The Rhetoric of Transit Planning

A great deal of transportation planning is based in rhetoric–BART to SFO sounds good, BART to San Jose sounds logical, the Oakland Airport Connector sounds necessary.  Too often, good projects don’t gain any momentum because they just don’t sound interesting enough to BART’s suburban constituency–a 30th & Mission sounds completely random and unnecessary when BART already has two other stations with “& Mission” in it.  In the comments on my last post, Mike Fogel brought up an interesting idea of rebranding BART projects to sound more attractive to suburbanites

BART’s suburban majority will keep focusing on projects that serve the suburbs… if they don’t they’ll just be voted out and replaced by someone who will.

But, that doesn’t mean that all urban projects are necessarily out. They just needed to be billed in a light that’s more attractive to the suburban BART rider/voter.

So, when we talk about expanding BART in the urban areas we should talk about it in terms of what it would provide as a destination of a trip rather than as a source. For example, rather than ‘BART on geary’, how about ‘BART to golden gate park!’ Or not ‘a second transbay tube’ but rather ‘BART to the ball park’. etc.

Expanding upon this idea, below are some potential rebrandings for good but boring projects to increase their suburban appeal, accompanied by the reactions of an average suburbanite:

Geary BART: “Sounds boring.  Isn’t Geary near all the drug addicts in the Tenderloin? No way, give us BART to Tracy!!!”

BART to Golden Gate Park: “OMG that would be so great! I never go to Golden Gate Park on weekends because it takes me two hours to drive there, but now I can just hop on in Lafayette and be there in no time! DeYoung here I come!”

San Antonio Station: “Where is San Antonio? Texas? Oh it’s in Oakland? Sounds like a place I wouldn’t want to go, since it’s not the airport, the coliseum, or Emeryville.”

Estuary Station: “Ooooo sounds environmental! Will I get to see sea otters and whales?”

Albany Station: “Well, I guess.”

Solano Ave/Albany: “How North Berkeley! I’ve read about it in the Chronicle’s ‘Yuppie’ section!”

Caltrain: “Ew”

pBart: “BART’s on the Peninsula??? And they built it overnight for free??? Awesome!”

98th Ave Station: well… can’t really think of a way to dress this one up.

Can San Jose Really Handle 400,000 New Residents by 2035?

San Jose is projected to add 412,000 new residents by 2035.

ABAG recently released its new population growth estimates for the region, and not surprisingly, San Jose is projected to add the most people out of any city in the Bay Area over the next 25 years.  However, while San Jose’s low density and extensive land area makes it a logical place for infill growth, the amount that the city is slated to gain compared with other Bay Area cities–412,000 new residents, compared with 159,000 new residents in San Francisco and 141,000 new residents in Oakland–raises a bunch of red flags when you consider the current state and future prospects of San Jose’s transportation infrastructure.

There isn’t a whole lot of good things that you can currently say about transportation in and around San Jose.  VTA has put hundreds of millions into light rail over the past two or three decades (often at the expense of its bus system), yet its system is among the worst performing in the nation (its system-wide ridership is lower than many individual Muni lines).  Caltrain provides a decent but underdeveloped commuter service, but it’s primarily oriented toward the Peninsula and only two full-time stations in San Jose.  Capitol Corridor and ACE also provide intercity service, but their overall mode shares are very small.  Even driving doesn’t work that well–the vast majority of trips in San Jose are taken by car, causing gridlock to permeate throughout its extensive network of freeways, expressways, and boulevards.

So how do you turn a sprawling city into a transit-oriented metropolis? San Jose seems to think that Bart will completely transform the city, in spite of the project’s limited scope.  And, because of ballooning costs, the 6.2+ billion dollar extension will not even be completed until 2025 at the earliest.  As I’ve discussed before, VTA is placing all of its eggs in one basket with Bart to San Jose, coming at the expense of light rail and bus rapid transit projects that would tie together more of the city at a fraction of the cost.  Moreover, if/when Bart to San Jose doesn’t meet some of the extraordinary ridership projections that VTA has generated, and if/when Bart to San Jose doesn’t generate a surplus and actually causes VTA to lose tons of money as occurred to SamTrans in the SFO extension, VTA could be in big financial trouble for decades to come.  Even if Bart to San Jose works perfectly and I am completely proved wrong, San Jose will likely have already added 250,000 of the 412,000 new residents by 2025 anyway, with most of these additions occurring out of reach of the Bart line.

There is some hope.  High speed rail and Caltrain electrification will transform the area around Diridon and Taimen stations, and Downtown San Jose still has a lot of potential to become a vibrant dense urban environment.  In spite of financial woes with Bart to San Jose, VTA appears to remain comitted about implementing 30 miles of BRT on three major corridors in the next eight years, which will dramatically improve transit for a reasonable cost of $575 million (will these funds be subject to a Bart funding swap as occurred with Dumbarton Rail? We’ll see.).  In spite of these projects, San Jose is still essentially looking at adding another Oakland’s worth of population over the next 25 years.  Without a new comprehensive transit strategy that plans for widespread improvements across the city, San Jose could turn into a real mess.

Bay Area Transit Efficiency: How Bart, Caltrain, VTA Light Rail, and Muni Metro Stack Up

Over the past few decades, the Bay Area’s four major rail systems–Bart, Caltrain, Muni Metro, and VTA Light Rail–have competed for transit funding on the federal, state, and regional levels.  Overall, Bart and VTA have been the overwhelming winners with numerous new extensions, Muni Metro has received some improvements and one extension, and little has changed for Caltrain.  Yet, Caltrain will receive the most dramatic makeover in the next decade with grade separations and electrification from HSR.  How do these systems stack up against one another and their peers nationwide?  This post will attempt to come up with an answer.

Comparing Nationwide Transit Efficiency

Obviously there are many criteria to judge a rail system by, such as initial cost per passenger, initial cost per mile, farebox recovery, TOD impact, etc., but I will focus on one of the most telling metrics of the efficiency of a mass transit system: the ridership per mile of a given transit line.  Ridership per mile allows for easy comparisons between the ridership of like transit systems regardless of the size of a system–rather than just showing total ridership, it shows the ridership density on a given line or system.  Rapid transit (often subway) systems have the highest ridership per mile, since surrounding population density leads to a highly concentrated ridership base and justifies the higher capital costs.  Compact streetcar systems have the next highest ridership per mile, followed by more spread out light rail systems, and finally commuter rail systems.

Let’s take a look at some comparisons between rapid transit, light rail, commuter rail, and streetcar systems nationwide:

Rapid Transit Systems

System                                                 Ridership      Route Miles    Ridership per Mile
1    NYC Subway                                7,624,300              229                    33,294
2    PATH (NYC)                                   242,000               13.8                    17,572
3    SEPTA (Philadelphia)                 326,300                 25                      13,052
4    MBTA (Boston)                             470,200                38                       12,374
5    WMATA (Washington D.C.)      987,100             106.3                     9,286
6    Los Angeles Metro                       144,400              17.4                       8,299
7    Chicago ‘L’                                       622,400              107.5                    5,790
8    MARTA (Atlanta)                         254,800               47.6                      5,353
9    BART                                   363,100           104                  3,491
10    Baltimore Metro                           50,900              15.5                        3,284

What’s interesting here is that while Bart has the 5th highest ridership for nationwide rapid transit systems, its efficiency is only 9th as a result of its sprawling suburban lines, meaning for every one mile of rail for WMATA in Washinton D.C. or MBTA in Boston, Bart needs almost three and four miles, respectively.  Bart’s low ridership per mile also means that Bart extensions are generally not nearly as cost-effective as many of its peer systems.

Commuter Rail Systems

System                                                                 Ridership    Route Miles    Ridership per Mile
1    Metro-North Railroad (NYC)                   265,000              384                    690
2    Metra (Chicago)                                          316,000               495                    638
3    Long Island Railroad (NY)                     367,500              700                    511
4    Caltrain                                            39,100            77             508
5    SEPTA Regional Rail (Philadelphia)     118,600               291                   408
6    MBTA Commuter Rail (Boston)             149,900               368                   407
7    Trinity Railway (Dallas-Fort Worth)     10,000                 34                    294
8    New Jersey Rail                                           276,000               951                   290

So, while Caltrain’s ridership is noticeably lower than other commuter rail systems, it is still the (just barely) 4th most efficient system in the nation.  However, if you take away the 6 trains to Gilroy (which add 25 miles but only about 500 riders), Caltrain’s efficiency becomes 752 passengers per mile, making it the most efficient system in the nation.  Caltrain’s extremely high efficiency speaks to the fact that Caltrain operates more like a single light rail line than a sprawling commuter rail system (even though Caltrain has never had the capital investment that a light rail line would have).  Electrification, grade separations, TOD, and the Downtown SF extension should more than double Caltrain’s ridership by 2025, putting it on par with other light rail systems:

Light Rail Systems

System                                                        Ridership    Route Miles    Ridership per Mile
1    Boston                                                   222,400             25.4                     7,943

2  Muni Metro                                154,300        29               5,321

3    METRORail  (Houston)                     38,800               7.5                      5,173
4    Buffalo Metro Rail                               23,200               6.4                      3,625
5    Los Angeles Light Rail                     135,800             55.7                     2,438
6    MAX Light Rail (Portland)             103,500               44                       2,352
7    UTA TRAX (Salt Lake City)               43,200               19                       2,274
8    Hiawatha Line (Minneapolis)          26,500               12                       2,208
9    LYNX Rapid Transit (Charlotte)     19,700             9.6                       2,052
10    Denver RTD                                             68,800             35                      1,966
11    Newark Light Rail                               19,050             9.9                        1,924

24    VTA Light Rail                         37,500          42.2            780

Ironically, even with the millions of dollars invested into VTA’s Light Rail system, it is still just as efficient as Caltrain.  Muni Metro’s efficiency is extremely high, and could be higher if not for the routes which originally had light rail but were changed to buses back in the 1950s–the Geary and Mission corridors have 100,000+ daily riders (including adjacent lines), but are stuck with buses, while all Muni Metro lines (except the N-Judah) have less than 30,000 daily riders.  These lines were saved in the early postwar era because of their tunnel infrastructure (to travel to more suburban areas) while lines along Geary, Mission, and Columbus were scrapped.

Streetcar Systems

System                                                                    Ridership    Route Miles    Ridership per Mile

1    F Line (San Francisco)                   20,000          5.1               3,884
2    Portland Streetcar                                           12,000              3.9                     3,000
3    Tacoma Link                                                         3,100              1.6                      1,938
4    South Lake Union Streetcar (Seattle)         1,780              1.3                     1,369

5    RTA Streetcar (New Orleans)                      13,900             21.5                    647

6   TECO Line Streetcar System (Tampa)         1,082              2.3                     470

Comparing Transit Efficiency in the Bay Area

So we’ve got that Caltrain is very efficient for a commuter rail system, Muni Metro and Bart are mediocre, and VTA light rail is pretty bad.  But, the biggest variable in this analysis is cost–Bart costs more than more than Muni Metro, which costs more than VTA Light Rail, which costs more than Caltrain.  Would it be possible to eliminate cost as a variable?  Here are some estimates of cost per mile for some recent and future projects to get a feel for what it would cost to build a brand new line in each of the four systems:

Project                                          Length               Cost            Cost per Mile

Bart to San Jose                            21              $7 billion       $333 million

T-Third Muni Metro Line         5.1           $648 million     $127 million

VTA extensions*                        15.6             $334 million    $69 million

Caltrain Upgrades**                  53.2         $3.378 billion    $63.5 million

*Vasona, Capitol, Tasman East, Capitol Expy extensions

**To be shared about evenly with HSR, which applied for $1.647 billion worth of HSR stimulus funds.  Caltrain’s share could be viewed as $1.731 billion, or $32.5 million per mile.

Now, here’s where the calculations get a little shaky, and highly theoretical.  Let’s establish an arbitrary base cost of $100 million per mile, and adjust ridership for each of the four systems accordingly.

(Base cost per mile/actual cost per mile) x (riders per mile)=adjusted riders per mile

Bart: (100/333) x (3491)=1048.3

Muni Metro: (100/127) x (5321)=4190

VTA Light Rail: (100/69) x (780)=1130.4

Caltrain: (100/63.5) x (752)=1184

Before I discuss what thse calculations mean, there are many ways in which this analysis comes waaaay short:

1. Different types of projects: I am comparing apples to oranges with some new future ROW aquisitions (Bart), existing past ROW but new rail (Muni Metro and VTA Light Rail), heavy future modifications with some ROW aquisition (Caltrain), future subway vs. past surface costs (some for Bart and Caltrain vs. hardly none for VTA and Muni), and different years of completion (all).

2. Ridership impact: the T-Third line and three of the four VTA lines have already had their ridership impact.  While these new lines are more or less consistent overall with the system’s ridership per mile, new ridership from Caltrain’s improvements has not even been factored in (as I’ve said, likely doubling ridership and perhaps putting the adjusted figure in the 2300s, and assuming half the cost goes to HSR puts the adjusted figure in the 4600s!).  While Bart to San Jose’s ridership numbers are questionable, either way both the system impact and the impact of the individual line wouldn’t affect Bart’s numbers very much.

3. Frequency of trains: Of the four systems here, Caltrain is currently at a major disadvantage when it comes to frequency of trains, which has a significant impact on ridership.  Systems with greater frequency hands down get more riders.

4. Operating cost: this analysis ignores operating cost, which for rail systems is fairly low compared to initial capital costs, but can add up over time.

Is this post just a bunch of wild estimates and speculations? Yes, but I think this is about as good of a comparison as is possible under a multitude of constraints.

So what on earth can this comparison tell us?  Well, in spite of the murky details, it appears that Muni Metro blows other Bay Area transit agencies away when it comes to cost-effectiveness, and Caltrain will probably be on par with Muni Metro’s efficiency within the next decade.  VTA Light Rail and Bart are the least efficient systems in the Bay Area for their price (only 1/4th as efficient as Muni Metr0) and therefore are using inappropriate transit modes for the ridership needs.  Nationwide, Muni Metro is extraordinary, and Caltrain performs extremely well for a commuter rail system.  Investments in the next ten years will put Caltrain on par with many light rail systems at a fraction of the cost.  Bart performs poorly nationwide compared with its peers, and spends a lot more money to get its riders than other rapid transit systems as well as other rail systems in the Bay Area.  This means that for Bart to become more efficient, it must look at improving station capacity (such as the horrible configurations at the 16th & Mission and 24th & Mission stations) and infill stations (30th & Mission, San Antonio, and Albany)  rather than the fringe eBart and Livermore extensions and the questionable and very costly San Jose extension (please check out Bart Boardmember and Livable City Executive Director Tom Radulovich’s article for more on improving transit sustainability).

Caltrain Makes the Right Decision

Today it was announced that Caltrain will neither cut weekend service nor raise fares as a means to make up their 10.1 million dollar deficit.  Caltrain will raise GoPass prices, cut midday service to hourly, and increase parking fees instead.  While this represents only a temporary fix, these decisons are great news for Peninsula transit.  While I question the fiscal responsibility of preserving Gilroy commuter service (less than 1% of total ridership while increasing mileage and fuel costs 50%), Caltrain will continue to provide much needed transit access to Peninsula and South Bay residents on weekends and for special events (like Giants games).

Caltrain remains woefully underfunded and desperately in need of a stable source of income (like sales tax revenue, which Bart and many other agencies have), but things could have been much worse.

Where is the Public Transit Bailout?

One of the hardest hit Bay Area transit agencies, Caltrain will likely declare a fiscal emergency to cover its 10 million dollar shortfall

Public transit agencies across the country are being hit extremely hard by the economic downturn, especially at a time when ridership is at an all-time high.  Here in the Bay Area, the problem is compounded by the loss of 55 million dollars of State Transit Assistance funds in the California state budget.  As a result, every single agency faces massive shortfalls, with Muni, Bart, AC Transit, VTA, and others raising fares and cutting service to cover million dollar deficits.  In fact, Caltrain will likely become the first agency to declare a fiscal emergency, allowing it to cut service and raise fares without an environmental review.

With 85 agencies cutting service, this is the beginning of a nationwide crisis.  Yet, while the federal government has given the automobile industry 17+ billion with the potential for more in the future, public transit has recieved nothing.  Nobody has put a figure to the shortfall, but I’d speculate that if you provided funds to cover one years worth of a shortfall, it would be around one billion.

Maybe its just me, but one billion for a years worth of support to agencies which reduce our emissions and oil use, provide mobility for millions of carless Americans, and help foster more livable communities sounds a lot better than 17 billion for a couple month toward an industry which has gone out of its way to perpetuate our dependence on oil and has provided no practical means to become a viable company geared toward the public interest.  One thing is for sure: the 2009-2010 fiscal year will be one of the toughest for public transit agencies in recent memory.

Public transit agencies across the country are being hit extremely hard by the economic downturn, especially at a time when ridership is at an all-time high.  Here in the Bay Area, the problem is compounded by the loss of 55 million dollars of State Transit Assistance funds in the California state budget.  As a result, every single agency faces massive shortfalls, with Muni, Bart, AC Transit, VTA, and others raising fares and cutting service to cover million dollar deficits.  In fact, Caltrain just became the first agency to declare a fiscal emergency, allowing it to cut service and raise fares without an environmental review.

With 85 agencies cutting service, this is the beginning of a nationwide crisis.  Yet, while the federal government has given the automobile industry 17+ billion with the potential for more in the future, public transit has recieved nothing.  Nobody has put a figure to the shortfall, but I’d speculate that if you provided funds to cover one years worth of a shortfall, it would be less than one billion.