caltrans’ Stockton office, said this is the week that the contractor, C.C. Meyers of Berkeley, will install the precast concrete girders that will hold up two new lanes in the middle of the freeway.

Girders are already in place at the Corral Hollow Road underpass, and on Tuesday, construction crews had cranes out at Tracy Boulevard ready to lower girders into the recently completed concrete bases. Work is also under way at MacArthur Drive to prepare that underpass for the expanded bridge.

Caltrans expects this work to continue through Thursday night, and since traffic delays are inevitable, crews will do nearly all the work at night. The main part of the work begins at 9 p.m. and ends at 6 a.m. There will also be work done on local on- and off-ramps, which will start at 7 p.m. each night.

Caltrans expects that construction crews will have to close lanes on the freeway and on Tracy’s main streets while construction is under way. In addition to traffic being reduced to single lanes, there will also be complete road closures of about 15 minutes at a time and some ramp closures.

Bowers said that the asphalt overlays on the westbound lanes are complete. C.C. Meyers will create similar overlays during the next several months on the eastbound lanes. That work is expected to be completed in August.

Another lane will be built on the center median in each direction, and Bowers said excavation for those lanes will begin in April. The bridge work, 22 structures in all, will continue through May of next year.

Caltrans expects the $103 million project to be completed by the end of 2009.

[Reminiscence]

Originally Posted by BTinSF

I think this is more pandering and just ridiculous. Even though I'd do away with them, I suppose discounts for school age kids can be justified on the basis that kids riding muni (where they cause havoc for an hour or so in the afternoon) saves the city money on school busses. But beyond that every age group has it's reasons why it should get a dsicount. Why not discounts for breadwinners? How about working moms? City employees? "First responders"? It's both easy and fun to hand out money from the Muni budget.

Kids do cause quite a riot, as I found out daily when I was in high school not too long ago. I also think its safe to say that to a certain extent, they're responsible for a lot of the vandalization and clean up costs that occur. I do support making it cheaper to ride public transportaion in an effort to increase ridership, but I always wonder how much money these guys think they have. I certainly dont approve of wasting money we dont have and misusing what we do have, which is what I think goes on at times.

[BTinSF]

All this stuff about the money and the plan is interesting, but what really caught my eye is the bit I boldfaced about CLOSING the Bay Bridge. Anybody who lived in the Bay Area in 1989 remembers what life was like with no Bay Bridge. It was nasty. This is a big deal.

BAY AREA
Bay Bridge cost up $140 million
Yerba Buena Island projects are adding to total, officials say

Michael Cabanatuan, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, March 8, 2007

Construction of the new Bay Bridge will cost $140 million more than anticipated, officials said Wednesday, but that increase could prevent more costly and frustrating delays that have become synonymous with the project.

Caltrans and Bay Area Toll Authority officials said Wednesday that work on Yerba Buena Island -- including construction of a temporary detour and a connection from the new eastern span to the island's tunnels -- will cost more than planned. That's due to rising costs of materials and construction, changes in construction schedules, an effort to shorten the duration of a detour, and a decision to rebuild rather than retrofit the elevated roadway just east of the tunnels.

The projected cost increase will come out of a $900 million contingency fund included in the bridge's $6.3 billion construction budget.

The decision to rebuild will also require a closure of the Bay Bridge sometime this year for construction of the permanent viaduct. Officials are still discussing when the closure should be scheduled and how long it would last.

"These are good business decisions to make the project better,'' said Rod McMillan, director of bridge oversight and operations for the authority.

Bridge officials said the changes should increase the safety of both the permanent link to the tunnel and the temporary detour, which will carry traffic between Yerba Buena Island and the existing bridge for three years.

While the temporary and permanent links to Yerba Buena Island aren't as flashy or noticeable as the single-tower suspension span or the concrete skyway, the section of the project is key to keeping traffic flowing across the bridge and to keeping construction on schedule.

"These are really critical pieces for how the bridge is constructed,'' said Tony Anziano, Caltrans' toll bridge program manager.

Building the link to Yerba Buena Island involves three big steps:

-- Rebuilding the Yerba Buena Island viaduct, the 360-foot elevated stretch just east of the tunnels. Caltrans' original plans called for it to be strengthened but officials decided that replacing it would improve safety. The work is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year.

-- Detouring traffic onto a temporary, two-level structure that loops to the south around the current connection to the Yerba Buena tunnels. The detour structure itself is under construction and expected to be finished by the end of the year. Tie-ins to the temporary viaduct on the east and west are scheduled to be completed in 2009, and traffic would flow across it beginning in late 2009 until construction of the new approach is completed in 2012 or 2013.

Changes in the construction schedule will raise costs but avoid putting drivers on the detour structure earlier. The detour will require drivers to veer south and slow to 45 mph or less. The current speed limit on the bridge is 45 mph.

"One of the worst things you can do is put people on a detour longer than necessary,'' said Randy Rentschler, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

-- Constructing new connections between the skyway and Yerba Buena Island. Bridge officials chose to start building the foundations for the new elevated structure earlier than planned to prevent problems, which often occur in foundation work, from causing costly delays.

"Even if it costs us up front,'' McMillan said, "it may end up saving us money.''

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/08/BAYBRIDGE.TMP

[mthd]

Originally Posted by BTinSF

All this stuff about the money and the plan is interesting, but what really caught my eye is the bit I boldfaced about CLOSING the Bay Bridge. Anybody who lived in the Bay Area in 1989 remembers what life was like with no Bay Bridge. It was nasty. This is a big deal.

i saw that too, and wondered what exactly they mean. i would bet it'll be friday midnight through monday 5am or something. should be interesting. i wasn't riding bart in '89 but i can only imagine how crowded the commute direction trains in the transbay tube would be w/o the bay bridge :o

[Reminiscence]

I've been a resident of the Bay Area my whole life, and while I was too young to remember what the 89' earthquake was like, I've heard stories from my parents, who were rather lucky to miss being stuck on the lower deck right after the quake by around 20 minutes. They've been commuting back and forth between San Pablo and San Francisco everyday for around 20 years now, and told me how much of a headache commute turned out to be. I would say that mthd has it right, it would make sense to close the bridge during the weekend to avoid the weekday commuters as much as possible. I can already see how much of a problem this is going to be, but I wonder if it will be anything compared to a few years from now, when they make the transition from the temporary structures to the final completed bridge.

[BTinSF]

Originally Posted by mthd

i saw that too, and wondered what exactly they mean. i would bet it'll be friday midnight through monday 5am or something. should be interesting. i wasn't riding bart in '89 but i can only imagine how crowded the commute direction trains in the transbay tube would be w/o the bay bridge :o

You think they can rebuild the tunnel ramps in a weekend?

Anyway, the good news is that in 1989 they really increased ferry service to the East Bay temporarily. I think we even borrowed a ferry or two from Seattle. I took the ferry over there several times during the month or so the bridge was out (until I get real sick from drinking the water too soon after the quake--think I had cryptosporidiosis).

They also ran 24 hour BART service.

The problem with BART, of course, is that it doesn't go everywhere. It will be a more satisfactory solution for East Bay riders coming into the city than for city-dweller wanting to go, say, to Ikea in Emeryville.

[BTinSF]

Originally Posted by Reminisence

I've been a resident of the Bay Area my whole life, and while I was too young to remember what the 89' earthquake was like, I've heard stories from my parents, who were rather lucky to miss being stuck on the lower deck right after the quake by around 20 minutes.

Me too. I was working at the Naval Supply Center on the Oakland waterfront and took the "Cypress Structure" and the Bay Bridge home. Usually I got off just about 5 PM and would have been on the Cypress around 5:04 I'm sure, but I left early to be home in time to watch the World Series game.

[Reminiscence]

Originally Posted by BTinSF

Me too. I was working at the Naval Supply Center on the Oakland waterfront and took the "Cypress Structure" and the Bay Bridge home. Usually I got off just about 5 PM and would have been on the Cypress around 5:04 I'm sure, but I left early to be home in time to watch the World Series game.

Oh man, the Cypress Street Viaduct, what a mess that turned out to be. Soil liquefaction I understand magnified the disaster, and is a major danger facing some present day Bay Area freeways. After all this, it makes us appreciate our baseball teams even more than we already do

With the recent "modifications", I wonder if the timescale for completion of the project has shortened by a few months. I could imagine the closures to last much longer than anticipated, due to the magnitude of the task. Because there is a huge amount of people who simply wont let go of their cars, maybe next time in addition to borrowing more ferries from Seattle, we could emphasize the car-carrying ferry system used in Vancouver-Victoria, BC, from Oakland to SF?