As V Smoothe pointed out earlier today, there’s no shortage of policies about improved transportation and land use, from the General Plan to various downtown and transit-first plans. However, the Council does not stand up for those plans when confronted with a dozen upset NIMBYs or business owners – from downtown zoning to development in Temescal to parking issues, the Council almost always backs off of its stated commitments to the environment in deference to Oakland’s ingrained car-first suburban mentality. This attitude extends to City Planning and Redevelopment staff, who are obsessed with building parking while limiting high-rise development. While City planners trudge out proposal after proposal designed to set land-use backwards, City transportation planners are divided 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 land-use planning.

Radical change is necessary. Oakland simply cannot continue down the current path of transportation planning. From city planners using community gardens as a flimsy cover for a pro-parking lot agenda to Building Services seizing Measure DD’s widened sidewalks to provide parking for the Lake Chalet, Oakland’s transportation decision-making is a disaster apparent to even the most unconcerned citizen. Everyone who goes out on the town in Uptown has to navigate past Pican’s rude fence (approved administratively by City Planning), deal with an utter lack of parking or transit signage (thanks to the Redevelopment Agency), and step gingerly over rotting sidewalks while crossing potholed streets devoid of bike lanes, during a traffic signal that appears to be timed to kill pedestrians. And this is our showcase downtown district?

A reading of data behind the Energy and Climate Action Plan puts the focus clearly on transportation. With few clear policy demands beyond setting aggressive goals, the Climate Action Coalition is calling for a Transportation Commission to ensure action on these important issues. With the overwhelming majority of our emissions coming from cars, even small changes to mode-share will make huge differences in emissions. This requires not just a commitment, but real follow-through, and institutional changes to allow public and consistent transportation decision-making. A Transportation Commission with real authority would go a long way, but leadership is necessary too. We need elected leadership on land-use so that developers aren’t forced out of our transit corridors by Oakland’s band of increasingly aggressive NIMBYs, we need a unified (and informed) voice on regional transportation funding boards, and we need articulate and risk-taking leaders who are willing to get yelled at in order to create a better future for Oakland. Can Oakland have the leadership we need in order to create a greener, healthier, and more prosperous city? Collectively, that’s our decision.

These stimulus funds, contrary to popular belief, can be used to fund transit operations and not just capital projects. The share of the $70m which would go to AC Transit would be almost $7m, with MUNI and BART receiving even more. AC Transit’s $7m share of transit stimulus funds would give the agency about six months before it had to slash service more than already planned because of state budget cuts, which could be enough time to secure additional taxpayer funding without ending night and weekend service.

Here’s the choice before the MTC Wednesday: give BART one last but impossible chance to save their Airport Connector and lose $70m forever, or keep the $70m for the region. The OAC, which becomes more expensive and less useful with every passing year, needs to be put out of its misery. Though the federal government won’t give the OAC a penny, BART has been willing to bankrupt every rival agency and steal from every available pot of money to fund their pipe dream, up to and including robbing their own seismic retrofit bond of funding to fix the Transbay Tube, so losing the FTA’s nod may not actually kill this zombie project.

If you care at all about transit in the Bay Area, I urge you to make your voice heard to the MTC. TransForm has an excellent email form that allows you to communicate with the entire Commission. Please take a minute to send a note to the MTC and urge them to make the OAC’s death throes less harmful, preserve much-needed stimulus funding for less glamorous but more necessary transit operations across the reason, and save Hegenberger from the fate that befell 7th St. For the MTC to do otherwise would just prove the civil rights complaint’s point: that BART and the region place suburban comforts over urban necessities.

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.

I wrote last month about the many problems confronting Oakland’s transportation planning process. 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.

All the information below can be found in WETA’s Transition Plan.

The City of Alameda, in partnership with the Port of Oakland and Alameda County (ACTIA), provides a commuter ferry to San Francisco called the Alameda – Oakland Ferry. Its operations are contracted to Blue & Gold Fleets, using two publicly-owned ferries. Alameda, like many other cities, subsidizes this transit service out of its General Fund, and the Port of Oakland also contributes a significant sum yearly out of general revenues, for a total subsidy of about four million dollars. Next year, the new Water Emergency Transit Authority will take over operating the service, but WETA is only committed to maintain current service for five years. So here’s the problem: the Port doesn’t want to keep paying, and WETA wants to expand service to South San Francisco, which will require increased subsidy. With Port and City budgets squeezed, the future of ferry service is very much up in the air.

The present state of ferry service is also a big problem. Everyone seems to assume that people use the ferry, but the truth is that almost nobody rides it. Ridership declined ten percent from 1997 to 2008, and has dropped 15% in the current fiscal year. The ferry’s maximum roundtrip capacity is only 2328 passengers a day,* and average daily ridership is a pitiful 640 people**, with two-thirds of commuters coming from Alameda (though most weekend trips originate in Oakland). Because Jack London Square and Alameda are so far from BART, and SF’s Ferry Terminal is in a major job center, there are several thousand people that could use the ferry to commute, but they don’t. The ferry is slow, expensive, and frankly, unpleasant to ride. There’s no signage, no ferry employees outside of the ferry itself, no waiting area, the ferries’ interiors are shabby, and the snacks and alcohol bar is woefully underutilized. On top of that, tickets are expensive. And what kind of “emergency” transit closes during a rainstorm? Unless WETA addresses these problems, ferry ridership can’t increase significantly enough for the ferry to be a real transit option.

If City officials are going to say that Jack London Square’s ferry pier is a transportation option, or attempt to make any plans including it, Oakland must determine the future of the ferry. The City should ask the Port and Alameda to explain their plans for ferry subsidy over the next ten years. Oakland should tell WETA in no uncertain terms that if they want Oakland to commit to long-term funding, WETA’s multimillion-dollar planned investments in Berkeley and South San Francisco should be matched by investments in Oakland. To determine how much of a commitment public agencies should make, Oakland should also find out what plans WETA has for increasing ferry ridership, because current levels don’t justify a continued subsidy. Local leaders are making plans based around a ferry service that is clearly failing, with no plan to improve it or to ensure it doesn’t disappear. Burdened by a chaotic and unfocused transportation bureaucracy and decision-making structure, it’s unclear who is keeping an eye on Oakland’s transit infrastructure, even as it slips away.

** 466,818 trips in FY 2007-2008, divided by 365 days, divided by two trips/person, means an average of only 640 people rode the ferry each day during that period. Remember, this includes Alameda as well as Oakland; Alameda passengers represent about 2/3s of the riders, so the Jack London Square ferry terminal is only serving about 220 people on an average day.

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).

Safeway on Claremont Environmental Impact Report

At a contentious meeting last week, the Planning Commission listened to public input on what should be studied as part of Safeway’s Environmental Impact Report for expanding their store at Claremont and College. Dozens of neighbors lined up to say that they don’t want outsiders coming to their neighborhood to do grocery shopping, and that somehow Rockridge’s small-shop character is best enhanced by a gigantic surface parking lot at a prominent intersection.

You can write a letter to Planning Staff and the Commission outlining what you think should be studied. If you support the new store, you could emphasize that the pedestrian impacts of the no-build option are important to study, and that study of land-use issues or impacts on all of North Oakland (as requested by some neighbors) is unnecessary. If you oppose the project, feel free to think of the craziest thing you can imagine, and ask that it be studied. You can find contact info for comment on the Planning Commission’s November 18 agenda (PDF).

Toll increase on Bay Area bridges

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission burns through billions like it’s monopoly money, and though constantly short-changing public transportation, can’t even manage its pet highway projects well. Thus, the MTC is facing a severe deficit for the seismic strengthening of many bridges, including the Bay Bridge. True to form, rather than look for more efficient solutions, the MTC just wants more money. Currently the Bay Area Toll Authority, which is more or less the same as the MTC, is seeking public comment on a toll rise for state-run bridges (eg, not the Golden Gate Bridge or Fruitvale Bridge). This would be the first toll increase in almost twenty years that would not be endorsed by voters and would not include funds for improving public transit. On the other hand, the MTC is considering congestion pricing, which is very efficient. Comments can be addressed to the Bay Area Toll Authority before Dec 21. And if you’d like to know more about why these toll increases are needed, consider donating to McSweeney’s Bay Bridge seismic retrofit investigation, pitched on Spot.us.

AC Transit Service Changes

V Smoothe has been covering AC Transit’s service changes extensively for several months, and today writes that the final adjustment plan, released last week, is a triumph for careful consideration of public input, providing a model for other agencies. By contrast, BART slashed off-peak service 25% without even a ridership survey, and the Oakland City Council tries their darnedest not to implement inevitable service cuts. Be that as it may, the final service adjustment plan is out, and it’s open for comment. Highlights include improving service along the 51 corridor by splitting the line in two at Rockridge (which I do not like at all), and expanding service to educational destinations in the East Hills, including new service to Skyline High School, the Oakland Zoo, and the Chabot Space and Science Center. You can provide comment online, or in person at a meeting on December 1.

Union Pacific Railroad Right-of-Way Feasibility Study

Union Pacific Railroad is in negotiations to sell its “Oakland Subdivision” right-of-way to Alameda County, which would use a portion of it to recreate passenger rail connections on the Dumbarton Bridge, in South County. Union Pacific would like to sell the entire subdivision, though, and so the County is looking at possible changes to the use of part of the subdivision, which in Oakland mostly runs below the BART tracks along San Leandro St. The main thrust of the study is to make bicycle and pedestrian paths, though I don’t find the underside of BART tracks to be very scenic. In any event, it’s an interesting idea, and planners are looking for public comment. They are particularly interested in whether bicyclists would prefer Class I (grade-separated) or Class II (on-street) bike lanes as part of the project. Check out the study and leave your comments, at Alameda County Public Works (it’s the first item under Community Updates).

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.

While merchants are a vital and valuable part of the community, their perspective on transportation is not as well-rounded as one might assume, and, as has happened before, many merchants have taken a position contrary to the best interests of their customers. The claim that higher meter fees and longer hours are hurting business is not borne out by a careful examination of the evidence.

Some merchants argue that the new meter fees have had a direct and immediate impact on their livelihoods. They claim very frightening downturns in their business: in Grand Lake, a salon claims to suffer a one-fifth fall in revenue, a bakery says sales are down 25%, and Alan Michaan of the Theater says his sales are off by half. They attribute these huge declines in their revenue to a $.50/hr parking meter fee increase, as well as a two-hour increase in the hours of operation.

This is hard to believe for two reasons. First, it usually takes consumers a fair amount of time to change their behavior in response to price signals. For example, car driving has continued to fall after gas prices came off their 2008 highs. A less inspiring example is that consumer habit is a major barrier to establishing new retail districts in Oakland. So it seems unlikely that one trip to Grand Lake, paying more than expected for parking, would result in an immediate and drastic change in consumer habits.

Second, fifty cents an hour is not very much money. Dinners in Oakland for two often cost over $50. $4 more in evening meter fees, which many customers expect because of dining experiences in San Francisco and elsewhere, is about the same as sales tax. If $4 is crippling to one’s transportation budget, then the extra cost of driving to a restaurant with dedicated parking in Walnut Creek or Lafayette would be hurtful too (and of course there are establishments within Oakland with off-street parking). Despite what some merchants imply, street parking is not free or unlimited in Emeryville, Berkeley, Lafayette or Walnut Creek. Daytime customers who may be buying the apocryphal spool of thread are paying an extra fifty cents an hour more, which does not justify a substantially longer and less convenient trip. It’s really hard to believe that Oakland charging drivers an extra dollar would have a substantial and immediate impact on store receipts.

So what is going on? Are the merchants lying? No, they’re not, although I will point out that merchants’ business statements are held to a far lower standard than that applied to larger enterprises. It’s true that business is bad for Oakland merchants. But is that really a surprise? Merchants should have been prepared for a hot, difficult summer, given that the recession is (hopefully) hitting its bottom, and there is usually a summertime decrease in local business. Rebutting one neighborhood’s example, City Homestead writes:

It’s critical to know how much, if any, business the commercial districts are losing that’s directly attributable to the parking fees and not to the economy overall. (I’ll add that in Grand Lake’s case, my read as a neighborhood resident is that business has been down for months—it’s not a new thing. We’ve lost a number of businesses, and most of them closed well before the increased fees kicked in, so I’m wary of attributing too much to a drop in July business.)

So there are other explanations for a painful business downturn. A source reports that one large and well-known Oakland restaurant has suffered, since July, a 40% decline in business. This restaurant enjoys free dedicated parking. So it may not be true that recent decline in business can be attributed to increased parking fees.

Even the upset merchants themselves date their decline in business to before the meter fees were increased. Several say that business has declined since the beginning of July, when the Master Fee Schedule was passed. But the fees didn’t come into effect until July 11; it was only two days later that Michaan began his protest. While many merchants believe they benefit from cheaper parking for their customers, it is far from clear that meter fees have had a real business impact.

Some merchants are asking the City Council to believe that customers cannot afford an extra dollar for shopping or four dollars for dining, that they have drastically changed their weekly routines, and did so immediately after a Council meeting at which Alan Michaan was the only person to speak against the fees. It doesn’t make sense. There isn’t enough evidence that higher meter fees and longer hours are actually reducing business receipts for the Council to reopen the budget process. Merchants’ assumptions need to be challenged: is cheap street parking really that important to Oakland retailers? In conclusion, please enjoy a choose-your-own-adventure story inspired by Paramount Theater Boardmember Clinton Killian’s Oakbook op-ed.

It’s a bright and breezy summer Saturday. You’re half of a hot couple and you want to roll your Prius to Ozumo at 7pm, but are sensitive to parking problems. You could spend $10 on the valet, $2 on the meter, or go somewhere else. Emeryville’s meters are cheaper, but they run all night, so if you linger over langoustine at Town Hall you’ll lose more than a Jefferson. PF Chang’s at Bay Street will let you park for free for two hours, but mediocre fried rice doesn’t really go with your outfit. You could cruise all the way over to Lafayette, enjoying some Lady GaGa on the way, but Yankee Pier may not be your scene, gas just keeps going up, and all that time in the car is time you’re not admiring your date. If you’re determined to pinch pennies, you can take your high-heeled, clutch-toting companion to the Sinaloa truck on First Avenue, where there’s free parking and the lengua tacos with pickled carrots are cheaper than Ozumo’s tender toro. What do you do?

The classy answer is to go to Ozumo and pay the valet, or cough up the $2 and walk a block. I dare say that’s your date’s opinion too.