The term “Complete Street” is used to refer to a street that is improved for all modes of transit: motorized, bicycle, and pedestrian. In Oakland, the Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plans and their associated policies provide compliance with the CA Complete Streets Act of 2008, but there are no concrete plans to add bike lanes or substantial pedestrian improvements to the entirety of Telegraph Avenue and International Blvd. The BRT plan drawn up by Oakland planners and engineers, formally if confusingly known as Oakland’s Locally Preferred Alternative, would make far-reaching and large-scale improvements to those streets, an opportunity unique in the city today.

Oakland’s Bicycle Master Plan outlines a Bicycle Network, streets in the city that should have some level of bicycle facility installed, ranging from fully-fledged bike lanes to just signage. While the Bicycle Master Plan has an Environmental Impact Report associated with it, city staff can’t remove car lanes or parking spaces without Council permission, which is a huge barrier because of the Council’s limited meeting time. In practice, the City’s Bike/Ped Program installs bike lanes when the opportunity arises, like when a street that’s on the BMP is being repaved for cars. This approach is extremely cost-effective, but frustrates cyclists who must use a patchwork of incomplete bicycle facilities. BRT installing bike lanes on Telegraph and International is a unique opportunity to create an entire 17-mile bike route in one fell swoop. But there’s another reason BRT is uniquely beneficial to bicyclists: without BRT, there would be no bike lane on Telegraph at all. Oakland’s 1999 Bicycle Master Plan EIR was successfully challenged in court, and the 2007 Bicycle Master Plan had to abandon bike lanes on Telegraph (using instead the Webster-Shafter route). Oakland’s transportation planners took advantage of the opportunity afforded by BRT to rethink Telegraph, and brought this much-desired bike lane back from the dead.

Oakland’s Pedestrian Master Plan is more of a statement of policy and establishment of best design practices than a map of areas to be improved. The Pedestrian Route Map, in the words of the plan, is “a long-term planning tool for targeting pedestrian improvements,” with no dedicated funding source. Much like bike lanes, pedestrian improvements are installed in a piecemeal fashion, based on grant funding, a private development’s mitigations, or a Redevelopment Agency district-improvement project. The BRT plan will upgrade pedestrian facilities along the entire length of the system, with widened sidewalks, more crosswalks, and even additional traffic signals. To anyone who has had to cross Telegraph Avenue at night, the need for these improvements is apparent.

Oakland’s portion of the 17-mile East Bay Bus Rapid Transit line is proposed to include dedicated bus and bike lanes across its entire length accompanied by significant pedestrian improvements, creating what could be the longest complete street in California. It’s not actually one street, of course: it’s two streets, and the middle portion (downtown) will not have dedicated bus lanes because buses already occupy most of the roadway during commute hours. That caveat aside, the BRT plan promises to be a radical improvement to an extraordinarily long transit corridor, potentially serving 40% of the city’s population.

So who loses out? After all, there’s only so much horizontal right-of-way. It’s not necessarily drivers who will feel the pinch of losing significant street space to sidewalk bulbouts, bike lanes, and bus lanes. Few portions of Telegraph suffer significant traffic delay, and the Grove-Shafter freeway parallels the route, giving drivers another option. Telegraph’s traffic problems are generally at the avenue’s destination points, where people are most likely to switch from driving to using reliable transit. It’s parkers who are going to see the hit, as the plan takes out more street-side parking than expected. But this is a solvable problem: at worst, AC Transit will install additional parking rather than allow the project to founder. International Blvd’s choke points are accommodated by also using E 12th St for portions of the route. Oakland’s plan appears to be pulling off what was once unthinkable: a major complete-street improvement that’s a radical boon to livability, without draining City coffers or drawing drivers’ ire.

Oakland’s plan, of course, is still unfinished. The City is sponsoring a series of public meetings on the project, with the opportunity to give detailed input on specific streetscape choices along the entire route. If you live, work, or hang out near the BRT route and would like to delve into nitty-gritty details like stop locations, I recommend that you visit the meeting in the neighborhood of your interest. In addition to five neighborhood meetings, there’s a meeting at City Hall for general discussion. With resuscitated Telegraph Avenue bike lanes, significant pedestrian improvements, and dedicated transit lanes, the East Bay BRT plan is Oakland’s best chance for the foreseeable future to make a citywide livability improvement on a grand scale.

You can find more information, including dates and locations of public meetings on the BRT LPA, at OaklandBRT.com.

Update: Oakland’s portion of the BRT system is 11 miles.

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.

Rather than list all of the cities and their different approaches to transportation decision-making, I will summarize three different models of transportation decision-making and use representative examples. Many cities have advisory-only transportation commissions with no real power and a limited or unclear mandate for review, much like Oakland and its Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (which I chair). Some cities have Transportation Commissions with some real power, and City Council Committees that unify transportation policymaking. And two cities, Los Angeles and San Francisco, have powerful independent transportation authorities with a clear mandate and substantial, though appealable, authority.

Advisory-only transportation committees

Berkeley, Portland, and Seattle all have advisory-only committees. All three cities have both Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committees, with varying levels of oversight mandates. Portland and Seattle have regional transportation authorities, and don’t have city-level Transportation Commissions. Berkeley has a Transportation Commission, but its only role is advisory, and it doesn’t have a clear mandate (for example, the Planning Commission, not the Transportation Commission, reviewed both Bus Rapid Transit and the new ferry service). Berkeley’s City Council has no committees beyond Rules, so there’s no transportation committee; Seattle’s Council coordinates its transportation policy message to regional agencies with a Council Committee; and Portland has a very different governing structure than California cities. None of these cities encourage its transportation commissions to examine private development projects. All in all, these cities do not have a very different approach to transportation decision-making than Oakland.

Some independent transportation authority

Alameda, Long Beach, and San Diego are examples of a middle ground between advisory-only and authoritative Transportation Commissions. In San Diego, the Land Use and Housing Committee of the City Council hears all transportation-related issues, including parking and encroachments, making it easier to have a coherent policy. The city does not enjoy a Transportation Commission, or even a bike or ped advisory committee, but does have a Community Planning Advisory Committee and an Airports Advisory Committee, with substantial oversight over some aspects of transportation. Long Beach doesn’t have City Council Committees, but has an independent Public Transportation Commission that oversees its city-run bus system (Oakland, by the way, does have a city-run bus system, and is planning to expand it, yet has no transit authority figure).

Alameda’s Transportation Commission not only has a clear mandate to review transportation policy and the transportation aspects of major projects (and Environmental Impact Reports), but serves as the public appeal board for decisions made by the Department of Public Works. In Oakland, the Planning Director’s decisions are appealable to the Planning Commission, but other internal decisions are either unappealable or only appealable directly to the full City Council. By providing a venue to appeal decisions on minor encroachments, for example, the Alameda Transportation Commission relieves the City Council of some time-consuming tasks, while reinforcing the unity of the transportation decision-making. The Alameda Transportation Commission, however, has multiple vacancies, and Alameda does not seem to be doing a great job with transit planning (though at least they have some ideas!).

Transportation commissions with real power

Los Angeles and San Francisco have institutional structures devoted to transportation. The LA City Council has a Transportation Committee, and San Francisco has an independent Metropolitan Transportation Authority with significant power. Los Angeles operates a Department of Transportation (LADOT), unifying all transportation-related service in one organization, as does San Francisco, whose MTA arose from a combined Department of Public Transit Parking and Traffic and MUNI in 1999. LADOT has an advisory committee roughly equivalent to a Transportation Commission, with significant authority over transportation decision-making, including ambulance licenses, off-street parking, transportation planning, and encroachments; In SF, all such decisions are made by Mayor-appointed SFMTA. Both LADOT and SF have separate Taxi Commissions. The LA City Council and SF Board of Supervisors maintain ultimate authority over transportation decisions but rarely get involved on non-budget issues.

Conclusion

It is apparent that there are several models for expanding and unifying transportation decision-making with an independent body. For City Councils, the LA and San Diego model of placing all transportation issues in one committee seems to work well. But there is a huge difference between the SFMTA, whose decisions are hardly ever appealed to the Board of Supervisors, and the Alameda Transportation Commission, which is clearly subservient to the City Council and doesn’t have much budgetary authority. LADOT’s Board of Transportation Commissioners are invested with similar powers to the SFMTA, yet their decisions are more explicitly subject to City Council review.

The virtue of creating an independent authority would be to tap expertise in the community while relieving the Council of some of its more mundane duties, like examining encroachments. The BPAC is meant to advise city staff, yet has no mandate over anything but the bike-ped program so has to resort to wheedling to hear private or redevelopment projects. The LA Commission is structured to advise staff, but in reality has similar powers to the SFMTA, which is meant to be the final word. Both the Alameda and Berkeley Commissions are mandated to merely advise the Council, yet Alameda’s Commission has real power and unified authority while Berkeley’s has neither. Other cities vary in their Transportation Commission’s bureaucratic placement (ie, advising staff versus advising the Council), power and mandate, and scope of authority. Oakland has many models to examine when planning its own Transportation Commission, but which one is best?

The lack of coordination on transportation extends to the City Council level. Transportation issues are split up among different Council Committees, making it harder to have a coordinated policy: parking fees are at Finance, investments and most policies go to Development, most right-of-way issues go to Public Works, and taxi regulation goes to Public Safety. Meanwhile, Oakland’s representatives on major transit agencies are scattershot: Rebecca Kaplan is our representative to ACTIA (the County’s main funding agency for transportation), Jane Brunner is our representative to the MTC-ABAG Joint Policy Committee, and CM Reid is Oakland’s voice on the Congestion Management Agency, which is the County’s transportation planning authority. A casual observer of transit issues will know that these three Councilmembers don’t see eye-to-eye on transit issues.

Though Oakland’s economy and cityscape is defined by transportation more than any other factor, the city has ignored transportation planning and has no coordinated or formalized means of addressing a whole host of transportation issues, from parking ratios for new buildings to bus stop locations. There is absolutely no planning whatsoever for transit improvements, and, frankly, CM Reid seems to be intent on preventing Oakland from making any transit investments now that he has approval for the Airport Connector, using his positions on the Congestion Management Agency and the Bus Rapid Transit Steering Committee to undermine BRT without doing anything that his bus-dependent constituents would even notice. In 2006, the Mayor’s Transportation Task Force recommended (PDF) creating a Transportation Commission “to develop. implement, and prioritize transportation strategies,” yet this idea was only half-formed and didn’t address many of the problems outlined above.

Can these problems be addressed with a Transportation Commission? Does the City Council have to restructure its own appointments and committee system in order to address transportation issues? Do City agencies need to be reorganized in order to create a Transportation Department, or can the Task Force’s suggestion of a “go-to person” and a working group be sufficient? Do you agree that the issues outlined above are real problems, or is Oakland doing just fine transportation-wise? Like almost everything else that came out of the Mayor’s Task Forces, the Transportation Commission idea has gone nowhere, but if the idea is worthwhile, there may be an opportunity to revive it. But that begins with identifying the problem. In this case, the problem may be bigger than the proposed solution.

UPDATE: I added a link to the Transportation Task Force report (PDF).

The “Buy American” resolution passed by the Board (PDF) was proposed by Director Elsa Ortiz (East Oakland – Alameda) and strongly supported by new Director Joel Young (at-large). In her statement proposing the resolution, Director Ortiz called complaints about Van Hool buses “exaggerated” and made it clear that her resolution is an attempt to support local jobs rather than to stop buying European buses (“American-made” buses are actually made abroad anyway). The resolution is also non-binding. That did not stop Berkeley Daily Planet reporter Jesse Douglas Allen-Taylor from declaring that the resolution, which is not a policy, “would be the death knell for AC Transit’s recent practice of buying buses exclusively from Belgian bus manufacturer Van Hool.” East Bay Express reporter Robert Gammon says that “the board voted to effectively end the agency’s controversial relationship with Belgian bus maker, Van Hool.” Those statements are simply wrong: no contracts were changed, though obviously staff is being directed to look at alternative sources for buses. Since AC Transit has no immediate plans to buy new buses, the effect of the nonbinding resolution is unclear. And for the record, AC Transit does not buy buses “exclusively” from Van Hool, but continues to purchase other manufacturer’s buses for what is a pretty diverse fleet (ACT does not source from Hayward bus manufacturer Gillig).

Rick Fernandez proposed swapping capital funds for operating funds to stave off 15% service cuts that had been proposed and discussed in a months-long public outreach process that the agency could undertake because it had ample cash reserves (by contrast, BART cut off-peak service 20% with no outreach). The Board rejected Fernandez’s recommendation to seek a funding swap with BART for Regional Measure 2 funds, and instead only asked that CMAQ funds, already dedicated to the organization, be reprogrammed from capital to operating. Because a big source of BRT funding, the state’s STIP contribution, is already in doubt, and there is no date certain for starting construction, it made sense to take some funds away from BRT because the agency will have to rethink the funding plan anyway. This was misinterpreted by people who don’t seem to like the BRT plan, with Mr. Allen-Taylor writing that it means “at least a one-year delay in construction of AC Transit’s long-planned Bus Rapid Transit line, with a possible scaling down of the proposal or even abandonment of BRT altogether.” That is claim is wishful thinking on behalf of the anti-transit Berkeley Daily Planet.

One statement in particular, from the East Bay Express’s Mr. Gammon (who, we cannot forget, penned a wildly inaccurate article about Van Hool and AC Transit last year), stands out for its falsehood. He writes:

AC Transit has repeatedly slashed service and raised fares in recent years, while requiring loans from other agencies to stay solvent and growing increasingly dependent on taxpayer funds to keep its buses running.

Not a single phrase in that statement is true. AC Transit hasn’t substantially cut service since the last recession, in 2003, which is not a recent year. Fares went up this year for the first time since 2005, but service has not yet been cut. AC Transit has not taken out a loan from other agencies, and has no plans to do so (he must be confusing AC Transit with BART), and is not “increasingly dependent on taxpayer funds.” AC Transit did successfully seek a parcel tax hike to make up for some of the state budget cuts it and other agencies suffered, but again unlike BART, AC Transit has not received any net increase in taxpayer support. (BART has also raised fares repeatedly. Come to think of it, if you replace AC Transit with BART in the statement, it becomes true.)

Finally, the departure of Rick Fernandez was used by these media outlets, who generally don’t like AC Transit, as validation of their positions. Mr. Allen-Taylor even interviewed leading BRT and Van Hool critic Joyce Roy about it. However, had he bothered to ask any of the pro-BRT activists that have been going to public meetings and organizing to support the agency, he would have found that they are also displeased by Mr. Fernandez’s job performance. Mr. Gammon says that Mr. Fernandez “resigned abruptly,” yet two paragraphs below writes that he “came to the Board several months ago, seeking a lucrative severance package.” Rick Fernandez’s departure could just as easily be interpreted as a statement of support for BRT, since Mr. Fernandez sought to reprogram much more money away from it than the Board approved.

It is disappointing that the East Bay Express and the Berkeley Daily Planet, leading reporters of the East Bay’s largest transit agency, are so blinded by their own biases about bus service that they report remote possibilities or questionable interpretations as settled fact. AC Transit is the lifeline of the East Bay, and though it certainly needs critical oversight, the resistance to its mission that local weeklies sometimes display is inappropriate for community-based papers. BART, on the other hand, regularly screws Oakland over, but the weeklies only pay attention when something rises to the level of a riot or a billion-dollar boondoggle. Unfortunately, it’s only going to get worse: Mr. Allen-Taylor will not longer report on AC Transit, Oakland government or anything else – the Planet has laid off its reporting staff. Commentaries will continue, of course. Though the Planet’s firm editorial stances certainly colored their reporting, the loss of coverage of local issues will just make it harder for people to understand what’s going on at AC Transit or other public agencies.

Today, the attention of the blogoaksphere has turned to the open seat on the AC Transit Board. The largest bus-only transit agency in the United States will appoint a member to replace Oakland City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, and transit activists as well as other concerned leaders are weighing in. I am proud to report that East Bay transit advocates have conducted an endorsement process, and chosen Elizabeth Echols (PDF) as the best candidate to replace Ms. Kaplan.

Last year I asked a respected community leader to apply for this seat. After seriously considering it, he declined due to other commitments to important causes. Since I did not know any of the candidates personally or from their work as transit advocates, I felt it was important for transit activists to have a role in the process of choosing our new transit director. In January I invited several leaders of different transit advocacy groups to meet and discuss the open AC Transit seat. We decided that, instead of putting forth one of our own as a candidate, we would offer our joint endorsement.

We put together a detailed questionnaire and sent it to the candidates that we had heard about (including three of the four finalists). The questionnaire was created with input from leaders of every East Bay transit advocacy group: Walk Oakland Bike Oakland, Friends of BRT, the No on KK Committee, Alameda Transit Advocates, the City of Oakland Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, Bicycle-Friendly Berkeley, Livable Berkeley, the East Bay Bicycle Coalition, and TransForm. (I am on the Oakland BPAC and was on the No on KK campaign committee.)

We scheduled interviews with the respondents and talked to them about their qualifications, their vision and priorities for the agency, and followed-up on some of their answers to our questions. I attended all but one interview, and found them incredibly informative. The candidates explained different facets of the challenges facing AC Transit: one explained exactly how the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s totally ass-backwards financing priorities screw AC Transit (apparently they think bus stops are just as useful to the regional transportation infrastructure as new desks for administrators), another had a very in-depth understanding of the position of the drivers and mechanics (they are concerned about working conditions, and understand the agency’s financial pressures), and another related his experiences as a rider advocate and how the agency works with community groups (rather well, in his opinion, as long they know about a project).

Walking to our endorsement meeting in transit-proximate Old Oakland, I didn’t know who would be our consensus choice. There are many strong candidates. But one offered the combination of experience, new ideas, and appropriate priorities that appealed to everyone at the table: Alameda County Democratic Central Committeemember Elizabeth Echols. A former Google executive who served on the technology cluster of the Obama-Biden Transition Team, she has a fresh perspective on the agency, new ideas about improving service using technology and data, but also a solid grasp of the importance of service reliability to attracting and maintaining an expanded ridership base. Her energy and political connections will allow her to help the agency get approval for the best Bus Rapid Transit system in the next few months, and help her work with regional, state and federal officials to improve the agency’s long-term financial health. I am pleased to be one of many local transit advocates to endorse her candidacy, and I am confident she is able to help guide AC Transit through its troubling financial times without sacrificing the needs of both “choice riders” and the transit-dependent.

It is no secret that there are many qualified individuals applying for this seat. When the Board voted on its four finalists, a former Boardmember who had applied was not among them – that’s a clear signal that the agency is extremely pleased with the quality of those who want to join the Board. With the overwhelming electoral victories racked up by AC Transit last November (78% voted no on Berkeley’s anti-BRT measure KK, and 72% of the district’s voters backed a parcel tax to make up for last year’s state budget cuts), and the caliber of those vying to lead it through a recession, it is clear that AC Transit is on the right track. All transit advocates are pleased by these developments, and the phrase “embarrassment of riches” to describe the selection of a new Boardmember has been used by more than one observer. This is a far cry from six years ago, when Rebecca Kaplan was the only well-qualified applicant for this open seat. Though transit advocates will be satisfied with any of the four finalists to represent us on the East Bay’s largest and most important transportation agency, Elizabeth Echols is the best choice, and we hope that Board will agree.

For a list of all five blogs that today endorsed Ms. Echols, see A Better Oakland’s Elizabeth Echols for AC Transit

A new year presents the opportunity to dream and hope for the new. It may seem that this is not the best moment to hope for new transit service: not only will a slipping economy mean less sales-tax revenue from which to fund local transit, but one state budget-balancing idea includes stripping local transit agencies of operating subsidies in order to jump-start the construction of High Speed Rail. This rests on a calculus that High-Speed Rail will create construction jobs, while transit service merely takes people to their existing jobs. From this government-centric perspective, efficiency and broadly-shared benefits lose to glamorous and expensive new projects. Similarly, BART wants to cut existing service while still building new stations in suburbs where ridership is likely to be low. But the East Bay is about to see enormous transit improvements that are incredibly cost-effective, and a less-cost-effective project is getting another chance.

The handful of choke points connecting Alameda to Oakland’s transportation system have long bedeviled planners. Car access is considered adequate, and only a new bike/ped/transit crossing is being studied, with options to be presented to Oakland and Alameda later this year. However, the need to fit a large Coast Guard ship on the estuary is a major physical barrier to building a bridge. A drawbridge would be useless to buses because it would introduce delays, and building a tall crossing would be prohibitively expensive. But Alameda has figured out how to create reliable transit service with just a bucket of paint: bus queue-jump lanes leading to the Posey Tube. By prioritizing buses over private traffic through the tube, buses avoid a significant bottleneck and restore reliability, at basically zero cost to the public. The lanes should be painted soon.

Though not quite free, Bus Rapid Transit is extraordinarily low-cost transit service that can accommodate tens of thousands of daily riders in its eight-mile corridor for only $250m, all of which has been secured. The Measure KK vote in Berkeley shows that the general public strongly supports Bus Rapid Transit, which confirms my personal experience: everyone I tell about it immediately grasps the concept and the benefit of bus-only lanes, and very few grumble that rail would be better or that cars deserve every last inch of asphalt. The project qualifies for the Federal Small Starts program because of its cost-effectiveness (a metric often not met by rail projects), and all funding has been secured including a generous allotment for overruns. Such a large transportation benefit for little cost, though perhaps uninteresting to state-level politicians, is the perfect project for a recession.

Ironically, as BRT proves its popularity and its cost-effectiveness becomes more valuable, several developments may have made an Oakland streetcar idea more feasible. Unveiled in 2001,  the multi-jurisdictional Long-Range Investment Study looked at BART to Jack London Square, improved transit connection to Alameda, and various Rapid Transit options (BRT, LRT, and a streetcar). Ultimately most ideas were found to be expensive or otherwise infeasible. Out of this study only the aforementioned transit plans are progressing. A MacArthur BART-Downtown-JLS-O29 streetcar circulator was found to be very expensive and have no identifiable funding source, and a cheaper “rubber-tire trolley” suggested by Councilmember Nancy Nadel was not studied. Yet, in the five years since a Congestion Management Agency meeting I attended in 2003 where those conclusions were reached, several funding sources for a downtown streetcar may have presented themselves.

Without radically rejiggering the Central District Redevelopment Area’s spending formula (which provides the vast majority of funds for citywide affordable housing projects), there is no obvious financing mechanism for a downtown streetcar. The City Center and Lake Merritt office districts alone could not bear the costs, and those property owners would be unlikely to see great benefit in shipping their tenants off to Jack London Square for lunch. But the Jack London Square II project is building a substantial amount of office space, and if O29 is approved soon, there will be thousands of new residents needing new transit service. But the real clincher is the Conley Report proposal for a Mid-Broadway large-scale retail district. Since there’s no BART station between 20th and 40th Streets, and the city will be hard-pressed to fund thousands of parking spaces to support new retailers, new transit service will also be needed at the other end of the proposed streetcar route, up Broadway to the MacArthur BART station. With a mix of new retail, office and residential large-scale development along the proposed streetcar line, the prospects for its funding are much brighter, especially as it combines transportation with economic development, and is a large infrastructure project that would create jobs.

As promised in her inauguration speech, Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan will tomorrow present an urgent proposal to the Oakland City Council Rules Committee. She will ask that Oakland add actual infrastructure projects to its federal stimulus request which was woefully lacking when drawn up by the mayor, and adopt a strategy for lobbying Congress to get as many projects funded as possible. Transportation projects are expected to get additional attention, from implementing the Bicycle Master Plan to repaving every street and sidewalk in the city. Even though simple and cost-effective transit solutions are becoming more apparent, with the opportunities presented at the federal and local level (from Obama’s stimulus to Oakland’s retail revitalization plan), new transportation improvements are getting a fresh look and perhaps a fresh start.

Before the clock runs out on election interest, this is the first of two blogs noting electoral trends.

Real estate development is a political football in many cities in California, with some battles reaching the ballot box. This November, NIMBY initiatives across the state were defeated. The three most radical anti-growth measures in California were Measure KK in Berkeley (anti-Bus Rapid Transit), Measures V and W in Redwood City (wetlands preservation), and Measure T in Santa Monica (cap on commercial construction). All lost, by substantial margins.

Regular readers of this and other blogs know that Bus Rapid Transit’s showdown in Berkeley was followed closely by transit activists. I was part of the No on KK campaign, which won with 77% of residents voting No. Measure KK received more attention than anything else on the Berkeley or even East Bay ballot. The media, from the blogs to the Daily Planet to the Chronicle, devoted far more space over the course of the year to Measure KK than to Berkeley mayor’s race, the wide-open City Council seat, or Oakland and regional measures. Now BRT opponents are arguing that people voted based on No on KK’s excellent mailer and not because they support BRT on Telegraph Avenue, but the overwhelming margin of defeat and the great deal of substantive public discussion shows that voters support changing car lanes to other uses.

Several years ago, Cargill Inc sold their pink-hued, salt-producing wetlands to the state in a large and complicated deal, while reserving two profitable portions to offset the cost of the land. In Redwood City, influential Oakland-based nonprofit Save The Bay placed a measure on the ballot to upend this deal and prevent development on a newly-created parcel by requiring a two-thirds vote to change its General Plan designation to open space. In response, the City Council placed a measure requiring only a simple majority vote. In the end, voters rejected both measures, Save the Bay’s W by 63%.

Arguably the most radically anti-growth local ballot measure was in Santa Monica. City Councilmember Bobby Shriver, working with a local NIMBY group, sponsored an initiative to cap commercial construction at 75,000 square feet. Not only would that entirely preclude office development, it would also prevent retail and urban mixed-use (housing over retail) projects. Much like Smart Growth links transportation and growth, so did Mr. Shriver and other supporters of Measure T attempt to convince voters that ending growth would somehow “fight traffic.” Also like KK, Measure T enjoyed a sympathetic media. Yet just as KK supporters failed to convince Berkeleyans that next-generation bus service would worsen traffic, Santa Monicans rejected T’s traffic argument by 56%.

There are other examples: Beverly Hills voters narrowly approved construction of three hotel / residential skyscrapers on the ugly white concrete high-rise Beverly Hilton, referended by NIMBYs; and Moraga’s restrictive Measure K was voted down by 56%. On the other hand, San Francisco voters approved NIMBY-in-chief Aaron Peskin’s powerful Landmarks Preservation Commission (Measure J), but there was no argument filed against it and it was lost in the confusing morass of San Francisco’s ballot questions, A-V. Without opposition, it earned only 57% of votes. The failure of anti-growth measures across California show that Smart Growth proponents can craft winning messages, and that electoral sympathy for NIMBYs and anti-transit activists is low.

Tomorrow, Berkeley voters will cast votes either for or against Smart Growth. From the candidates to the ballot measure, Bus Rapid Transit and transit-oriented development are the key issues facing Berkeley. Older divisions between progressives and moderates have fallen by the wayside, while anti-growth activists have expanded their opposition from development to transit service.

Berkeley Mayor: Bates vs. Dean

This rematch of the 2002 race confuses some local observers. Tom Bates, the progressive candidate traditionally aligned with Berkeley Citizens Action, has the endorsement of the Chamber of Commerce, the Berkeley Democratic Club, and many people working the real estate industry, while moderate Shirley Dean finds herself with the support of the Berkeley Daily Planet (called “the most liberal newspaper in the Bay Area,” by the Express) and neighborhood activists. The candidates have not necessary changed positions, but the divisive issue in Berkeley has changed. When Mr. Bates, his wife Loni Hancock, and Shirley Dean were at loggerheads in the 1980s and 1990s, it was mostly about rent control. Now, that is no longer an important issue in Berkeley.

In 1990, the Searle court decision led the Rent Stabilization Board to raise rents dramatically (up to 45%) and compelled it to follow a survey of operating costs when determining rent increases. Landlords no longer seriously contest Rent Board elections, and combined with vacancy decontrol in 1996, rent control faded as Berkeley’s hot-button issue. Ms. Dean’s two terms as mayor (1994 – 2002) encompassed this period.

What now separates Tom Bates from Shirley Dean is support for non-car-oriented transportation improvements and transit-oriented development, which together constitute Smart Growth. Ms. Dean strongly opposes Bus Rapid Transit and supports Measure KK (below). At an endorsement interview I saw her say that “we have to realize that four-story buildings ruin the quality of life for the entire neighborhood,” and suggested that the shadows cast by mid-rise buildings would make it harder for people to grow their own food. Tom Bates supports high-density development in downtown Berkeley and fairly dense development along transit corridors, and is open to Bus Rapid Transit.

If I lived in Berkeley (God forbid) in 2002, I would have voted for Ms. Dean. Her priority, and decent track record, of downtown revitalization appealed to me, and regular readers know that I generally side with more moderate politicians. But Tom Bates has made some very persuasive criticisms of her record. He is right to point out that the Council was more divided and less productive under her watch than his, and that the same neighborhood activists who criticize him were just as angry in 1990s. Of course, downtown Berkeley has gone downhill, which means that Ms. Dean’s downtown policies weren’t sustainable. But the clear distinction between the two is their contrasting policies on Smart Growth. It’s not that they have switched sides, but that the issues have changed. Urban business is increasingly aligned with the environmental movement, both stressing infill growth to combat their mutual enemy, suburban sprawl. Mr. Bates and a broad consensus on the City Council increasingly subscribe to this position, with Dean and neighborhood activists (and Berkeley’s always prominent fringe, like Zachary Running Wolf) firmly placed on a different side.

Berkeley Council District 4: Doran vs. Arreguin

Jesse Arreguin has gathered some impressive endorsements in his quest to succeed Councilmember Dona Spring, despite his age (24) and lack of elective experience (as explained above, the Rent Stabilization Board is not an important agency any more). Terry Doran, his opponent, was School Board President, and both have served on the Zoning Adjustments Board and Downtown Area Planning Advisory Commission. In their endorsement interviews and votes on the ZAC and DAPAC, Smart Growth is a key distinction between them.

On the DAPAC, Mr. Arreguin opposed “tall buildings” while Mr. Doran supported them. Mr. Arreguin bases his anti-high-rise position on old fashioned class warfare, while Mr. Doran stresses the need for increased tax revenue, transit ridership, and a built-in customer base for downtown businesses. Jesse Arreguin, despite being a former student and a supposed environmentalist, is iffy on Bus Rapid Transit (he opposes key elements of the plan) while Terry Doran strongly supports it. Finally, there is a key vote on the ZAC that put them on opposite sides: the Trader Joe’s on MLK. Mr. Arreguin voted against it and Mr. Doran for it. In Oakland, that would be the end of the contest right there, but Berkeley voters may be looking at other things, such as political affiliations and key supporters.

Mr. Arreguin works for Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who find himself the odd man out in Berkeley’s new political alignment: with no support from NIMBYs yet never pro-business or pro-growth, Worthington is the only Councilmember who didn’t endorse a mayoral candidate. His unexpectedly poor showing in the Assembly primary in June suggests that his support for Arreguin may not be terribly helpful. Former School Board President Terry Doran enjoys the support of Bates and most of the City Council. I’m not in a position to judge their respective campaigns (I really don’t like Mr. Arreguin’s slogan, Viva Jesse – is he running for King?), but transit and transit-oriented development are the issues. Tomorrow will show how downtown Berkeley, more or less Ground Zero for Smart Growth in Berkeley, feels about their future.

Berkeley Measures: KK and LL

Berkeley is infamous for an anti-development Preservation Ordinance that allows a great deal of protection for “landmarks” that are deemed so by an irrational process. Thus, tumbledown cottages, retaining walls, and even surface parking lots have been saved from demolition by developers, and the City of Berkeley has more official landmarks than San Francisco and Oakland put together (though the Oakland Heritage Alliance has proposed drastically expanding protections for “historic” buildings as part of the Zoning Update). Berkeley’s process does not comply with state law and makes development in Berkeley very difficult. Measure LL is a referendum on the City Council’s decision to update the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance to make it less arbitrary and to bring it into compliance with state law. A previous attempt to preserve the LPO failed two years ago; this is now the NIMBYs last stand to keep their most powerful anti-development weapon.

Measure KK, whose key supporters overlap with those against the LPO update, would delay or disrupt plans for a regional Bus Rapid Transit network by submitting it to a vote of the electorate. Eric at TransBay Blog has an excellent summary of what’s at stake and the serious problems with this measure. In its context alongside Measure LL and as a key distinction between mayoral and Council candidates, Measure KK represents another facet of the explicit Smart Growth divisions facings Berkeley voters. In Oakland, those who oppose dense development still support transportation improvements (and it’s important to note that no organized group in Oakland is opposed to tall buildings in most of downtown); in Berkeley, Smart Growth is on the ballot in its entirety.

Though Oakland does not have a Transportation Commission, the city does plan major transportation improvements. However, there’s no one resource for learning about proposals, no regularly scheduled meetings on transportation policy, and no consistent decision-making process. In the next seven days, three important public meetings offer the opportunity to aid the city’s transportation needs.

Bus Rapid Transit

Bus Rapid Transit, the world’s most successful transit service, has proven controversial in Berkeley, with bus opponents launching an initiative to “leave our streets alone” (I am part of the campaign against this measure). Heated rhetoric aside, this is a major transportation improvement that deserves more attention from Oaklanders and policy-makers. North Oaklanders, and indeed anyone who plans to ever take transit to North Oakland destinations not adequately served by BART (like Temescal or Koreatown), are invited to learn more about the proposal tomorrow. (Thanks for the reminder, Becks!)

Jane Brunner’s Community Advisory Meeting on BRT

Saturday Oct 11, 10a

Peralta Elementary School, 460 63rd St

UPDATE: Becks reports on the BRT meeting at Living in the O.

Taxi Service

Think Taxi service in Oakland is adequate? Never waited too long for a taxi? Never spent hours calling the only two cab dispatchers in this city of over 400,000 people? Never resorted for a female friend’s throaty phone voice to get you a taxi back from a West Oakland warehouse party? Never missed an Oakland Opera performance because there just weren’t any cabs at 7pm in the DTO? Then this meeting is not for you.

Biannual meeting on adequacy of permitted taxi service

Monday, Oct 13, 7p

Hearing Room One, City Hall

(If you cannot attend the meeting, comments can be sent to Assistant City Administrator Barb Killey, bkilley at oaklandnet dot com)

UPDATE: Not many people came, but everyone who spoke was a regular (at least weekly) taxi user and said Oakland needs more cabs. I also heard from several people that they didn’t know about the meeting, and there was no notice on the city’s website.

Oakland – Alameda Transit Connections

With the expected development of the rest of the former Alameda Naval Air Base, the issue of providing improved public transit access from Oakland to Alameda is even more pressing. Proposals range anywhere from amphibious buses to Bus Rapid Transit to a “futuristic” monorail. Oakland’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, of which I am a member, invites the public to comment on ways to bridge the Estuary.

Estuary Crossing Study

Thursday, Oct 16, 5:30p

Hearing Room 4, City Hall