Transit woes in Marin---and SF
Richard Hall cites the Santa Rosa Press Democrat on the SMART train:
...SMART’s average rider is 46 years old, lives in a household of three, earns $97,300 a year and has the option to drive but instead chooses to take the train. The majority of participants in two online SMART surveys and an in-person sampling conducted by the Bay Area’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission, identified as white (77 percent) and English speakers (95 percent)...
Just 15 percent of riders classified themselves as Hispanic, with 4 percent citing Spanish as their native tongue. As of July 2017, Sonoma County’s Latino population was estimated at 27 percent compared to 16 percent in Marin, according to the United States Census Bureau.
Hall's comment:
So we are using scarce transportation dollars to provide an alternative to wealthy non-minorities who already can afford to drive---this should be right at the bottom of our list of transportation priorities. There are many surveys showing that access to a car makes an immense difference to those on low incomes---enabling them to travel to get to a job, and to get there reliably and on time.
Hall on Marin's election results:
...74.70% of voters obediently voted yes to Measure AA which opened with this claim: "In order to relieve traffic congestion on Highway 101 and local roads..." By far the majority of the proceeds, 55%, will be spent on Marin Transit that provides local bus service within Marin County. These buses are apparently the silver bullet deserving the majority of our funding to relieve traffic.
But how many voters when voting knew that this would be the claimed solution, and that Marin Transit buses according to officially reported Department of Transportation data carry an average of just 4 riders?...Marin Transit is running giant buses with a capacity of 30+ riders, but most of the time carrying just 4 riders on average according to the data...(emphasis added).
Rob's comment:
San Francisco's Muni system has the same problem: giant buses that are well-used during commute hours and mostly empty the rest of the day and night. What about a fleet of jitney-sized buses to plug in during off-hours?
One of the glaring examples in San Francisco: Muni's #37 Corbett line, on which I've never seen more than two passengers. Why not run a much smaller jitney-sized vehicle?
Hall is right that working people need cars. See the Urban Institute's 2014 study: Driving to Opportunity.
Labels: Marin, Muni Jihad Ads, Rail Projects, SMART train
posted by Rob Anderson @ 2:57 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
"...has the option to drive but instead chooses to take the train..." I thought that's what we want--keep people out of cars, regardless of what their capability to pay is. But what would be fairer, would be to institute--if they don't already have it--a Clipper Card discount for those of lower incomes--similar to SFMTA's senior/schoolkid, etc. discounts or free option.
If you don't build it they won't have a chance to come to it. Yes--SMART needs to be extended and seamlessly integrated with Marin/Golden Gate Transit (which incidentally have incredibly old buses--how do they do it and are their emissions within legal limits?)
Train lines are backbones and are meant to connect riders with a second mode of transit; and then hopefully more affordable housing is built at those junctures.
Probably no transit system in the world is self-sustaining and needs to be heavily subsidized. Make it clean, affordable, run on time, give it the right of way and people will find it an attractive alternative to sitting in traffic and bleeding $$ on your car maintenance and gas in stop 'n go traffic. Why you can even read a newspaper (hah!) For U.S. urban areas why can't we do it the way that Europeans do it in similarly populated areas (well, gas is a lot more expensive there for one thing).
Yes, jitney-sized can be more efficient, assuming that when the ridership increases you can revert to full-size buses. The 37 Corbett has always been a smaller-sized bus. And "2 passengers" at a time does not mean that only 2 people are taking it in the course of a run. Unfortunately, the topography of SF dictates that some residents live on hills that are not easily accessible to the commercial corridors (with red lanes, yes!) and MUNI transfer points.
Support MUNI by taking it; use the NextBus app and get some exercise by actually walking to a bus stop instead of strolling outside your door; nervously checking for which Uber is yours and then making your way to the flashing-lights-stop-in-the-middle-of-the-street-holding-up-traffic-behind-it-and-then(driver)-studying-app-for-next-ride-forcing-2-lanes-into-1-lane-idiocy.
Yes, of course all public transit has to be subsidized. The problem with both the SMART system and the high-speed rail project: the cost is way out of proportion to any possible public benefit those projects can provide.
Supporters of such projects---especially rail projects---deliberately exaggerate the benefits and downplay actual costs to get them started. Once started good money must be thrown after bad to avoid---wait for it---wasting the original investment!
See Megaprojects and Risk:
"Cost underestimation and overrun cannot be explained by error and seem to be best explained by strategic misrepresentation, namely lying, with a view to getting projects started" (page 16).
Coincidentally, today's LA Times has an excellent story on the big problems with the dumb high-speed rail project: Bullet train brings heavy baggage. It even quotes one of the authors of Megaprojects and Risk.
It will be entertaining to watch Governor Newsom try to save this financially ruinous project, which is supported by an important part of the Democratic Party's base: construction unions.
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