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Planning transportation around the Capitol

Published: April 25, 2012 | 1 Comment

By Jenn Walker

Sacramento freeways are notorious for traffic during rush hour. Not only is the capitol region flanked by two major rivers, cutting off potential access routes in and out of the area, but its suburbs are expanding at a rapid rate. But help may soon be on the way.

Sacramento’s metropolitan planning organization, the Sacramento Area Council of Governments, or SACOG, unanimously adopted a 313-page, $35 billion transportation and development plan last week to remedy such issues within the six-county region.

The council must produce a transportation plan every four years. However, the Metropolitan Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy for 2035 is the first to include a Sustainable Communities Strategy in adherence to Senate Bill 375, legislation that seeks to integrate transportation planning with the state’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

This graph shows the number of congested miles driven per person per day in the Sacramento region currently and projected under previous metropolitan transportation plans. The lowest line is projected congestion under the latest plan.

The objective of this plan, council CEO Mike McKeever says, is to reduce traffic congestion while increasing transit accessibility and optimizing transportation funding.

A key feature of the plan is promoting mixed-use neighborhoods, locating shopping centers, homes, schools and jobs close together. The assumption is that closer proximity decreases travel time in the car, or the need to use a car altogether, resulting in less vehicle emissions and better air quality.

As obvious as this may seem, planners have advised the exact opposite in the last 60-plus years, McKeever says.

In 2010, the California Air Resources Board set greenhouse gas reduction targets for the Sacramento region that require a nine percent per capita reduction by 2020 and 16 percent per capita reduction by 2035. The plan is expected to meet these air quality standards.

With more alternatives to driving, this should also lower the number of cars on the road.

“Most people say sitting in heavy congestion is the lowest, most hated human activity that they have to experience,” McKeever says. “So we think that there is a quality of life benefit, as well as an economic and air quality benefit, to just giving people back more time in their daily life to presumably spend time at home with their families, or recreate in some way that’s more pleasurable than sitting in your car.”

According to the plan, the area’s current population of 2.3 million will increase by roughly 39 percent in the next 23 years, and the number of commuters in the area will increase more than threefold.

To help absorb that increase, the plan allocates about $7.4 billion to widen roads and create additional river crossings.

Currently, downtown Sacramento is difficult to access, enclosed by the Sacramento River to the west and the American River to the north. To increase accessibility, the plan proposes three new bridges. Two bridges will cross the Sacramento River and one will cross the American River, creating three more entries and exits in and out of the area.

The plan allots another $11.5 billion to maintain the region’s 22,000 lane miles of existing streets and 5,000-plus lane miles of freeways and expressways. As McKeever explains, the plan applies the fix-it-first approach whenever possible.

Some transportation improvements mean simply providing connections between two places. Currently, a 60-acre infill project is separated from Sacramento City College by seven major rail tracks. The plan proposes building a pedestrian bridge over the tracks to connect the neighborhood to the college.

Poor connectivity is a common problem in the region’s transit system, McKeever says.

“It’s literally thousands of little tiny investments like that, that when you add them all up, suddenly you’ve made transit far more convenient for people without them having to move their house or move the train station,” he says. “You’ve just made it easier for them to actually get to the train station.”

Approximately $2.8 billion will apply to bicycle and pedestrian improvements like these, in addition to about a $600 million chunk of the road and rehabilitation budget.

The plan also proposes increasing transit service to 15-minute or less intervals in higher density areas, and increasing transit service hours by 42 percent per capita.

The Coalition on Regional Equity, a partnership of local organizations focused on promoting equity in the Sacramento region, applauded the plan as a step in the right direction in a public comment letter late last year.

It suggested, however, that the plan do more to meet transportation needs of vulnerable populations, namely low income groups, communities of color and people 18 and under, by lowering fares, discounting monthly passes, and providing transit routes that accommodate night shift workers. It also suggested that transit networks provide enough connectivity so that people can access everyday needs without requiring a car, especially for those who are transit-dependent.

Seniors, who inevitably become transit-dependent, are often forgotten about in these plans, says Barbara Stanton, coalition affiliate and founder and director of the transit advocacy group Ridership for the Masses.
What are the alternatives to getting to a bus station when a senior’s license gets taken away, she asks. Walking or riding a bike is not typically an option.

“Then, all of a sudden, you just don’t have access, and I think it’s a panic type of situation,” she says. “Are you going to be able to not have to walk a third of a mile [or] a quarter of a mile to get a bus if you are a senior?”

The plan also implements the Rural Urban Connection Strategy, which focuses on preserving and maintaining the health and profitability of the region’s agricultural sector. It is expected to reduce the acres of farmland affected by development from 333 acres per 1,000 residents to 42 acres per 1,000 residents.

“[SACOG] has done absolutely tremendous work on the needs of the agricultural community and demonstrating the benefits of preserving our agricultural base,” says Matthew Baker, habitat director of the Environmental Council of Sacramento.

Yet an equally sophisticated analysis needs to be applied to development effects on surrounding habitats and ecosystems, he says. Quality data on how development will affect nearby habitats is lacking, he explains, and they are essential to providing people natural spaces for education and recreation.

Overall, Baker says that SACOG has been attentive to the suggestions of the environmental and health community, and that it is already making moves to address these issues.

“I really think that’s one of the success stories of this plan, is the incredible job and responsiveness SACOG has displayed with the public and their engagement with experts in these areas,” he says.

The greatest challenge, he adds, will be local compliance with this regional plan.

“The [plan] is simply a planning tool and has no regulatory authority,” he says. “We really fear that on the ground, local jurisdictions are continuing to move with the boom year status quo, or [are] hoping to, and we feel that would be a detriment to this plan that SACOG has put together.”

 

Urban Land Institute calls for streamlining of California Environmental law

Published: June 8, 2010 | No Comments

California’s landmark environmental protection law represents a barrier to building more compact, transit-friendly communities that can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new report from the Urban Land Institute. The Institute, in a report on SB 375, a new California law that will shape land-use planning in the state for years to come, says reforms are needed to make the California Environmental Quality Act more in tune with the goal of building infill developments in places already close to existing homes and commercial projects.

The report suggests that new regional plans mandated by SB 375 should be substituted in some cases for environmental impact reports required by the Environmental Quality Act. In addition, it recommends that more transit-oriented projects should be exempted or at least get some relief from what the Institute calls CEQA’s “excessive documentation.”

Currently, projects lose the right to win an exemption from the environmental law if they include more than 200 residential units or are larger than eight acres. But those limits, the report says, probably discourage developers of larger projects from moving ahead due to the time and cost of complying with the full CEQA process.

The environmental law should also be changed, the report says, to credit greenhouse gas reductions to commercial and industrial projects served by transit, just as SB 375 already does for primarily residential projects that are transit-oriented.

The report lauds SB 375 as a potential game-changer in California’s land use planning, comparing it to early energy efficiency regulations that were initially controversial but later credited with saving electricity and money for California residents and businesses.

But the report says a failure to finance the expansion and operation of public transit could seriously undercut the new law’s ability to change travel patterns and reduce automobile use.

To see the full report, click here.

 

What the fight over transit funding is really all about

Published: March 17, 2010 | No Comments

You may be hearing or reading today that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has said he will veto the Democrats’ plan to cut public transit funding. If that sounds odd, it’s because the real story is the reverse. The governor actually opposes to the bill because it gives too much to transit, in his view, not too little.

Both the governor and the Democrats agree that they should engineer some kind of complex gas tax swap in order to get around a decades-old law that has a formula that now requires the state to give hundreds of millions of dollars to transit. The state tried to circumvent this law in other ways in years past, but transit operators sued and won. If the law remains unchanged, transit is due a huge windfall at a time when the state is desperate for dollars.

So the latest idea is to simply repeal the sales tax on gas and replace it with an increase in the per-gallon excise tax that would generate close to the same amount of money. Why? Because revenue from the new tax would not be locked down for transit the way the sales tax is. The state then takes most of the money that would have gone to transit and uses it for other transportation purposes, mainly paying off construction bonds. This has the effect of freeing up unrestricted money in the general fund that would otherwise be used to pay off the bonds. That money can now be used for other programs, like education or health care or social services.

The governor wants to do all of this in a way that leaves gas taxes about 5 cents per gallon less than the are today. And his proposal would give nothing to transit.

Democrats argue, plausibly, that gas prices are set by the market, and if the state pulls out a nickel of tax, oil companies and gas stations will raise their prices by the same amount. If the the Democrats are right, consumers would still be spending the same amount on gas, but more of it would be going to the oil companies and less to the state, and to public transit.

The Democrats’ plan therefore is structured to leave the overall level of gas tax unchanged. They also throw in a shift in the sales tax on diesel. The end result is an immediate $400 million infusion for transit and a new, supposedly dedicated pot of money that would generate about $350 million a year for local transit operators in the future.

That’s a lot less than transit would get under the status quo. But it is more than the districts have received from the state for most of recent history. And the transit operators, recognizing that their legal options are limited, supported the bill.

The governor’s veto will send all sides back to the drawing board. And leave local transit in limbo, forced to plan for more cuts even as they hope for relief.

–Daniel Weintraub

 

Bay Area planners back local fuel tax for transit

Published: March 15, 2010 | No Comments

Note: Here is my Sunday column from the New York Times, on the idea of a local sales tax on fuel to pay for transit. For the rest of the Times’ Bay Area report, go here.

By Daniel Weintraub

Democrats in the Legislature threw a fiscal lifeline to public transit last week, bolstering financing for buses and trains at a time when the state is cutting just about everything else.

But leaders of the Bay Area’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission saw the moment as a lost opportunity for fundamental change in the way California pays for public transit.

The Bay Area commission is perhaps the state’s strongest advocate for a proposal that would allow voters to adopt local fees on gasoline and diesel fuel to finance transit service and pay for street and trail improvements that would benefit pedestrians and cyclists.

That provision was in a version of the transportation bill passed by the Assembly last month. But it was dropped in final negotiations with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger before lawmakers sent the package to his desk.

As it now stands, the legislation would engineer a complex tax swap, repealing the state sales tax on gasoline while increasing the per-gallon excise tax and the sales tax on diesel fuel. The end result would be an immediate $400 million infusion for transit operations and $350 million a year dedicated to transit beginning in 2011. It is not clear how much of that money would come to the Bay Area.

Randy Rentschler, who follows state legislation for the commission, said his agency’s leaders were grateful for the relief, but still thought the Legislature had taken away far more than it gave back last week.

That is why they see a local fuel fee as such an important step: it could free transit from the whims of state government and its often disruptive revenue swings.

“Local government and state government need a clear separation,” Mr. Rentschler said. “Some people would use the word ‘divorce.’ ”

A local fee, he said, could provide a big boost in financing for transit. Transit operations in the region now cost about $2.2 billion a year. A fee of 10 cents a gallon would raise about $300 million annually in the Bay Area.

That money would help reverse the damage from recent service cuts and fare increases the local districts have adopted. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency raised fares by one-third last year, and the Alameda-Contra Costa district increased basic fares by 14 percent. BART raised fares by 6 percent and charged for parking at more stations.

But most transit districts in the Bay Area and throughout California have been lukewarm to a local-option fee. Many transit operators worry that the state will continue to cut their financing, forcing them to seek support for a fee increase from local voters, with the prospects for approval uncertain at best.

The version of the gasoline fee in the Assembly bill was even more problematic, in the view of transit operators, because it was linked to regional efforts to reduce heat-trapping gases that exacerbate global warming. The regional plans will be years in the making.

Transit agencies face an immediate financial crisis because the state has reduced aid at the same time that the recession has depressed local sales tax collections and fare revenue. The transit districts need money now to preserve service, and most cannot afford to wait on the chance of something more promising a few years down the road.

“There is a lot of uncertainty right now,” said Seamus Murphy, who manages government affairs for the San Mateo County Transportation District. “We don’t know how that fee would be implemented, or whether it will be, or when.”

But Mr. Rentschler, of the transportation commission, said the apparent certainty in the latest plan was illusory. He said that any new money from the state would be great while it lasted, but that he had seen such promises evaporate before. Even this agreement was concocted to find a way around a legal judgment that had ordered the Legislature to give far more money to transit.

“The question is what is going to happen in the future if the state’s deficit is chronic,” he said. “If past is prologue, the deal we cut this year won’t be worth much next year.”

Senator Mark James DeSaulnier, Democrat of Concord, agrees that transit needs a sustainable revenue source to grow as land-use planners seek to shift more people out of their cars to reduce heat-trapping gases.

“I don’t think we’re letting go of the idea,” he said of the Democrats in the Legislature. “This is something we need to do.”

 

Transit cuts hit hard in San Diego

Published: February 17, 2010 | Comments (4)

By Megan Burks

University Avenue in San Diego is one place where transit-dependent residents are seeing cutbacks in bus service. Photo by Megan Burks.

When Richard Kacmar’s boss told him his shift at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography was about to change, Kacmar didn’t know it would require tacking three additional hours to his work day. The change means he must give up his morning van pool and take public transit from his home in City Heights instead. The 15-mile trip, which takes 24 minutes by car, will take nearly two hours each way.

“It’s very sobering thinking about how much time he’s going to have to spend on the bus,” said Anna Daniels, Kacmar’s wife. “I don’t want my husband spending four hours on the road everyday. That seems very unreasonable.”

For Daniels and many of her neighbors she deems “utterly transit-dependent,” long bus commutes and inefficient routes are symptoms of decades-long neglect by transit authorities in a neighborhood where transit use is more than four times the national average, according to a study by the Mid-City Community Advocacy Network. Residents and advocacy groups say funding has been disproportionately allocated to freeway improvements and widening, while transit fares increase and routes get slashed.

Now, as San Diego becomes one of the first cities in the state to develop a transportation plan under a new state law requiring compliance with greenhouse gas emissions targets, City Heights residents are watching to see if their transit woes dissipate.

“Before, the main concern people had for the transportation plan was congestion,” said Kathy Keehan, the executive director of the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition. “Now we’re really going to be looking at ‘What are the environmental impacts of our transportation choices? What options can we create for people?’”

A bus stops at the transit station in City Heights on El Cajon Boulevard above Interstate 15. Photo by Megan Burks.

The San Diego Association of Government’s regional transportation plan through 2050 is scheduled to be completed next year. A preliminary report lays out policies that might be used to address emissions in the plan. Not yet approved by the board of directors, the strategy focuses heavily on developing neighborhoods where daily needs and access to transit are within walking or biking distance and transit options and infrastructure are expanded.

With density and an urban location already present in City Heights, this strategy holds promise for residents who want better transit options. But because 46 percent of emissions in San Diego County come from cars and light trucks, according to Keehan, Daniels said she worries funding will go toward targeting choice commuters, those who have cars but can choose to use transit instead. And for Daniels, that would mean more of the same.

“My concern is that, in the desire to conform with the regulations, they’ll put effort into the suburban areas to provide transit and it still will be under-funding and not recognizing transit-dependent people,” said Daniels, who has lived in City Heights for more than 20 years.

The revenue-constrained version of the San Diego Association of Government’s regional transportation plan through 2030 allots nearly twice the amount of funding for highway completion, highway widening and freeway connectors as is does for transit facilities and carpool lanes to accommodate rapid transit buses. Of the $5.9 million set aside for transit facilities, at least $3.5 million will go toward rail systems along the coast. SANDAG has planned rapid transit bus lanes on El Cajon Boulevard, a main thoroughfare that runs through City Heights and connects it to downtown, and moving north and south on Interstate 15, which runs through the middle of City Heights. Residents said it will be a big improvement, because access to major job centers is strained.

City Heights Transit Timeline

1985 The City of San Diego signed a memorandum of agreement promising to mitigate air pollution and build CenterLine, a transit line moving north and south in the center of the soon-to-be-built Interstate 15.

1987 San Diego voters approved TransNet, a half-cent sales tax for transportation expenditures.

1993 Caltrans signed a memorandum of understanding regarding the CenterLine project.

1998 Construction began to connect I-15 through City Heights.

2001 I-15 was completed from Interstate 8 to State Route 94, cutting City Heights in two.

2004 San Diego voters approved TransNet II, an extension to the original sales tax set to end in 2008.

2007 The CenterLine project was included in SANDAG’s regional transportation plan through 2030.

2006 The State of California began cutting State Transit Assistance funding. MTS begins raising transit fares

2009 The Third District Court of Appeals ruled the elimination of State Transit Assistance funding illegal. Environmental Impact Reports began to be compiled for transit stations along the CenterLine route.

2010 MTS cut service to deal with a $30 million deficit in state funds.

“We have more people working three to four jobs just to pay rent,” said Jared Brooks, a City Heights resident who had to wake up at 3:30 a.m. to get to his old job via transit. “I’ve been looking for a job for the past two years. Most of the jobs require reliable transportation and at this point I only have my skateboard, so it’s hard to find a job.”

Access to job centers took a hit this month when the Metropolitan Transit System reduced service on more than 60 bus and trolley lines in response to the state’s elimination of State Transit Assistance funding, a budget reduction that was ruled illegal by the Third District Court of Appeals last June. MTS spokesman Rob Schupp said San Diego lost $30 million in transit funding from the state this year.

Many of the cuts were made on Sundays to limit the impact, including discontinuation of routes that service Coronado, where many City Heights residents work seven days a week in hotels.

Todd Gloria, the city councilman who represents City Heights, said the governor’s staff said in a meeting last week that the state doesn’t expect to fund transit anytime soon. Schupp also said that MTS is budgeting no money from the state in future projections.

“We’ve been hit with a triple whammy,” Schupp said. “Ridership tracks very closely with unemployment, people are spending less, so revenue from sales tax is down and there’s reduced funding from the state.”

But Gloria said new cuts are just a small piece of a long legacy of neglect in City Heights, beginning with the 2001 completion of Interstate 15, which runs through the middle of the neighborhood. In exchange for dividing their community in two, residents negotiated a 1985 agreement with the city and then a 1993 agreement with Caltrans to get a transit line called CenterLine that would run along the center of the freeway and create a route to job centers in North San Diego County. The project was set back by safety concerns, according to Gloria, and is scheduled to be finished by 2014–almost three decades after the initial agreement.

“CenterLine is a wonderful metaphor for the way we do things for transportation here in San Diego,” Gloria said. “The freeway was completed ten years ago but the transit still isn’t there.”

The project is funded by TransNet II, a half-cent sales tax approved by San Diego voters in 2004 for transportation expenditures. But Gloria said he wants to see even more of that money go toward transit. Schupp said once the tax is shared among roads, freeways and transit, MTS only gets an eighth of a cent. Comparatively, Los Angeles transit gets 1.5 cents and San Francisco’s BART alone gets a half cent of sales tax, according to Schupp.

“We choose to put our money toward cars and I give you TransNet as exhibit A,” said Gloria. “It’s in effect until 2048 and two-thirds of those funds are going to go for cars. That may have been fine when voters voted for it, but do you think that in 2048 that we should be spending two-thirds of our money on cars? We have to make some changes because right now we’re locked into a 20th century funding formula that’s going to take us to the middle of the 21st century still prioritizing the cars.”

The SANDAG Board of Directors discussed adjusting the sales tax allocations, but no decision was made. A change in the priority projects promised to voters would require voter approval, and any other changes require a two-thirds vote by the TransNet commission.

Theresa Quiroz, a transit user who is the vice president of the City Heights Community Development Corporation Board, said she is confident officials will reprioritize transit and alternative modes of transportation in the mid-city as the way to offset carbon emissions.

“I think we’re at a tipping point where something has to happen,” Quiroz said. “Transit has taken such a hit that I know of residents who are buying beaters and driving instead. That’s a step in the wrong direction.”

Daniels has her doubts, but said she hopes SB 375, the latest greenhouse gas law, is the turning point City Heights needs.

“Acknowledging the regulation in terms of climate change is certainly important, but it can’t be done as one more excuse for why we can’t develop transit that is fast and often enough to meet the needs of ever-increasing population in the urban core,” she said.

 
 
 

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