Comments on: Does Oakland need a new approach to transportation?

By: Transportation is Oakland’s key environmental opportunity – FutureOakland

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 21:06:11 +0000

[...] among different departments and shockingly understaffed, City needs come last regionally, and important transportation decisions are made without any public review. But the ECAP offers the opportunity to institutionalize better transportation and more progressive [...]

By: Ferry failing, nobody notices – FutureOakland

Ferry failing, nobody notices – FutureOakland — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:25:38 +0000

[...] I wrote last month about the many problems confronting Oakland’s transportation planning proce…. With civic leaders pushing new ballparks, my thoughts turned to the transportation aspects of planning a major entertainment destination. Two of the announced sites were West of Jack London Square, including a site called Jack London North that has stirred significant interest (and is the most popular plan in a poll at Oakland Local). But it poses some serious transportation access problems, including being certainly outside of what can be considered reasonable walking distance from BART (as is AT&T Park in San Francisco, of course). Without an up-to-date downtown transportation plan or even summary information, it’s hard to blame decision-makers for not knowing the transportation context of grand plans. But what is really striking is how important many downtown plans consider ferry service to be, from Jack London Square developments to the proposed shuttle service, yet those making the plans clearly are unaware of the ferry’s serious shortcomings, including the likelihood that Oakland will lose its ferry service in five years. [...]

By: Transportation commissions in other cities – FutureOakland

Transportation commissions in other cities – FutureOakland — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:30:03 +0000

[...] Last week I wrote about the problems with Oakland’s transportation decision-making process. Existing problems include not only a lack of planning for future investment, but flawed approaches to oversight of public and private transportation projects for compliance with city goals, poor coordination with other cities and agencies, and an almost incoherent division of transportation responsibilities both within the bureaucracy and at the City Council level. A Transportation Commission is floated as one solution to that problem. Before thinking about what a Transportation Commission or other changes to transportation decision-making would look like in Oakland, it’s instructive to look at other cities’ approaches. I examined the transportation structures of a dozen West Coast cities, and Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan’s office shared their research on Transportation Commissions with me. [...]

By: dto510

dto510 — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:54:39 +0000

Combining all the tax and bond oversight boards into one is a great idea. I see the effort to establish a Transportation Commission complementary to the LWV’s study, which will hopefully have some good recommendations (like yours) to decrease the number of commissions while increasing their effectiveness. Right now there’s a lot of resistance to any kind of new commission because of all the current commissions sapping staff resources without contributing as much to the city as people would hope. I will get in touch with the LWV and find out what their timing is.

But your question is key – what kind of commission? A powerful one, or a an advisory-only one? That’s also related to the question about what to do about the Council’s haphazard approach to transportation decision-making. Should some power, say over encroachments or taxi permits, be invested in a Transportation Commission instead of the Council? In order to have full review of important transportation decisions, it’s probably necessary to have an independent body with actual decision-making power, more akin to the Planning Commission than the Budget Advisory Committee.

By: Naomi Schiff

Naomi Schiff — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 06:55:12 +0000

Backing up a little, what kind of commission? Oakland’s commissions vary widely in power, effectiveness, responsiveness to the public, and worthwhile use of city staff time. The League of Women Voters is taking a look at commissions, and you might want to find out about their study results which (I think) may not yet have been released. One possibility is that for every new commission we should see if there is a moribund one we can jettison. I’ve suggested that we join all the bond-reviewing commissions into one, preferably with some savvy appointees who understand what they are looking at. There may be some commissions which rarely manage to get a quorum, or which meet rarely and merely rubber stamp staff initiatives. On the other hand, if you can get a commission together which has actual punch, maybe it could be really helpful. How would it get its members, would they need to be qualified in some way, or would they simply reflect the appointments of politically whimsical councilmembers and mayor?

By: ralph

ralph — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 04:13:19 +0000

I believe this was stated previously but what bothers me is not a lack of transportation policy but is an undefined goal of what Oakland should be be and provide. Then I ask how do you create a transportation policy that facilitates the goals of the city and addresses the concerns of the city it serves.

By: Mike d'Ocla

Mike d'Ocla — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:37:43 +0000

Yes, there is a different institutional structure in Portland than in the Bay Area. But I would argue that the institutions in Portland were set-up with significantly and better-informed citizen participation than the institutions here because of greater community integrity, savvy and involvement there than here.

I attribute the difference (and I am not alone in this) to cultural differences. The Bay Area has been settled by all sorts of different groups moving here largely for their own economic gain during boom times from the Gold Rush to W.W. II when California was the focus of so much military spending.

Oregon was originally settled by community-oriented groups from established communities in the east of the U.S. who moved there in the hopes of continuing their highly-functional community life based on agricultural economies rather than the economic booms of gold and war with their inherent corrupting effects.

By: dto510

dto510 — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:44:03 +0000

I disagree that it's a lack of political will or an engaged citizenry that hampers regional planning, but it's institutional structure that can often determine how progressive decision-making can be. Portland is a great example: it's not that Portlanders are so much more liberal and open to using alternative transportation than Oaklanders, it's that they enjoy a real voice in how their metropolitan area is planned. Their metropolitan government, which is more powerful than the MTC, is directly elected. By contrast, the MTC's governing structure is insultingly unrepresentative, and the Commissioners are unaccountable. If the MTC thought their highway and suburban priorities were what the public wants, they wouldn't lie about them.

By: Mike d'Ocla

Mike d'Ocla — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:36:02 +0000

Robert: “Sounds like we don’t need a commission if you already have all the answers.”

Why not try this:

1. Read some books about urban/transportation planning. What has worked well and where. There’s lots of information out there.

2. Contribute here something that you have actually spent time reflecting on. Your snarky put-downs reveal not much more than your adolescent developmental level.

By: Mike d'Ocla

Mike d'Ocla — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:30:29 +0000

V sez: “But it seems that a large part of the problem is institutional disinterest in comprehensive transportation planning.”

That’s exactly right. I began working with nonprofits 20 years ago (in Seattle) in promoting alternative urban land use and transportation policies (they are of course intimately tied together). I attended the first “Car Free Cities” conference in Amsterdam in about 1990. Mayors and planning officials from cities from London to Athens were in attendance. I was the only person from the U.S. there.

European urban regions, and Canadian as well, can succeed in implementing long-range environmentally- and economically-sound transportation planning. In Europe and Canada, regional transportation agencies create thoughtful plans and have the power to see them through. Here transportation planning is all about turf battles, city public transits systems vs one another vs BART vs the paving industry. Our regional transportation agency has is powerless.

Some cities, like Portland, Oregon have succeeded in doing the right thing primarily because of the long-term commitment of well-informed citizen groups and a strong larger sense of community which is lacking in the Bay Area.