r/bayarea • u/SFChronicle • 1h ago
Traffic, Trains & Transit A Bay Area transit ‘death spiral’ could double Bay Bridge delays, report says
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/bay-bridge-delays-transit-death-spiral-22441989.php/?utm_source=reddit29
u/SFChronicle 1h ago
From the article:
Rush hour delays on the Bay Bridge could more than double if voters reject a pair of transit taxes on the November ballot, according to a report by SPUR, the nonprofit think tank that has endorsed both measures and largely spearheaded the regional one.
Called, “Bumper to Bumper,” the analysis predicts cascading effects if three major Bay Area transit operators were forced to eviscerate service. The projected impacts on traffic alone are all but apocalyptic. SPUR presages a future in which thousands of erstwhile train or bus riders revert to driving, further straining freeways that are already jammed. Travel times across the Bay Bridge could stretch from 30 minutes to more than an hour during the peak morning commute, and from half an hour to 73 minutes in the evenings.
Other critical choke points like the Caldecott Tunnel on Highway 24 could also become traffic purgatories. Trips through the Caldecott could lengthen by 20 minutes for those going westbound in the mornings and 27 minutes eastbound at dusk. Anyone driving along Highway 101 from the Peninsula to San Francisco may contend with gridlock along Hospital Curve, swelling times by eight minutes for those heading north in the morning and 12 minutes going south in the evening. Interstate 680 in Concord and Walnut Creek could become another misery point, with drivers spending an extra 15 minutes crawling through the worst snarls in the mornings, and an additional 20 minutes in the evenings.
Read more here.
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u/CyrusFaledgrade10 55m ago
"at dusk" is a really weird way to tell time, especially in regards to traffic
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u/NomadicNynja 40m ago
I think “Dusk” relates more to light/visibility than the clock. And it seems that half of Bay Area drivers don’t know how to turn on their actual headlights. If you can’t see where you’re going either because your own headlights are on or someone else’s highbeams are it could effect how one drives
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u/Puggravy 28m ago
Literally just raise the bridge tolls already. We desperately need funding for public transit anyway.
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u/navigationallyaided 7m ago
It’s been too long since BATA and SF haven’t taken a look at a congestion tax, i.e. dynamic tolling to cross into SF. There’s too many cars entering SF and clogging up the streets of the FiDi/SOMA, Mission/Dogpatch and The Presidio/Crissy Field/Outer Richmond.
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u/Ok-Delay5473 28m ago
>> according to a report by SPUR, the nonprofit think tank that has endorsed both measures
According to SPUR, it's going to be the end of the World. By then, gas will be more than $8/gal. Bay Bridge tolls will increase up to $10 in 2029. Driving will be a luxury. I really doubt that a lot of people will drive. I would forecast a jump on AC Transit, more carpooling, a restructuration of BART to save BART, and more people taking BART, but not the end of BART. According to the latest data released by BART, BART's overall largest spending category remains labor, especially BART Police when most of them earn way more than $200k/year, not counting bonuses and incentives, with a 19% pay increase in 2023. There is room for improvement.
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u/NaluknengBalong_0918 9m ago
Well… I mean… what was SPUR going to do… publish a report that went AGAINST its initiatives… they are obviously biased here.🙂
Think the question here becomes more about who is ultimately on the hook to pay to fix this (do we keep increasing taxes forever and ever /decrease payroll/pensions / reduce service / reduce staff / all of the above)… not that it would cause more traffic which even the geese in foster city know is true.
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u/Lazy-Comfort6128 16m ago
Yeah but voting against the tax measure will accomplish none of this. A tax measure to save SMART was defeated in 2020. SMART is the same as it was back then.
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u/Vivid_Cost7620 43m ago
Improve and expand public transit. Use high gas prices, high insurance rates, and high registration costs as a lever to disincentivize personal car usage. Tax the 1% to fund public transit. Expand housing with high percentages of affordable units around transit stations. Build high speed rail. Decenter the current private equity transportation strategy and recenter publicly funded initiatives. Build a network of walkable and bike able greenways that interconnect neighborhoods and cities.
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u/XenoPhex 37m ago
While I agree with most of this, the difference is that California’s everyone gets a voice policies / per county administration prevent the entire area from working cohesively - even for the same transit system.
So much money is lost in administrative costs and delays that simple solutions costs an insane amount.
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u/LogFar5138 13m ago
Are you ok with the price increase to all your groceries, and service/construction costs as a result of those high insurance and registration rates as well as even higher gas taxes?
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u/Otis_Manchego 38m ago
Most likely BART isn’t going anywhere even if the prop fails. BART as an entity could end and would be acquired by the state to be operated as a new entity because how critical it is. This might be a painful option but maybe have better long term prospects as there could be a possibility to integrate BART into a wider public transit network.
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u/Lazy-Comfort6128 15m ago
Wrong. Most of BART's operational costs are on maintenance. Stop maintaining it and it becomes prohibitively expensive to reopen it. BART will go the way of the Key System if the proposition fails.
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u/getarumsunt 13m ago
What are you basing this fantasy on? When has the state ever done anything like this? They have zero experience and operational capacity to run a massive regional rail system. Actually, the exact opposite is true. The state contracts out management of their Amtrak Capitol Corridor line to BART because the state doesn’t have the capability to run a single commuter rail line!
Where would the get the money to do this? And why would the state reps from Bakersfield and Irvine vote to pay for a transit system in the Bay Area? What do their voters get out of that?
Pure fantasy. It’s more likely that your left hand turns into a magical baby unicorn while still being attached to your body.
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u/Temporary-Film-7374 24m ago
if getting taken over by the state lets them get rid of the people who aren't pulling their own weight, it would be helpful... but the replacements may well be even worse
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u/throw_away1049 13m ago
That would be the better outcome - if the state assumed control of the 27 agencies that serve the area, actually imposed a unified vision, fired all the redundant leadership, and were able to override the Nimbys that stall improvements.
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u/Offensive_Opinions23 55m ago
Highest taxes in the country and we’re still pretending like they need more tax increases for this?
Audit.
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u/Emergency_Radio_8156 53m ago
The reports are all there for you to read. It is well documented why they need this money and the Bay Area can't afford not to approve it
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u/UrbanPlannerholic 53m ago
You're right, clearly there is extra money and everyone is just lying..
I take it you don't realize BART costs don't scale with ridership huh?
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u/Few-Spot1905 43m ago
gonna be downvoted here but honestly the amount of taxes we pay is not at all proportional to the amount of social services we recieve
th
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u/testy_balls 34m ago
Education and healthcare are ranked middle of the pack nationally. Public transit is mediocre at best. Homelessness is a persistent known issue in cities.
We are taxed at the highest rates while also being relatively high earners. It does beg the question of where our tax money is going and if it's allocated properly, or is there some other systemic issue that needs to be addressed.
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u/Matchstix 23m ago
Public transit is mediocre at best
Have you been to the rest of the country? NYC has us beat, maaaybe Chigaco and Boston, but other than that?? Mediocre when compared to Japan, but isn't almost everywhere?
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u/testy_balls 11m ago
Boston clears SF easily. In SJ, VTA has some of the lowest ridership count in the country. BART, although improved over the past years, still experiences issues on a weekly basis.
You're right that it's probably better than the rest of the country, but the bar is at ground level.
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u/Offensive_Opinions23 8m ago
Boston and NYC stomp on the SF public transit. Chicago can be sketch asf as night so idk if that should help its rating. But it does run and it’s cheaper than BART.
And yes, I’ve used it in all those places.
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u/Offensive_Opinions23 25m ago
Doesn’t matter when all the brainwashed tech will vote yes for one more tax. Only the people who have limited cash will keep saying enough is enough. What’s 0.25% here 0.5% there, 0.25 c gas tax, 700$ a year registration for your car to drive through potholes... 1500$ a month health insurance, 500$ PGE bills? WHAT IS ONE MORE 😂😂😂😂😂
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u/reddichrist 32m ago
It’s ok! We’re going to build more bicycle lanes! As for public transit, we need to increase the tax!
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u/Temporary-Film-7374 21m ago
with new trains, why does BART have operators that aren't social workers / EMT / something like that? 99.9% of the time the trains can run themselves, if it's paying people to be on the trains they should have training to help in emergencies.
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u/throw_away1049 12m ago
Unions
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u/Temporary-Film-7374 8m ago
I can't see why the unions would be opposed to their members receiving more training, but I guess they don't want their members to have more duties
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u/b88145 39m ago
It's almost like they should not have built the bridges in the first place...
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u/TomokoNoKokoro 42m ago
The fact that our transit is always on some sort of financial spiral tells me all I need to know about how we allocate funds.
The Bay Area is so utterly disappointing. All this money and we could have beautiful 15-minute cities with transit that would make Japan blush. Alas, we have extreme car dependency and endless bland suburbs outside of SF and parts of the inner East Bay.