Casey Miner

(San Francisco – Casey Miner, KALW News) A huge inspiration for new transportation projects – and the Bay Area has a lot of big ones in the works right now – is efficiency. How much more efficient is the Oakland Airport Connector, the BRT or High Speed Rail going to be than what we have now?

As it turns out, the answer to that question isn’t as straightforward as you might think. When calculating travel times, planners don’t just calculate how long it actually takes to get from point A to point B. They calculate how long people think it takes. And people think it takes more than twice as long as it actually does.

(San Francisco–Casey Miner, KALW News) They've been threatening to do it for months, and now it looks as though it will actually happen: last night, the board of East Bay bus service AC Transit voted to cut four of six overnight lines and all but its most essential weekend lines by the end of the year. The agency has been unable to extract itself from its ongoing financial problems–right now it faces a $40 million deficit–and has long said that it would take drastic measures if the mechanics' and drivers' unions did not make concessions. For riders, this means things will go from bad to worse–-this is the third service cut this year. We'll have more on this in the coming weeks.

(San Francisco–Casey Miner, KALW News) Have a bumpy ride to work this morning? You’re not alone. A new report by TRIP, a national transportation research group, finds that the country’s road infrastructure is in terrible shape – and California’s is particularly bad.

Of the top 20 worst areas identified in the report, eight are in California, and three of those are in the Bay Area, including San Francisco/Oakland (counted together), San Jose and Concord.

Bad roads aren’t just uncomfortable; they’re also expensive. Nationally, substandard roads cost the average driver $400 a year over and above the normal cost of owning a car; in the Bay Area it’s more like $700-$750. With more than two-thirds of their roads in poor condition, San Jose drivers pay the most, but San Francisco/Oakland drivers aren’t far behind.

With the economy in its current condition, things aren’t likely to improve anytime soon: TRIP estimates that the state needs an extra $4 billion a year in road investment to keep them in shape. Nationally, it's $39 billion. For context, that's 80% of the Obama Administration's budget for its proposed infrastructure bank.

(San Francisco–Casey Miner, KALW News) A little after five o'clock, and you might find yourself on your way back home after a long day at work. How would you describe your commute? A drag? Hilly, boring, sweaty, tedious? Those are a few of the words people in our newsroom used to describe theirs.

But recently, we heard a man characterize his commute in this way: "Conditions: sunny and absolutely bluebird. Number of seals spotted: 8. Amount of road rage experienced: none. Number of waves surfed: about five."

Stephen Linaweaver paddles out from the South Beach Marina in San Francisco after work. Photo by Dan Suyeyasu of Oakland.

That’s how Stephen Linaweaver describes his daily commute to work crossing the San Francisco Bay in his kayak. And, as far as we know, Linaweaver is the only person to get to work this way. Want to hear what it's like out there? Listen to the full story at KALW News.

(San Francisco–Casey Miner, KALW News) How much do you value your time? That’s the question drivers will have to ask themselves if they hit heavy traffic on I-680 next week: do they want to wait it out, for free, or zip into an open lane that might cost $6 or more to use? Beginning next Monday, a 14-mile stretch of I-680 between Sunol and Milpitas will have a new traffic lane that accepts both carpools (which ride free) and single drivers (who will have to pay).

The I-680 project is a pilot for what officials say will someday be an 800-mile network of high-occupancy/toll lanes (HOT lanes) around the Bay. The lanes are new to this area, but they’ve been around for years in several cities around the country; the first such lanes opened in 1995 down in Orange County. Though there’s some regional variation to how they work, HOT lanes are based on the idea that placing a value on the ability to avoid congestion lightens the traffic load for everybody. Those who are willing to pay, do, but enough people don’t that traffic in the lane always moves freely.

The pay-to-play structure means that the lanes are often derided as “Lexus Lanes” that make things a little cushier for the wealthy while unfairly penalizing the poor. Unfortunately, there’s not much empirical research on whether this is true, and what studies there have been show conflicting results.

(San Francisco—Casey Miner, KALW News) If you had to get the Oakland Airport, and fast, would you rather ride a train or take a bus?

What if the train cost twice as much as the bus? Then again, what if the bus took longer?

These are the questions addressed in a new study evaluating the relative costs and benefits of several alternatives to the battered Oakland Airport Connector project.

Advocates at the nonprofit TransForm, which opposes the OAC, asked national transit firm Kittelson & Associates, Inc. to study bus alternatives to the connector and determine whether they would be feasible or cost-effective. The full study is available online, but here’s a quick summary of the options:

(San Francisco—Casey Miner, KALW News) It's been downright sweltering in the Bay Area over the past few days, and here at KALW News we’ve been enjoying the sudden summer weather by taking our laptops outside. But the heat hasn’t been so kind to everyone.  Both BART and Caltrain are experiencing heat-related equipment malfunctions that have led to long delays: computer failures on BART forced conductors to operate trains manually on Tuesday, while Caltrain cars had to slow down significantly due to “heat restrictions” on speed. From the San Jose Mercury News article on what happened:

“On the Caltrain tracks, trains were being slowed down from their top speed of 79 mph, according to a release from spokeswoman Christine Dunn, who explained that in extreme heat, tracks become soft and can be damaged by the weight of the train.”

Tracks going soft in the heat? Sounds kind of dangerous, right?

(San Francisco, CA - Casey Miner, KALW News)  It was nearly a year ago that local transportation advocates filed a complaint against BART, alleging that the agency had not complied with federal civil rights legislation when making plans for the Oakland Airport Connector. The Federal Transit Administration agreed, and BART lost $70 million in stimulus funding as a result.

Now, it’s not just BART that’s under scrutiny. BART gets its federal funding via the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the regional body that doles out state and federal funds for transportation projects, and they’re on the feds’ radar as well. Last February, the FTA asked MTC to prove that it had procedures in place to make sure everyone who got money was complying with federal law.

You can read the back and forth on the Public Advocates website (the local group that filed the original complaint), but the gist of it is this:

(San Francisco, Casey Miner, KALW) It wasn't so long ago that carpooling on the Bay Area's bridges was free. Alas, those days are no more. As of July 1, tolls rose on all Bay Area bridges. Carpooling now costs $2.50; the regular toll is $6 (up from $4). It's an experiment with congestion pricing: Local transit officials are betting they can reduce traffic by making it more expensive to drive during the most crowded times of day.

The data is still coming in, but so far the plan seems to be working. On the Bay Bridge, rush hour delays have fallen by nearly half. There have been some other interesting results as well—for example, 12,000 fewer cars drove through the carpool lanes last month.

So where did all those commuters go? More this evening, on KALW News' Crosscurrents.

(San Francisco—Casey Miner, KALW News) First things first: the California High-Speed Rail Authority didn't actually decide anything significant at its monthly meeting yesterday. The board voted unanimously to follow its staff's recommendations about two big sections of the project, Fresno-Merced and San Francisco-San Jose. But those recommendations were merely that staff continue to study the available options for building the rail tracks through those areas.

Those options, though, stirred up a whole lot of controversy. Mayors, councilpeople, assemblymen, activists and concerned citizens packed the auditorium to the point where it was standing-room only for most of the meeting, which began at 9am and lasted well into the afternoon.

At issue was the proposed structure of the train down the Peninsula from San Fransisco to San Jose.

(San Francisco - Casey Miner, KALW) Most public transportation news isn't good news these days—shrinking budgets have led to service cuts and fare increases all over the country, and the San Francisco Bay Area is no exception. We reported last week on how AC Transit, the East Bay's bus service, has been particularly hard-hit. But across the bay in San Francisco it's a totally different story. Last month, Muni officials said that they'd managed to cobble together enough money from city and regional transportation bodies to restore about half of the service cuts they'd made in May. Yesterday, they announced that they have a plan to roll back nearly two-thirds of the cuts.

Muni is in a somewhat unique position because a significant chunk of its budget comes from San Francisco County, and officials have a great deal of discretion to move money around. But Muni has also fought for cash—the agency approached the Metropolitan Transportation Commission for a special allocation to help cover operating costs, a request which ultimately was granted.

(Casey Miner, KALW)  It's been a rough few months for public transit in the San Francisco Bay Area -- it seems like every few weeks there's news about fares going up or service going down. AC Transit, the bus service that is the East Bay counterpart to San Francisco's Muni, has been particularly hard-hit. Though the bus service only has about 236,000 weekday riders, compared to close to 700,000 on Muni, it serves an area that is much more geographically spread out. If you don't drive in the East Bay, AC Transit is a vital service.

The problems that arise when the bus service goes awry have been particularly visible this week. More than 200 drivers have called in sick every day, in protest of a new contract the bus agency imposed on their union. The result has been hour-plus waits for many buses, even on the busiest lines. Earlier this week, twelve transbay runs (from San Francisco to the East Bay) were canceled altogether, leaving evening commuters scrambling for a way to get home.

So this last week has been bad, but things have been getting worse for AC Transit passengers for months. In March, the agency cut about eight percent of its service – shortening hours, switching and combining some lines, and cutting some routes altogether. They’re doing it to save money, but the budget situation hasn’t gotten any better, so they’re making another round of cuts next month.

So just what happens when a bus line disappears? (more)

(Oakland, California - Casey Miner, KALW News)  After a marathon hearing today at which more than 20 people spoke, the BART board gave its final approval to the Oakland Airport Connector project, pending a guarantee of funds from the Port of Oakland. The project stalled earlier this year when it ran afoul of federal civil rights statues and lost $70 million in stimulus money, but roared back to life a month ago when BART found a way to fund the project without stimulus dollars.

Advocates say the 3.2-mile elevated connector will make reaching the Oakland Airport faster, easier, and more convenient than the current AirBART bus which shuttles passengers back and forth between the airport and the Coliseum BART station. In the best-case scenario, they promise thousands of new jobs for Oakland residents and as much as a 40% increase in ridership on the BART system.

But today's hearing offered little solace to those with persistent concerns about the project

Tolbooth at the Bay Bridge. Photo by Casey Miner

(Casey Miner, KALW) After months of preparation and public service announcements, on Thursday morning Caltrans and the Bay Area Toll Authority officially debuted congestion pricing on the Bay Area’s bridges. The system, used in several cities around the world but relatively new to the US, sets prices at different levels based on the volume of traffic, rather than a flat rate across the board.

Tolls on all but one of the region’s seven bridges rose to $5; on the Bay Bridge, the toll during peak commute hours – 5am-10am and 3pm-7pm – went to $6. The extra revenue will be used to pay for seismic retrofits on the Antioch and Dumbarton bridges.

It’s a major change, and one that’s required a good deal of planning.