In September, the Alameda Contra Costa Transit District (AC Transit) plans a major celebration for its new bus rapid transit (BRT) route which recently began service on San Pablo Avenue, a key East Bay corridor. Meanwhile, however, the district is mired in financial shortfalls and facing massive service cuts which make it difficult to celebrate. It is not always easy for the public to understand that the new service is funded by special grants and funds which cannot be diverted to ease the impacts of shortened or discontinued routes.
Like most transit districts, AC Transit depends heavily on sales tax revenues, which have suffered along with the state's economy. According to Deputy General Manager Jim Gleich, in 2001 General Manager Rick Fernandez anticipated the economic downturn and instituted economies and cutbacks in the district budget. Service cuts and passage of a parcel tax in November 2002 also helped to stave off major financial difficulties. In addition, Gleich notes that transit agencies and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission recently agreed to some "creative financing", by postponing funding bus replacements for one year and allocating that money to transit operations instead.
However, as its new fiscal year began in July, AC Transit, like many other Bay Area transit districts, was proposing more service cuts even as an earlier round went into effect. Final decisions on this round of cuts took place in July and will be implemented in December. Prices for senior and disabled monthly passes could double, free passes for low-income school children—a recent and popular addition—will disappear, and many routes will be reduced or discontinued, shifting riders to nearby routes if possible. For example, along MacArthur Boulevard in Oakland, riders could lose a well-used local bus line, forcing them to make an extra transfer or use a limited-stop Transbay line to reach downtown Oakland. Many riders at public hearings in July were critical of the district for putting the sleek new BRT buses into service while cutting elsewhere.
Gleich responds that "BRT is the thing that needs to be done to modernize intercity transit." Transit planning and funding are a long-range process, and both the express bus services for commuters and the BRT in the San Pablo corridor have been in the works for many years (see May/June 2000 issue). Riders are fortunate that the programs are ready to use and can supplement local service, which is reaching "bare bones" level in many places.
In the San Pablo corridor, the new San Pablo Rapid bus (72R) replaces the 72L bus from Contra Costa College in San Pablo to Jack London Square in Oakland. New low-floor buses with multiple doors to speed boarding run every twelve minutes between 6 am and 6 pm. "Intelligent Transportation" technology changes traffic signals to green as the bus arrives.
Fewer stops mean a faster trip, so bus stops for the 72R are two-thirds of a mile apart. Councilmember Janet Abelson of the City of El Cerrito, a wheelchair user, feels that disabled and elderly riders may find the 72R difficult to use because stops are not close to their homes or destinations. However, riders still have the option of using the 72, the local line along the route, although its frequency has been affected by the service cuts, as have the feeder routes which bring riders from neighborhoods to the San Pablo corridor.
AC Transit predicts that many riders will find the new BRT service attractive. Similar service on two lines in Los Angeles has proven extremely popular. With the traffic signal prioritization and new street design for faster traffic flow, buses are already able to shave 20 minutes off the full trip, and over the coming weeks, the new route will be adjusted to become as efficient as possible. By the end of the summer, global positioning technology should allow riders to check the locations of 72R buses on NextBus signs in new bus shelters, or by phone or Internet.
Plans for the next few years include BRT service in a corridor stretching from Berkeley to San Leandro. That service would use 72R-style buses, but would run on dedicated lanes and operate like light rail, with platform stations and ticket machines. The cost is estimated at $340 million, 40 percent less than light rail, and could add thousands of new riders to the route. Funding for this is still not secure, but federal funding could be included in the next major transportation authorization bill.
Clearly, without the kind of state and federal funding used for the initial BRT program, AC Transit has little chance of squeezing money out of its strapped budget to implement new BRT service. Increased sales tax revenues from an improving economy will probably be used first to restore some of the deepest cuts in local service. After that, an evaluation of travel patterns and rider response to the new BRT route may demonstrate that BRT is the best place for additional money from the agency's budget, and riders on San Pablo Avenue may not be the only ones skipping stoplights as they are whisked from one end of a bus route to the other.
Leslie Stewart
For more information on San Pablo Rapid:
AC Transit online, http://www.actransit.org/riderinfo/sanpablo.wu
Jon Twichell, Manager, Short Term Planning and Implementation, AC Transit, 510-891-4801; jtwichel@actransit.org