When Transit Strays from Its Social Goals
Oakland Airport Credit: Flickr user Invisible Hour
In most American cities, public transit’s primary role is to ensure last-resort mobility. The amount of service provided is often a reflection of each respective community’s commitment to ensuring that the poor have an adequate ability to get around.
Though this is of course a generalization—some well-used transit systems serve the full spectrum of a community’s diversity—the perception that public transportation is a social service makes its advancement an integral element of local progressive politics. Better public transit is seen as a way to reduce inequality. And that’s one of the reasons it is often seen as acceptable to subsidize transit users, rarely demanding of them the full operations cost of their ride.
Yet this view of transit’s role sometimes conflicts with reality, as demonstrated most recently by the Oakland Airport Connector project (OAC), which would link the San Francisco Bay Area’s BART rapid transit system to the Oakland Airport via a 3-mile long automated rail line. The $500 million project would replace with a reliable 10-minute trip a bus line that now suffers from delays because it must sit through traffic congestion at rush hours.
But BART’s effort to build the OAC comes in the context of a difficult fiscal environment; BART and other Bay Area transportation groups have had to decrease service levels because of declining tax revenues, and yet the agency picked as a priority for $70 million in stimulus funding the OAC over other projects that would be more cost-effective. For example, the East Bay BRT project, which would serve 40,000 passengers between Berkeley, Oakland, and San Leandro, was pushed aside in favor of the twice-as-expensive OAC, which could see a maximum of 15,000 daily riders.
This is clearly a project that prioritizes the commutes of a clientele headed to the airport; it does not offer the sort of equitable social service an improved bus network would provide. And yet the OAC too will be subsidized; even with high ridership, the connection is unlikely to make up its operations costs through fares. Meanwhile, traditional transit continues to suffer from underfunding.
The Federal Transit Administration, convinced by a local suit against the project, agreed that BART had not fully considered the civil rights effects of spending on the airport link and declined to allow the agency to spend federal stimulus funds on the OAC. BART was the only applicant for stimulus funds to have its application denied on such grounds.
This further encouraged local advocates to continue their push for an alternative: a 90 percent cheaper rapid bus line that would provide most of the same benefits as the expensive rail project.
Those setbacks, however, haven’t prevented BART from continuing its efforts to build the OAC. BART staff is currently looking for other funds to build the previously proposed project, and is even encouraging considering the possibility of using money now reserved for other programs—like carpool lane funds and capital bond reserves—to construct the airport connection.
BART continues to argue that the OAC will play an important role in expanding regional mobility; the argument over whether that is true could go on for several years. But what is unquestionably correct is that the airport link diverges far from the social goals most public transit projects typically promote. Is this an acceptable use of public funds? Should people heading to and from airport—already a more well-off group than typical transit users—be prioritized when considering how to spend limited funds?
The citizens of the Bay Area have a responsibility to make their feelings known on these questions. If they are ready to invest their construction dollars on a resource designed for the wealthy, than so be it. But if they are convinced that transit services aren’t yet good enough for the people who need it most, they have a responsibility to encourage BART to consider an alternative use of its money.
Yonah Freemark is an Urban Leaders Fellow, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation. He writes the Grassroutes column for Next American City. He also writes The Transport Politic blog. Contact him at yonah@americancity.org
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Alex in Washington, DC on Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 1:54pm
There are no jobs at the airport? Whenever I ride the 5A to Dulles 80% or so of the passangers are headed to work, not Vegas.
Andy in Ann Arbor, MI on Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 5:37pm
I shared this on Google Buzz and a friend had this very insightful response: ‘This is such an old fashioned view of public transportation. As long as the goal of public transit is limited to “last-resort mobility,” then that’s exactly how it will be treated by both city officials and potential riders—as a last resort.’
david vartanoff in oakland on Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 11:55am
The OAC follows BART’s design philosophy from inception. The “amusement park ride” system is to relieve their suburban riders from the indignity of being on a bus. At the projected $6 fare it will not be carrying min wage cashiers from the airport concessions. More of transit infrastructure construction as welfare for consultants, vendors, and contractors.
lyqwyd in San Francisco on Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 12:24pm
This is probably one of the worst transit projects ever conceived of. When BART originally proposed it, they were supposed to do it for $150 million, it was going to have an intermediate stop, and speed travel for passengers, and fares would be the same as the existing bus; that was a decent plan. 10 years later, it’s almost $500 million, lost the intermediate stop, no longer improves door to door trips since the end of the line does not go to the airport terminal do to excessive costs, resulting in a long walk for riders, and fares will now be triple what the current bus costs. And the alternative, which is to make some small inexpensive improvements to the bus line would actually meet all of the original goals.
BART is no longer interested in serving transit riders, but only funneling public funds into the pockets of major construction companies. The sad thing is that there are so many other projects that BART could be spending the same amount of money on that would actually provide benefits to it’s ridership.
MCA on Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 12:37pm
Although I think the overall spirit of this article is dead-on, it misses on a couple of key points:
1) Those other projects mentioned, like toll lanes and BRT are not BART projects- they merely come from the same pool of regional transportation dollars dispensed by MTC. The fact that BART only does rail and sees itself as “rail people,” to the exclusion of other, potentially more efficient/effective solutions is one of the main problems.
2) Congestion on AirBART is rarely a problem since they widened Hegenberger Avenue- thus, this is a solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist, and is more about prestige than transit.
3) As for the comment about airport workers- the fares on the OAC would be dramatically higher than the existing AirBART service, which would hurt airport workers most. Add in the fact that the new service would be automated (whereas there are bus drivers currently), and the only workers that stand to benefit are temporary construction workers.
Kenneth in Denver on Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 1:16pm
Along the same lines as what Andy posted: I’ve always believed that as long as transit agencies viewed themselves as providing a public service we will never truly have the shift in mass transit we need to increase ridership. Transit agencies are in competition with the private automobile and should attempt to structure their services to address that fact. Frequency and convenience are the keys to success and giving the sustainability movement more traction.
Mikeorama in Berkeley on Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 12:50pm
For chrissake, Yonah, we all get that you believe in the social justice value of public transit ... but do you really need to load your blog posts with so much clumsy bias and misinformation? Consider your first paragraph ... there are certainly people and organizations that support transit because of its social justice value, and there are certainly transit agencies that primarily provide service to the transit dependent ... but that is a far cry from your claim that the reason that cities have transit is to provide transport of last resort. Cities have transit because the voters allow or urge public officials to provide transit, and if you look at transit funding ballot measures you will see what voters think that they are getting: congestion reduction, environmental protection, and commute alternatives. You show me ONE ballot measure that puts social equity at the top of the list and downplays the other purported benefits, and I’ll show you TEN that make no mention whatsoever of social equity.
And you should know better than to claim that AC BRT was dissed in favor of ARRA funding for OAC. OAC got the money because it was ready to go to bid on the timetable required by ARRA. AC BRT was not. Simple as that.
resopmok on Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 2:27am
“This is clearly a project that prioritizes the commutes of a clientele headed to the airport.”
Really?
I’m not that familiar with the bay area, but in most metropolitan areas the airport needs to be away from the central city simply due to its size and function of launching and landing airplanes that don’t mix well with tall buildings. Visitors (including businesspeople and tourists) to a city do not usually pack their cars in their suitcase, and need a way to get from the airport to the city. An airport is not just some source of jobs in a city, it’s a transportation hub and worthy of good connecting infrastructure, whether or not there are other more “cost effective” projects available to fund or not. Class is often an important consideration in some social issues like this, but the article makes an apple-oranges comparison that doesn’t hold up.
Omar on Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 8:30pm
Zero-sum thinking is dangerous when considering infrastructure projects. Airport users should absolutely be considered on a level at or above local residents. While it may seem unfair, those airport users then go to other parts of the city where they spend money and generate tax revenue. A reliable rail link will reduce the need for other forms of ground transportation overall and provide tremendous follow-on benefits for residents of all stripes. Having the area’s low-fare airport connected by rail also means an amenity for tourists, potentially attracting new passengers, which is probably why BART considered using stimulus funds.
Michael Isla in 3104839258 on Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 11:42pm
Good Evening Friends,
Taking the transit line bus once our twice will not to my opinion explain how the transportation agency works. Calculate one bus line at its busiest time from the beginning its start to the end of its transit line. how many people it picks up? and times that with the daily fare. Besides the money we give to then to ride the bus they still get millions from the state or our taxes to stay running. I got on the bus line 247 in wilmington, CA. and i was a quarter stort. the bus fare is $1.50 per person. I was already in the bus counting my change to give as my fare. When i was finish i only completed about $1.29 in change. i TOLD THE DRIVER I was short and f he lets me slide. I was already in the bus and the bus was about a mile from it pick me up. Can you believe what the American citizen (hey, sorry the white driver i do not want discriminate) , told me to get off cause i was short .21 cents. So he pull over and open the doors for me to get off. and that was not even a bus stop. He does not own the bus, and we the people have the choose if we want the bus fare to be lowered. This is Justice, and our voice is power.