Missing the last bus

There’s been a lot of talk lately in the US about congestion pricing. What is congestion pricing? It is basically a toll for taking your auto into an urban area. The program is quite successful in many large cities in Europe, and is the first step reducing pollution and breaking suburban America’s codependency on foreign oil.

NYC’s Mayor Bloomberg attempted to be the first city in American to introduce congestion pricing, only to be defeated today at the hands of the NY legislature. This, normally, would result in a bitter blog rant on my part, but the upshot is that San Francisco is likely to be next in line for a slice of the estimated $1.2b in federal funding aimed at this project:

SPUR’s Dave Snyder writes:

What the NY legislature failed to support was a grant application by the city of New York for most of the $1.2 billion the U.S. DOT has budgeted to support implementation of a congestion pricing pilot project. The money would buy the technology, pay for the outreach, the whole deal. After originally intending to dole out the money to many areas, they recently decided to give it out in one or a couple more huge grants. SF has already applied for the grant, and New York’s failure to get it really strengthens our application!

And so, it is only a question of if the city and county of San Francisco will gain for a share of this cash, and beat NYC to what the other side of the pond already has: fairly sharing public infrastructure.

Don’t expect to see two-car trains on Muni’s new T line. It isn’t equipped to ADA standards, nor does the Union allow it.

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The San Francisco Public Utilities commission is working on a program that would have Muni’s fleet of polluting diesel vehicles run on environmentally friendly grease from the city’s 2600 restaurants. As part of a $1.3m program, the PUC plans to buy a couple of vehicles, higher some staff, and go about siphoning the grease traps that would otherwise drain into sewers, clogging them, and attract rats.

The cost of a gallon of Biofuel Oasis in Berkeley costs $3.65, compared to the current lowest price of $3.01 for petrol in San Francisco. In the long run this program might be a smart move considering the ever increasing price of oil and Muni’s plans of expanding diesel service via BRT deployments over much more pollution-friendly light rail and electric trolleys.

NextMuni, otherwise known as NextBus, now has all of the electric line arrival times listed, complete with real time map! Now I can find that pesky 31 on Market street without having to wait a half hour.

Remember that you can also use your cell phone, if it has internet access, to view arrival times using the same URL; they support the small screens on phones.

Diesel lines coming in the fall. Stay tuned!

Transit ridership in the US is on the move upward, the highest since World War II: 10.1 billion trips, up 2.9% from 2005 to 2006.

The death spiral that is Muni ridership declined 1.7%. Can Newsom fix it one route at a time?

Bay area top three systems, 2005 over 2006 ridership change:

1. Muni: 649000 riders/day, -1.7%
2. BART: 352000 riders/day, +4.4%
3. Caltrain: 33000 riders/day, +6.5%

The winner here is again Caltrain, proving if you expand service, people will ride.

High Speed Rail in the Golden State
It’s time California got on board with High Speed Rail. HSR would have a terminal in the rebuilt Transpay Terminal downtown near second street, and would offer an underground station to transfer to the Muni Metro. The longer we wait, the more it costs, and the more traffic we’ll have.
Please pass this link along.

For those of you interested in learning more about Muni and how to help out, tonight is RescueMuni’s General meeting. We won’t be able to make it due to work commitments, so be sure to send us your notes so we can post what went on!

Annoucement:

Tonight is RescueMuni’s General Meeting. MTA Executive Director Nathanial Ford will be on hand to answer questions on Muni operations, the Muni Metro construction and night closures, the opening of the T-Third light rail, and transit priority on San Francisco streets.

RescueMuni will also propose new Bylaws.

When: February 13, 7pm

Where: SPUR, 312 Sutter, 5th Floor (Muni 3,30,45 lines)

Questions: Call 273-1447 or see www.rescuemuni.org.

Refreshments provided.

If you live in the Richmond, ride the 38/L, or are just interested in helping improve San Francisco transit, SPUR is looking for volunteers to help spread the word about the upcoming GoGeary project. The GoGeary project will provide pre-pay platforms (like Metro), new buses, timed street signals and dedicated bus lanes to help ease the crowding and congestion that the 38 Geary is notorious for.

We are looking for people to:

• Canvas the 38 with flyers
• Petitioners to get signatures/address from:
  1. people waiting to go home after work
  2. people waiting to go work
  3. any other time the bus is running (such as at 2am when service is… interesting)
• People to come to 2 critical city meetings to show community support
• Other Transit volunteer opportunities

If you are interested in helping, please contact me at ballew@sublinear.net. SPUR will be starting this next week, and I’ll contact you with the information you’ll need. With your help, we can make sure this project passes the board of supervisors’ approval in May, so the riders of the 38 Geary can see improvements to the line as soon as possible.

Feel free to repost this message.

In the interest of transit advocacy, LastMuni has joined SPUR in researching and pushing forth transit in the city of San Francisco.
There are two upcoming meetings that we’ll be attending:

Learn about and support the Geary BRT project at a special session of the Small Business Commission on Monday, January 29. Please consider attending the meeting to learn about the project and decide for yourself whether you agree with us and advise the Commission that the drastic increase in the speed, capacity and comfort of Geary Blvd transit are well worth the minimal effects on parking and traffic including during construction. If you know +the owner or manager of a small business in the Richmond who might support BRT, please contact me. The meeting is at City Hall, Room 400, at 5:30 p.m.

Mark your calendar for February’s Transportation Committee meeting, Monday Feb. 5, 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. at the SPUR offices, 312 Sutter St., 5th floor. Muni has to close a $15 million deficit in FY 2007-08, and SPUR wants to help them do that without fare increases or service cuts. Our recommendations for this topic constitute the entire agenda Feb 5.

Tonight I went to The San Francisco Transit Effectiveness Project (TEP) to see if these people actually stand a chance at improving anything. Normally I’d lurk at such an event, but as soon as I walked in the door, papers were shoved in my hand and before I knew it I was talking to all the key players in the MTA, one by one, person to person. My complaints were heard, and written up on the wall for all to see.

If you can imagine for a second, if everyone came to that meeting with a complaint about Muni, how many comments would be on the wall? It was jammed with various complaints, everything from “what’s up with nextbus” to “we need more cowbell”.

I talked to, among other people, the person in charge of complaints at Muni, the director of GoGeary, and the director of TEP, Leah Shahum. If that name rings a bell, it’s because is also the executive director of the SF Bicycle Coalition. Why is that important? The SF Bike Coalition is very powerful.

For those of you who care about San Francisco transit, here is the “word on the street”:

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