The 2008 election is over. Barack Obama is President. I was reelected to the BART Board; as of Sunday, I received 79,897 votes, with a winning percentage of 84.38%. I am humbled by the show of support, and will do my very best to represent my city well on the BART Board.
Things are quite different from when I filed for election in August. Then, gasoline cost $4 per gallon, and BART’s surging ridership, and the need it creates to invest in capacity – more trains, reconfigured rail cars and stations, new train control systems, etc – looked like our biggest challenge. We knew it was going to be tough; state aid, important for transit capital investments and funding operations, was being slashed, and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission proposes spending $6 billion to expand highways over the next 30 years, with nothing for to transit capacity, and huge shortfalls for transit maintenance and replacement.
Since then, the financial crisis unfolded, oil prices and gasoline prices dropped, and ridership began to level off, although it is still at historic highs. The state budget was worse than we imagined; BART received $41 million less than it should have under voter-approved transportation funding formulas. Sales tax receipts, which are BART’s second-largest source of operating revenue, are disappointing, and the current quarter looks bearish. Belt-tightening is inevitable in the short term, and BART is holding off starting some capital projects until the financial dust settles.
Financial austerity can generate creativity. The current crisis is emboldening some BART staff to think more clearly about productivity and effectiveness, and to more openly question BART’s historic subsidies for station parking, which are socially and environmentally regressive and make no business sense. Sustainability initiatives that save energy and resources also save money, and BART has an opportunity invest one-time funds from California’s 2006 infrastructure bond towards projects that provide clear benefits to riders, improve station safety, accessibility, wayfinding, comfort, and appearance, and save us money, energy, and materials over the long run.
Things look a bit brighter in the medium term. Voters approved Proposition 1A, a bond to create a statewide high speed rail system for California.
I was invited to a press conference with High Speed Rail Authority chair Quentin Kopp, Senator Diane Feinstein, and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi on Friday before the election. Judge Kopp remarked that San Francisco’s magnificent bridges – The Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate – were built during the Great Depression. Infrastructure projects provide an economic stimulus in lean times, and there is much talk in Washington and even locally of big public works programs to create jobs and support the local economy. The view of the Bay Bridge out the window of the law firm where the press conference was being held got me thinking beyond the near-term imperative of economic stimulus, and towards the long-term; building the bridges created jobs, but they are also objects of great beauty and enduring utility.
High Speed trains between San Francisco’s Transbay Terminal and Los Angeles’ Union Station are probably a decade away, but Californians will begin to see tangible benefits much sooner. Bond funds or the federal grants they leverage can close the funding gap for electrifying Caltrain and extending it to Downtown’s Transbay Terminal. Electrification and the Transbay Terminal will serve high-speed service, but also provide world-class regional metro service between San Francisco and San Jose.
The bond allocates $950 million to existing intercity, commuter, heavy, and light rail systems across the state to improve connectivity to High Speed Rail and to rehabilitate, upgrade, or add capacity. Under the bond’s funding formula, BART may receive around $280 million, and Muni $60 million. This will help BART fund rehabilitation and capacity needs, and can help Muni address the capital needs of its overcrowded and unreliable light rail network – provided Muni invests in the urgent needs of its existing system, and doesn’t dump the money into its flawed Central Subway project.
Finally, it looks as though Measure B in Santa Clara County is failing narrowly. The vote is quite close, and may not be settled definitively for days or weeks. What is encouraging is that some proponents are acknowledging, cautiously, that the project may need to be built in two phases, while opponents are also acknowledging that a first phase, continuing BART’s planned Warm Springs extension south of Fremont to connect with VTA’s light rail in Milpitas, and perhaps continuing to Beryessa in San Jose, may be a reasonable compromise. This first phase extension is relatively low-cost (for a BART extension – a big caveat), and connects BART to the Silicon Valley’s job-rich “Innovation Triangle”, via the Tasman light rail line. Currently committed funds can cover this first phase without looting other worthwhile projects in the county and across the region.