JTA'S California Twin? AC TRANSIT, IN BERKLEY!

[Ocklawaha]

I couldn't believe this "twin" posting in my news feeds. I kept tapping the screen trying to get the double image from messing with my head. Somehow, JTA just wouldn't appear, but AC TRANSIT sure did. Looks like AC and JTA are running the same game. Remember how I've ranted on the "Highway Lobby Transit Handbook?" How I said they all march to the same drum, pull the same stunts, get away with mowing down the citizens? How the highway lobby could have coined the phrase, "THE PUBLIC BE DAMNED!" (*see note)  Well, folks, they'reeeeeeeee Baaaaaaaaaack!

Check this out from The Berkeley Daily Planet.  Berkeley is a beautiful City tucked into the hills next to Oakland and across the bay from San Francisco, it has BART, a heavy rail metro. Telegraph Avenue will be part of a rail feeder network.  

The Real Truth About Oregon’s BRT System
By Doug Buckwald (11-20-07)

Oregon has a Bus Rapid Transit system called the “Emerald Express” operating on a five-mile route between Springfield and Eugene. This bus system is generally regarded as a successful transit project, and transportation planners in Alameda County should pay careful attention to several important factors that have contributed to its success. Steve Geller mentioned some of these factors in his commentary “Bus Rapid Transit Success in Oregon” (November 2), but downplayed or neglected others. I think it is important to have a more complete picture.
One thing we can learn from Oregon’s experience is that a BRT system does not need to use exclusive, bus-only lanes along its entire route to be successful. In Oregon, transportation planners decided to balance the need for improved bus service with the need to maintain traffic flow on their streetsâ€"and it works. Exclusive bus lanes are used only in areas where they will not cause disruption and diversion of traffic off of main roads into residential areas. In more developed areas, the buses share lanes with other cars and trucks. Only 60% of Oregon’s BRT route is in dedicated lanes, while the remaining 40% is in mixed-flow lanes.
Second, riding on the “Emerald Express” BRT buses between Springfield and Eugene is free! This is a proven method to increase bus ridership, and if that is really our goal, we could do it here right nowâ€"without paying for the hugely expensive $400 million BRT infrastructure. Alternatively, we could provide Eco-Passes for all Berkeley residents to make bus travel possible at very low cost. Eliminating the need for fare collection also speeds up bus service and decreases air pollution, because buses spend less time idling at stops.
Third, very few parking spaces were eliminated for Oregon’s BRT system. Over the entire five-mile route, less than ten parking spaces were eliminated. The Oregon transit representative I spoke with on the phone assured me that they would have had far greater difficulty getting their BRT system implemented if they had displaced parking to any significant extent. Contrast this approach with AC Transit’s current proposal that calls for the elimination of 75% of the parking on Telegraph Avenue between Woolsey and Dwight, and the removal of many heavily-used spaces downtown. Recent experience shows us that this parking reduction would cause significant disruption in business patronage in these areas.
Fourth, the bulk of the seating on the “Emerald Express” is perimeter, bench-style seatingâ€"to make it easier for seniors and disabled passengers to get into and out of the seats. This is precisely the kind of passenger-preferred seating that has been entirely eliminated on AC Transit’s new Van Hool busesâ€"to the displeasure of many longtime bus riders. Comfort is one of the factors that affects people’s transportation choices, and AC Transit’s decisions in this regard are actually discouraging people from traveling by bus. Sadly, these are the very same buses they intend to use on the BRT line.
And last but not least, Oregon transportation planners realized that the choice of engines for their vehicles should be environmentally responsible, so they use hybrid-electric buses. AC Transit, in contrast, has just purchased many new diesel-powered buses for its fleet, and they will be in service for many years to come. So, if you live near a Rapid Bus stop, your neighborhood will experience higher levels of particulate air pollution from diesel exhaust. Fine particulate air pollution is implicated in diseases such as asthma, bronchitis, heart disease, and lung cancer.
Oregon transportation planners have worked with the public to develop a bus system that has many benefits and few detriments. In our own East Bay, unfortunately, AC Transit has adopted an autocratic, cram-it-down-our-throats approach that has alienated many neighborhood residents and business owners.
It’s shameful, really, how poorly AC Transit responds to public input. Often, it seems, it even works in defiance of the public’s wishes. Eliminating bus routes, making schedules more inconvenient, limiting the use of transfers, failing to coordinate with other transit agenciesâ€"and buying more and more of the highly unpopular, painfully uncomfortable Van Hool busesâ€"are all decisions made by AC Transit to the detriment of its customers. AC Transit apparently cares far more about its own pie-in-the-sky plans to compete with BART than it cares about the needs of the average bus-riding citizen.
At every single public forum I have attended about the East Bay BRT proposal, skeptics have vastly outnumbered BRT supporters. Even so, the BRT proposal continues to move forward, propelled by an elite, inner group of planners and advocates who want to tell us how to run our lives. And this occurs despite the fact that AC Transit’s own Draft Environmental Impact Report shows that BRT will do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and will convert only a small percentage of automobile drivers to public transit!
Make no mistake: All of the time and money AC Transit has poured into this deeply-flawed BRT proposal has diverted millions of dollars from other important public transit needs. Enough is enough. Let’s stop this BRT mistake now. It’s time for AC Transit to work with the community to develop practical and effective transportation solutions.

Gee Martha, that sounds like us...


(* Note) "The Public Be Damned," is a transportation quote. It is said to have originated with Commodore Vanderbilt, the beaver hatted king of Wall Street and railroad empire builder of the New York Central System. After spending a huge sum on his flagship passenger train, "The Empire State Express", and reviewing the revenue to expenses, he slammed his fist on the desk and shouted the infamous phrase.


Ocklawaha

[thelakelander]

AC Transit already has BRT running down Telegraph Avenue.  We posted an article a few months back about Telegraph Avenue businesses and pedestrians complaining about the trash tossed around by the speeding buses.  I'll search for the old link and post it here.

[Ocklawaha]

Yes, looks like it works so good they will now invest another $400 Million in it? New and "Improved" BRT? The new proposal is like ours, it REALLY gets nasty and blows away downtown. So isn't it rather interesting that they are us? Same dog and pony show, same lies, different city... Even better, their press is awake, guess ours isn't?

Ocklawaha

[Charles Hunter]

Fascinating, east, meet west.

I am a bit perplexed by this, though:

Fourth, the bulk of the seating on the “Emerald Express” is perimeter, bench-style seatingâ€"to make it easier for seniors and disabled passengers to get into and out of the seats. This is precisely the kind of passenger-preferred seating that has been entirely eliminated on AC Transit’s new Van Hool busesâ€"to the displeasure of many longtime bus riders. Comfort is one of the factors that affects people’s transportation choices, and AC Transit’s decisions in this regard are actually discouraging people from traveling by bus. Sadly, these are the very same buses they intend to use on the BRT line.

My experience in bus riding was that perimeter bench seating is less comfortable than forward-facing seats.  This is most noticeable during acceleration and braking - you get a "lean to the left / lean to the right" feeling.  Which is fun at a high school football game, but not so much on a transit bus.  Do they have surveys to corroborate the "passenger preferred" claim>

***
But that is a minor quibble, like you said Ock, it looks like AC Transit is going down the same path as JTA.

[thelakelander]

Here's the AC Transit article

New buses leave Berkeley vendors in dust

Oakland Tribune,  Aug 31, 2007  by Doug OakleySTAFF
BERKELEY -- Philip Rowntree says every time AC Transit's new express bus speeds by his T-shirt stand on Telegraph Avenue, he gets covered with dust and filth kicked up by the vehicle's exhaust.

And, Rowntree also notes, he and other street vendors fear the new speeding buses are going to slam into someone on the crowded four-block stretch from Dwight Way to Bancroft Way.

AC Transit added an express 1R bus line that runs from San Leandro to University of California, Berkeley, and back. It has fewer stops and generally goes faster than the one line that runs the same route.

"It's disgusting," Rowntree said Wednesday. "Something happened about three or four months ago, and it's not the pollution they are kicking out but the air from the exhaust blows all this filth off the street onto me."

Russell Chatman, who sells jewelry next to Rowntree, said the buses dirty him too and go way too fast.

"I realize it's a rapid transit because the drivers have their deadlines to beat, but for them to come as fast as they do, it's only a matter of time before someone gets hurt," Chatman said.

Berkeley City Council member Kriss Worthington said he has received complaints from Telegraph Avenue merchants about the speeding and dust. He's contacted AC Transit, but hasn't heard back.

"I don't know how flexible they are going to be," Worthington said. "I talked to one of their staff people, and she said she would bring it up to the manager. If you're in an area where people are sitting all day and there are pedestrians, you want to minimize what's blowing on them."

Rowntree said he, too, contacted AC Transit, but got a rude response.

"I left messages and finally I got someone and they told me they needed 10 days to look into it," Rowntree said. "I waited about three weeks and called back and they put me on hold for 10 minutes and came back on the line and said my complaint was 'noted.' They don't have an answer."

Whatever complaints Worthington and Rowntree made apparently have not traveled far.

"This is the first I've heard of anything like this," AC Transit Deputy General Manager Jim Gleich said. "What he might also have a concern about is speeding. The 1R is rapid and the way it works, it is not driven like a regular bus service. Drivers are trained and encouraged to operate within the law as fast as they can, but they shouldn't be exceeding speed limits."

Gleich said he is aware the newer buses have exhaust that comes out the side, "so (Rowntree is) right about that. If they are saying the exhaust is blowing the dust, I find that hard to appreciate, I guess. It's just a tailpipe."

Gleich said the rapid bus has a system that allows it to communicate with traffic signals to keep lights green 10 seconds longer if the signal is about to change. A similar line added to San Pablo Avenue about four years ago is seeing a 17 percent ridership increase.

Anna Field, who has been selling jewelry on the street for 30 years, said she would like to see the buses re-routed because of the dirt they kick up and the danger they pose.

"There are crazy people who wander around in the street here," Field said. "And the buses just roar through here. We get the hot air, gas and everything else. It's kind of dangerous to have these buses tooling through here like this."

Doris Harrington, another vendor, agreed.

"As fast as these guys go, they're going to hit a student pretty soon," Harrington said.

E-mail Doug Oakley at doakley@ebdailynews.com.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20070831/ai_n19503825

[Ocklawaha]

Here's more on the controversy in Berkeley. Lake, if BRT is running now, it is limited, what they have in mind is a complete JTA-like monster system, that will kill the City. I thought it might be fun to argue with the East Bays AC Transit, in this post.  

Bus rapid transit project could hit roadblock in Berkeley
by Carolyn Jones
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Imagine a bus route that's so fast and reliable that it's like light rail without tracks. And 10 times cheaper.

Imagine in one hand, and spit in the other and see which hand fills up first. 10 times cheaper? Where's the numbers on this AC? uh I don't see any.

That's what AC Transit is proposing for its busiest route in the East Bay, the 15-mile-long stretch from Bay Fair BART Station in San Leandro to downtown Berkeley. The $400 million bus rapid transit project would look a lot like light rail, with elevated stops in the middle of the street and dedicated lanes free of cars. Buses would run every 10 minutes and sail through intersections.

Just like rail! Almost as good as rail! Reliable as rail! Clean as rail! Excuse me then, why not just build RAIL? Elevated stops in the middle of the street? Those are the super ugly fly over walkways with high level platforms in the middle of the street. Further they will block people from being able to cross at grade, in fact with dedicated BRT, NO ONE can cross at grade. 10 minute headways are great AC, but signal priority is a political toy and wasteful FTA requirement. You and I BOTH KNOW it has little real use (except perhaps to milk another round trip from each driver), and in fact causes more traffic problems then it solves when the timed rhythm of the lights are killed.

But the project may hit a roadblock in Berkeley, where some neighbors and merchants are lobbying furiously against it, saying it would worsen traffic and be the death knell for the beleaguered Telegraph Avenue shopping district.

Do the math AC! Take half the lane miles off of Telegraph, reduce the automobile traffic by 50%, then add back new bus capacity that MIGHT capture 30% of the lost traffic? That's a net LOSS of 20% just in very soft numbers and it could be as bad as 50%!

And if Berkeley rejects the plan, the entire project is imperiled - which leaves some people in town wondering how one of the region's most green-thinking cities could say no to public transit.

Because AC plans to use standard diesel buses, and do a JTA type system downtown. The East Bay is NOT going to stand for it because they have BART RAIL and COMMUTER RAIL and know what good transit is. They won't be fooled by twisted numbers and silly claims. They have NEVER said no to public transit in Berkeley, just to really bad ideas.

"The City of Berkeley would have to be out of its mind to turn down a multi-million-dollar investment in public transit," said Robert Wrenn, a city transportation commissioner and proponent of the rapid bus plan.

The City of Jacksonville would have to be out of its mind to turn down a multi-million-dollar investment in a public SKYWAY! Sorry Robert (I don't like your name either!) I'd rather be insane.

"We'd be the complete laughing stock. It would be a great embarrassment to the city."

ReGo ahead and laugh at Berkeley, they laughed at the Tom Thumb, and the St. Johns Railway, but those who put their money into stage transportation lost their shirts. Will they laugh at Jacksonville too? I hope so. Just like JTA huh? We know what the people want, but we know what is GOOD for them and they'll learn to like it too. Seems these promotional carnivals are designed to sell us THEIR ideas, rather then hear ours. OOPS my 3 minutes is up, I'll sit down and shut up now.

The route, called Intel because the bulk of it runs along International Boulevard and Telegraph Avenue, would run along East 14Th Street in San Leandro, cross Oakland and zip through Berkeley along Telegraph.

This is akin to taking out Forsyth, Riverside, or Bay Street in Jacksonville

Buses would run in center lanes, stopping at elevated platforms in the middle of the street. Each stop would be about a half-mile apart so that buses could go faster and bus drivers would have the ability to turn stoplights green using GPS technology. Each stop would have an electronic sign informing riders when the next bus is scheduled to arrive.

So AC, we get more buses and they will go faster. Who will dare cross the street in these places? How will this divide the neighborhood? With automobiles channeled into the single remaining lane in each-direction, your buses are going to blow the traffic signal rhythm and cause complete chaos.

Scaled-down versions of bus rapid transit already exist, although without dedicated lanes they're more like glorified express buses that are subject to the same sluggish traffic patterns as cars.

This is simply false, Boston, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Miami, Cleveland and others all have complete and dedicated BRT systems. Far from glorified express buses it's just that each of these systems has huge failures. For this reason the BRT lobby "number hops" through a selection of BRT systems to prove their point. Nothing sluggish about them, some are even limited successes at what they do.

While there are supporters of bus rapid transit in Berkeley, which is striving to meet its voter-approved goals to reduce greenhouse gases, dozens of neighbors and merchants along Telegraph think the transit plan would spell disaster.

BRT will split the neighborhood in half, just as it has in China, and in Colombia, just as it would in Jacksonville. It will not decrease the greenhouse gases if AC is going to stay with today's diesels as they have stated. The additional sulfur and carbon from those buses will be a visible smog that will alight on the sidewalks, and window sills.

They fear it would bring more traffic congestion when a lane of Telegraph is closed to cars, and would result in more high-density housing along the route.

It is more likely that BRT will create a ghost strip of former neighborhood retail and housing, with people abandoning their homes and businesses en-mass"

It's a gigantic waste of money," said Mary Oram, a longtime Berkeley resident who lives south of the UC campus.

Mary, I couldn't agree with you more. When it's all said and done, Berkeley will have more pavement and more buses and not much else to show for it. Across the Bay, San Francisco replaced a "quaility bus" with streetcar on one of it's routes, and ridership shot sky high.

"To me, it looks like they're preparing for light rail. Light rail is wonderful if you're in the middle of nowhere, but we already have BART just a few blocks away. It doesn't make any sense to me."

("Middle of nowhere? Perhaps that's us Jacksonville!) BART can use feeders, and the more the better, but lets not reinvent the wheel around a doomed fossil fuel vehicle. If we must go with a new quality bus system, let's make it AC, get it AC? AC! REAL AC!

Oram and other opponents said AC Transit buses aren't brimming with passengers through Berkeley, while merchants worry that customers will shop elsewhere, deterred by the traffic or lack of parking if the city decides to eliminate parking along Telegraph to create an additional lane for cars.

Eliminate parking? Eliminate retail... Add curbside traffic lanes? Eliminate housing... What part of eliminate does AC not understand?

Clarence Johnson, an AC Transit spokesman, said the agency is eager to get people out of their cars and into public transit as a way to reduce pollution.

Clarence should spend a day in Bogota, SEEING what he is BREATHING! This is BRT with regular diesel... Fast, modern and filthy. Show me a Dedec400 diesel that is clean without expensive rebuilding, I've seen cleaner Century 680's, and THEY were worthless!

"If we put this dedicated lane in and people continue to drive, then the opponents are probably right," Johnson said. "It will lead to more pollution."

Most of them will continue to drive, people across the country have been abandoning public transit since 1960 in record numbers, and the ONLY item of real growth has been LRT. Otherwise, the whole house would have caved in on Bus and BRT transit long ago. Oklahoma City alone as an "example" is down 95% from 1950-2005. Electric rail vanished in the 40's and 50's, freeways came into reality in the 60's and 70's. The only thing transit has offered new since then is air conditioned buses and a few weak BRT or express bus concepts, and a handful of rail ventures, not without some that were also disasters.

But that has not been the outcome in other nations, he said. Cities in Europe, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere in the United States that have built bus rapid transit systems have reported great success, he said. Business has not been hurt, and it has led to more transit riders and less automobile traffic.

AC? JTA uses the same line in their dog and pony show. WE ARE NOT LATIN AMERICA! I live there too. Damn, people, look at the demographics. Auto ownership is light years behind us, most people that have transportation have a bike or moto. Cities are perhaps more modern then here, but built with the traditional European, Spanish, St. Augustine footprint. Close, clustered and highly dense, with different shopping and social habits. Example, we rarely eat at home there, kitchens are tiny, everyone uses professional chefs or restaurants. Sometimes Malls are so crowded a person must walk sideways to get through. You could remove a 1/4 mile swath through the heart of any Latin American city and it would instantly convert into a sea of people, enjoying the open space... Hardly Berkeley or Jacksonville.

Johnson added that 95 percent of motorists opposed dedicated bike lanes when they were first unveiled, and now the lanes are accepted as part of the streetscape.

How many of those lanes has Johnson used? How many were planned because they were direct routes to needed venues within the communities? How many have nearly perfect safety records? I only want to know for transportation purposes AC, oh, and how many were planned because the Federal or State grant demanded that someone include a bike lane in the draft?

Wrenn, a former chair of the Berkeley Planning Commission, said residents will have to make sacrifices for the city to meet its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. Taking the bus occasionally should be one of them, he said.

Well Robert, I finally agree with you on something. However, only you would call the bus a sacrifice, I would call it a change in life. Once the customer "discovers" good mass transit (and I didn't say that was always BRT) the freedom they experience can be almost spiritual.

"If we're going to be serious about global warming, people are going to have to drive less and ride transit more, simple as that," he said. "Traffic's going to get worse anyhow. We'd be crazy not to do this."

AC, hear-by descends to JTA level as, when all else fails, scare the community! I'm a noted tree-hugger myself, however if AC or Wrenn is serious about Global Warming there are many more "Earth Friendly" transit modes to choose from. But the highway lobby song stays the same, "If we do ANYTHING besides a massive BRT project, the earth will sink into the sea, and the sky fall... Oh the humanity!"

At least it is comforting to know, if we were to "FIRE JTA!" at least the transit planners have another City they could go to.

Ocklawaha