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).

Next Thursday (June 18), the Oakland City Council Rules Committee will hear a request from Councilmember Nancy Nadel to agendize a discussion of the proposed Oakland Airport Connector project. Ms. Nadel will request the connector be discussed at the Public Works Committee, which she chairs, and that the project then be forwarded to the full Council. The project is being sold to the region as a great investment in Oakland, yet Oakland’s elected officials have not had an opportunity to examine it in eight years, and the project has changed substantially since then. Nevertheless, transit advocates expect a fight over whether Oakland should even have a discussion.

A lot is at stake for Oakland. On one hand, project supporters claim that it will improve the Oakland Airport area, attracting more airline passengers and perhaps more businesses to Airport and surrounding area. For the reality-based community, however, there are enormous costs to the City of Oakland to moving ahead with the project. ACTIA funds that would otherwise go to East Oakland bike/ped/transit improvements, such as a mooted transit village at the Coliseum BART station, would be lost. The Port of Oakland will have to use funds that would otherwise go to airport renovation and expansion. Regional stimulus funds would go to this instead of to shoring up AC Transit and BART service. And the City of Oakland will lose the opportunity to improve transit service that would serve the workers and businesses in the Hegenberger Corridor, since the RFP for the Airport Connector does not include any intermediate stops. Many of these problems are a result of changes to the project, and many former supporters are now opponents.

A half-billion-dollar regional investment in Oakland should clearly merit some review by the Oakland City Council. However, transit advocates expect Councilmember Larry Reid, who represents the Airport and is on the Rules Committee, to resist allowing a public hearing on the project. He has claimed several times, most recently this morning at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission committee hearing, that six of the eight councilmembers support the project. If that’s true, why wouldn’t he welcome a public hearing and the opportunity for the Council as a body to weigh in? Supporters of the Oakland Airport Connector, mainly BART and MTC staff, have been resisting any review of alternatives to the project (today MTC Director Steve Heminger said it was “too late” to look at alternatives, even though they’ve been mooted for years). BART staff have repeatedly lied to decision-makers about the specifics of the project, for example telling the Port Commission about local hire and project labor agreements that are mysteriously missing from the RFP, or providing outdated ridership projections to the MTC. A well-placed City Hall source tells me that when Council staff contacted BART about having a public hearing on the project, BART said they would rather meet privately with each councilmember. Clearly Airport Connector supporters don’t think they have the truth on their side.

So, what do you think? If you agree that Oakland’s elected official should weigh in on the project, with public comment, please send an email to the members of the Rules Committee, especially Council President Jane Brunner (addresses below). If you think projects should be decided without the input of relevant elected officials, well, then you are probably quite thrilled with the direction of Bay Area transportation spending, and you don’t need to do anything. Without Oakland’s elected officials having a public hearing, the citizens of Oakland have no formal voice in the process. The Oakland City Council needs to step up to plate and make the decisions they were elected to, on behalf of the city. Please advocate for your chance to have a voice.

Rules Committee (meeting on Thursday, June 18)

Council President Jane Brunner, North Oakland: jbrunner at oaklandnet dot com

Jean Quan, Montclair-Laurel: jquan at oaklandnet dot com

Ignacio de la Fuente, Fruitvale-Glenview-Jingletown: idelafuente at oaklandnet dot com

Eager readers of the blogoaksphere certainly noticed many bloggers’ cause du jour – preventing the city from installing a surface parking lot in the middle of downtown’s up-and-coming Uptown neighborhood. The issue touched on a lot of the causes dear to bloggers’ hearts: pedestrian and transit-oriented planning, civic engagement, and enjoying nightlife. While advocates were clearly outlobbied at the City Council yesterday, and I find the Community and Economic Development Committee’s pro-parking decision as frustrating as everyone else, I see how the city came to this decision. It’s not just that the CED Committeemembers decided, for whatever reason, that they love parking and don’t understand its pedestrian impact, but also contributing to this result are the structural flaws that beset Oakland’s government in general. It’s the poor performance of the Redevelopment Agency, the deeply flawed labor contract, and the city’s lack of transportation planning that lead the city to push for parking lots instead of better solutions.

An ineffectual agency

It was the Redevelopment Agency that made the decision to ask the Council and Forest City for a surface parking lot. I have been told that the decision was reached after much internal debate, since Redevelopment had the option to ask Forest City for pretty much anything as a condition of extending their lease on the 19th and Telegraph parcel. Parking won out because the Agency has planned to build a parking structure on 18th and San Pablo for almost ten years, but can’t get it together to move forward. In fact, last year they ignored an unsolicited offer to build a structure with a bowling alley on top, and have no timeline for issuing an RFP. Yet Redevelopment told the Council that temporary parking is needed because it will take some time to build new parking, which is entirely the Agency’s fault, as the planed parking structure could have been built at any time in the last decade. In effect, pedestrians are being punished for Redevelopment’s inefficiency. And long-promised Uptown sidewalk improvements are still going nowhere, adding insult to pedestrian injury.

Labor issues

The city employees’ contract, which expired last summer but is still basically in effect, imposes stringent work rules that limit the City Council’s ability to pursue programs or efficiently manage the workforce. Several of the rules governing employees limit the options available to Councilmembers concerned about adequate parking in Uptown. Pedestrian advocates and local businesses suggested that, to increase the supply of street-side car storage, parking meter hours be extended until 2am, and street sweeping hours be pushed back until 2 or 3am. The City Council ignored those cost-effective ideas, because city work rules prevent meter maids from working after 6pm and street-sweeping crews from working past 3am. Since the city workers’ contract prevents the Council from adjusting parking enforcement to meet the needs of a late-night district, adding additional parking becomes an easier prospect than increasing the use of existing parking. It’s not just the enormous expense of the city workers’ contract that’s holding Oakland back, but its work rules as well.

Lack of transportation planning

Oakland’s transportation connections are the engine of its economy and the linchpin of residential demand. However, overlapping jurisdictions severely complicate the picture: AC Transit and BART provide most public transportation (though not all: Emeryville’s Emery-Go-Round, Contra Costa County’s WestCat, and the Water Emergency Transit Authority’s ferries also serve Oakland), CalTrans controls the freeways and some major roads, the Public Utilities Commission oversees railroads, and the Alameda County Congestion Management Agency and Transportation Improvement Authority direct most local transportation funds. When the City of Oakland is provided representation on these commissions, it is spread among the elected officials: Rebecca Kaplan is Oakland’s ACTIA rep, Larry Reid is Oakland’s CMA rep, and Jane Brunner sits on the joint ABAG/MTC policy-making board. The officials are free to pursue whatever policies they think are best on each commission without talking to one another, and the citizens of Oakland have no opportunity to influence transportation planning at public hearings.

Making matters worse, Oakland’s bureaucratic and official structure does not unify transportation decision-making. The Redevelopment Agency (the only part of Oakland city government with any money) is responsible for many if not most transportation improvements, and they do not necessarily work with CEDA’s bike/ped program or the planning department. Building Services also has jurisdiction over many transportation issues, especially as related to large-scale development projects. When Pat Kernighan asked the head of Redevelopment at the parking lot hearing if he was working with BART on signage and wayfinding, he said no. However, the bike/ped program is in fact working with BART on signage, but probably don’t realize that there are redevelopment goals that the signage can further. Transportation policy decisions are made by several different Council committees: most parking issues are handled by Finance and Management, planning for parking or transit-oriented development goes to Economic Development, most street improvements are heard by the Public Works Committee, and taxi regulation is governed by the Public Safety Committee. With most policy decisions made at the Committee level, Oakland’s City Council is structurally unable to coordinate transportation policy.

How does this lead to a bad parking lot? Besides the fact that a parking lot is obviously bad planning, if the Council committeemembers were up to speed on its transportation planning they may not have approved it. There is a transportation plan for Uptown, and it involves moving major vehicle traffic off of Telegraph and to Broadway at 20th St, a goal that clearly conflicts with a parking lot on 19th St. Sidewalk and bicycle improvements and a plaza are planned for lower Telegraph, AC Transit has already built their transit center on 20th and moved bus stops off of lower Telegraph, and Oakland’s taxi regulator is exploring adding a taxi stand to Uptown. Had the CED Committee been able to evaluate the parking lot in the context of these plans, they may have realized that it just doesn’t work. But not only is the Council unaware of existing transportation plans, it appears that city staff is as well. In such an environment, it is impossible to implement a transportation plan. It’s because of these factors, which also impact other aspects of Oakland’s poor governance, that Uptown pedestrians may be stuck with a parking lot.