1) The real estate development industry was freed of paying for
transport infrastructure, allowing the dispersion of American cities
in patterns of land use based on car use.
This has been to the disadvantage of older central city areas as
capital has moved outward to cheaper greenfield development rather
than infill development. This leads to what we might call the Donut
Syndrome -- rotted out central city areas (consider central L.A.).
S.F. is virtually unique among American core cities in retaining its
economic vitality and liveability -- but even S.F. has been declining
in its share of Bay Area employment and investment.
What we really need is a state-wide urban growth boundary system,
analogous to Oregon, to force capital to flow inward to infill
sites.
2) The market price of car use to the motorist is far lower than its
actual social cost. User fees only account
for about 60% of road costs alone. And then there are costs associated
with traffic management, land for all the parking, the huge toll in
deaths and injuries, air and water pollution, wasteful consumption
of agricultural land and open space, and on and on.
There are two main ways to address problem (2):
(a) Institute high user fees (vehicle mile tax, large gas tax increases)
for cars
(b) Make public transit virtually a free good (and various other meastures
designed to encourage public transit use and walking and bicycling)
One problem with strategy (a) is that public transit in most American
cities (S.F. and NYC being the exceptions) has become so marginalized
that there is just a huge constituency for continuing
subsidies to car use. Even in S.F. there is political pressure to
accommodate cars, and we see the city violate its "Transit First" policy
all the time.
Another problem is that it would be inequitable since it would amount
to forcing lower-income segments of the workforce off the road, in a
situation where there are poor alternatives.
So, a market-oriented strategy of getting public transit to "pay its way"
is bound to be self-defeating.
There is also the current problem that outlying areas of American
metropolitan areas tend to have the fare subsidized to a higher degree
than central city areas. I would expect that, if we were to compare
the current subsidy per ride in S.F. to (say), Golden Gate Transit, Caltrain
or VTA, we'd find that the subsidy is far higher for the outlying transit
operations than for Muni. I know that this is definitely true for the
L.A. metropolitan area. This amounts to a subsidy for
the destructive, auto-oriented development patterns pursued by American
metro areas (caused by a largely unfettered governance of land use
by market forces). This suggests to me that what is needed is
a policy of greatly reducing central city fares (S.F. in the Bay Area),
with no fare as the ideal limit case.
You could move towards no fare transit in stages. For example:
1) Find a dedicated source of enhanced funding that is independent of
the fiscal practices of the Board of Supes. I personally think a
downtown transit assessment district is the best idea, because the
downtown-centric structure of Muni and BART gives huge locational
advantages to downtown property owners and businesses. Thus public
infrastructure increases their property values. It might also be
possible to get some state or federal transit operating subsidy
program enacted. S.F. could work with other cities to this end.
2) Expand the size of the bus and LRV fleet to reach a reasonable target
peak load factor (say, 1.2). This would leave a cushion for expanded
ridership. I would emphasize maximizing the number of articulateds on any
reasonably busy bus line, to get the maximum seats per amount of
operating cost. I'm also assuming that a lower fleet average age will
improve reliability.
3) Make some dramatic drop in the fare, i.e. to a merely nominal charge,
say 50 cents. Making a dramatic price drop would have the maximum
impact on public consciousness. A small fare decrease is not as likely
to encourage a large increase in usage.
It is true that the per capita income in S.F. is high, compared to other
major cities. But how is this distributed? It doesn't mean that everyone
has high incomes. It may be that there is simply a larger than average
group of professional and managerial people living in the city (this is
suggested by the fact that in 1990 35% of the resident workforce had college
degrees -- 50% higher than the L.A. metro area)...but this
is consistent with a large population of workers with low to moderate
incomes. Also, what is the proportion of Muni usage by these income groups?
Based on observation, I think it's true that Muni is used by people of various
income levels. But it may be that the low to moderate income group use it
to a proportionately higher degree, while the professional/managerial
class use cars to a proportionately higher degree.
If anything, the problem of gentrification is an argument for a reduced
fare or no fare, to make it more affordable for people of modest means
to live in S.F.
If disruptive riders are already a problem on Muni, then the problem is
independent of the fare....so this is not, then, an argument against
decreasing the fare. If anything, an increase in general public usage
would tend to isolate potential troublemakers, discouraging such behavior.
This is really a community problem of social control and law enforcement...
and that is how it has to be dealt with. It's not appropriate to ask the
drivers to be cops or social workers. That's not what they're trained
for. Moreover, fare enforcement is a source of conflicts between drivers
and riders, leading to assaults and undermining drivers' attitudes toward
the public. Maybe there needs to be some dedicated force of "transit
guards" to ride the buses.
If it is suggested that free transit would lead to people riding around
all day on buses, I would ask: Why? What would be their motivation?
Riding a bus isn't like taking drugs....there is no high from bouncing
along in a trolleybus.
If it is suggested that making transit free would devalue it in the
public eye, I'd ask: Does free fire-fighting service lead you to
devalue the work of S.F. firefighters? I personally think that
driving down public transit usage, to the point that it becomes
marginal, is more likely to lead to its devaluation in the public
eye, because it will be perceived as a service only used by
"the poor" or "people on welfare." (This is a part of the image problem
public transit has in L.A. and in other cities where it has become
marginalized.)
Apart from cheaper and more reliable Muni service, there are of course
other things the city could do to encourage alternatives to car use.
To take a minor example, the restaurant owners on Columbus Ave. have been
allowed to move tables out on to the sidewalk, making it difficult to walk
past. There is an easy solution: Widen the sidewalk by taking out the parking.
S.F., like European cities, has the advantage of being compact. This means
in principle walking and bicycling should be able to provide a major
proportion of trips people make -- as is the case in a number of European
cities that encourage these alternatives. (In Amsterdam, a majority
of all trips people make are by walking or bicycling.) But S.F. needs to
work at this.
Tom Wetzel