California Assemblyman David Chiu announced Wednesday his introduction of a bill intended to streamline the Bay Area’s transit systems and simplify the rider experience.
Assembly Bill 629 would direct the Bay Area’s transit agencies to create a pilot program for one over-arching fare system, allowing riders to travel across multiple agencies on a fixed fare using a special pass.
The bill would also direct the Metropolitan Transportation Commission to identify and prioritize local transit corridors across the region that need immediate fixes or repairs. Eventually, according to Chiu’s office, these corridors could support a regional rapid bus transit system.
“Navigating our disjointed transit system can be an intimidating and frustrating experience for riders, which leads to less transit ridership overall,” Chiu said.
More than two dozen individual transit agencies operate in the Bay Area’s nine counties, with varying fare structures, payment methods, trip planning tools and scheduling.
Chiu also pointed to the region’s falling transit utilization prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Transit ridership fell 5.2 percent between 2016 and 2018, according to Chiu’s office. In addition, bus speeds across the region fell 9 percent between 2001 and 2016, while commute times increased by 11 percent during that time.
Chiu and some Bay Area transit advocates argue the region should take action now as increased vaccine access and falling case rates point toward an eventual end to the pandemic.
“As Bay Area residents get ready to get back out, our roads are already nearly as crowded as they were pre-pandemic, while transit ridership is still down,” BART Board Director Rebecca Saltzman said. “We’re in a climate crisis, and California won’t meet our climate goals without reducing driving.”
The Assembly’s Transportation Committee is expected to discuss the bill in the coming weeks.
“As we navigate our way out of the pandemic and look to increase ridership, we must put the rider experience first and create a more seamless, reliable transportation system,” Chiu said.
12 comments
That might actually be helpful to those that use public transit on a regular basis. It’s been proposed a few time before and never made any real progress. I guess hope springs eternal even if they only got on the same page to all use the clipper card.
Go look at any BART parking lot right now. No one is using BART to commute.
The current BART ridership (primarily the homeless) don’t ever pay anyway.
So this is only a further waste of public money to prop up a rotten system.
BART trains were filled to the brim back when offices in San Francisco were open. They will be again once offices are open again. Perhaps by the Fall. Long term thinking is critical.
It will be interesting to see how full BART will be or whether the stay at home experience and technology like Zoom allows more people to limit their travels. BART management seems to be charging ahead planning for the Bay Area “megaregion” as they call it and are having discussions about adding another tunnel under the bay.
Agreed. The trend with technology is to be working remotely, as proven by this past year. It isn’t necessary that everyone commute to “central” offices if they can work from home.
There’s no longer the need for major mass transit systems (ie the high speed rail) or these “transit hubs.”
Plan ahead like chuq said!
The only person I ever see riding the busses in Contra Costa County are the bus drivers. I see very few paying customers on Bart since many still get by without paying. Don’t worry because the Dems will bail everyone out. Its all Free in the end. Right?
Why not put the effort in cleaning up the Bart trains and making it safe for riders. Not hard to do.
more government buracary trying to fix things and making it worse in the end
BART seems pretty “streamlined” today: no one is riding BART.
I know most of you don’t care but we have been on a stay at home order. Maybe thats why people aren’t riding BART. I ride BART everyday and it’s picking up slowly now. It’s like some of you still live in the 1920s BART was carrying over 400k people a day, can you imagine if there was no BART and all those cars back on the road. I get on the train at Pleasant Hill and that lot was always full by like 8am and there’s thousands of spaces. It’s a pandemic and things will go back. Some people need a reality check or maybe move to Idaho.
NO one pays on the buses in San Francisco anyway. I am often the only one who does. The buses are getting a lot busier now too.
I’ve been commuting by car to Oakland once a week, and it’s taking me 45-60 minutes to get to pleasant hill road when leaving at 4 PM. It’s stop and go into the tunnel, and again going into the 680/24 interchange. I would be back on BART if the location I’m working at were accessible, and I’m sure those who do need to return to an office will get tired of sitting in traffic pretty quickly.
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