Promote readily accessible, environmentally orientated developments, which will add to the quality of life and economic prosperity

By Roy Nakadegawa

Many claim BART reduces congestion and improves our environment but is this true? Do we consider social equity, its cost to build and operate, and quality of life created by BART extensions? Based on my extensive reviews of BART's Environment Impact Reports I made, well received by public interest groups, I submitted them to BART Board and Staff that they did not acknowledge.

Since I have been on BART Board, BART has come a long way in improving service in part by my continual urging for the need to look more at our existing aging system that has a present value of around $20 Billion in lieu of expensive extensions, and using our hard to garner public funds to make sound and effective decisions. I base this on my extensive experience and knowledge of transit from widespread travels to all the major cities in the US, Canada, Germany, and Japan and numerous other cities in Europe and South America studying various forms of transit, its capital cost, its operation and maintenance cost. I retired as a City Traffic Engineer, so I am also knowledgeable of overall transportation. I have been a decision maker 32 years, served on the AC Transit Board 20 years and now BART 12 years. I also serve on National Committees with Transportation Research Board, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences along with Professional Consultants and Professors on Transit Performance and Land Development. I have made critical analysis especially of our BART extensions and provided them to our Board and Staff. While most of the staff agrees with much of my analysis the Board generally passes them off favoring public desires and opinions.

Regarding public desires and opinions, which my opponents campaign on is fine if it is well studied and has shown to be effective, however, most of the public are not aware that most projects that are proposed are by politicians are not well studied regarding cost, effectiveness and on social equity. Also most politicians and public do not realize that Transportation and Transit is only one facet of development and should be examined holistically and not treated as an end in itself or in isolation. The public and also the majority of the BART Board, is not fully aware of cost and effectiveness of transit projects and the need to integrate land developments and land use to BART to be a viable cost-effective project. They generally assume if one builds BART it will attract riders and land development will follow.

Since BART is so appealing and popular politicians keep proposing extensions further and further into the suburbs. But to get riders we build tremendous 2,000-3,000 size parking lots that take 4-6 city blocks. For most suburban station 80-90% of riders arrive via the auto and the number of spaces are used up faster than the 20-year projected study what the EIR states would be needed because as congestion increases more driver are switching to use BART. Since most parking spaces are were provided free they rapidly filled, so there is a great demand for more parking because they filled up in less than a couple of years. People as well as some Board Members are not concerned there are social equity problems in providing free parking. And we provide it for the more affluent suburban BART riders who use free parking that cost about $3.50 per day to construct and maintain, whereas many central city users who do not have parking many have to pay an extra fare on local transit just to use BART. It costs BART $1 per day just for operation/maintenance, whcih does not include its capital cost to construct and the $1 is subsidized from the overall fares which the central city rider's pay who has no parking. The capital cost for the parking is paid from general taxes the overall public pays. Even offering Parking at $2 per day will not cover both its capital as well as operation/maintenance cost and where we have over 46,000 sapces that are mostly in the suburbs used by more affluent riders who are getting a substantial subsidy paid by those who do not use parking and the general public. When considering the affluent suburban riders' household income in comparison to central city rider it is about double it is a serious inequity that many are not aware of. Since the project cost of extensions are so enormous and the ridership so low we are subsidizing the affluent BART rider $60 per round trip over 20 years which is about what we provide a family of three on welfare for bare existence.

Adding more parking does little for our air quality or reduce congestion because it promotes more sprawl that actually exacerbates and compounds this problem. And since parking takes up so much land immediate to the station, to build a decent Transit Oriented Development (TOD) next to the station it will costs considerable because there is a poor BART requirement of the need t replace each and every existing parking space before its a plan will be approved.

Viewing BART's 32 years of existence has any decent TOD occurred at any stations? Again the biggest problem is the Board's requirement for any TOD developer requiring replacement of all existing parking for a TOD to be built. We have had several developers interested in developing TODs at BART stations who spent large sums in planning and for an EIR but they found the cost for replacement parking increased the project cost so much they all backed out. I have consistently said BART should make some amendment to this unwritten policy and allow a parking reduction dependent on the degree and quality of the proposed TOD.

Currently the only station where a TOD was built is Fruitvale but it took considerable added public sales tax for the replacement parking for this project to occur. This TOD has vitalized not just the development itself but also the neighboring several block area. Before the completion of Fruitvale TOD the surrounding area business had a vacancy rate of over 10% now after its completion the vacancy rate is down to 1%.

Pleasant Hill BART Station the County is proposing to invest $21 million in Redevelopment Funds to primarily fund a 7 story replacement parking structure. Even so, most of the neighbors are opposing the TOD because the Development itself will also require additional parking, which means the TOD will attract more autos and congestion.

Through my continuous urging for the need to evaluate our existing system in a comprehensive manner the Board has approved and rebuilt most of our 25-30 year old system, that now provides a cost-effective, equitable, safe, clean, accessible, reliable, and customer friendly system. This included; rebuilding most all BART's train cars in lieu of purchasing new ones at one half the cost, rehabbing all our elevators, replacing some of our escalators and reconstructing all remainder, and other needed station improvements. Because this effort, this year BART has been awarded "the Best Transit System in America" by the American Public Transportation Association.

Still we must make another very important improvement, one that would have dire consequence if we do not, but funding is a major problem. If we do not act soon it may have disastrous effect to our $20 Billion system. It is about an impending major earthquake. I was the Board member instrumental to bring this to the Board's attention but had to introduce a motion on this 3 times before Board's approval. The resulting study of the Earthquake's impact convinced the Board of the imperative nature for the earthquake retrofit program that would assure BART's sustainability after a major quake.

This earthquake study, reviewed by a panel of world experts on earthquakes, disclosed the most vulnerable part to a major quake is BART's Tube that crosses under the Bay. If the Tube is damaged, it will have dire effects not only with BART riders but will also create very serious affect on Bay Region's traffic by causing tremendous traffic back up. This is because BART carries more people than the bridge itself during peak periods. We experienced this backup when BART workers went on strike for a week 7 years ago where the traffic backed up not only on all the transbay bridges but caused over an hour delay around the freeway maze just east of the bridge. The freeways backup extended past Richmond, beyond Caldecott Tunnel and almost to San Leandro. It affected the mobility and economy of the region for a week. Since this was 7 years ago and traffic has increased, the backup will be even greater. To repair the damaged Tube, according to the consulting engineers, will take 2 years or more, so it will create a major crisis to our region's travel. Receently a UC study determined that the congestion at the Freeway Maze to the East of the Bridge wil have traffic delays of a minumum of 3 hours. This will surely affect not only the Region's mobility but also its Econmy nitl the Tube is repaired or 2 years or more.

If BART Tube is damaged, not only will it take two years or more to repair but would cost several times more. Total cost for this retrofit is estimated at $1.3 billion with several known or expected sources to reduce it, the remainder of $980 million is what we have placed on the ballot as a Bond Measure AA, which will be paid from a property tax at an average rate of $7 per $100,000 in assessed value, so an average home owner would pay $28-35 per year.

I have given talks to various groups such as UC Berkeley's Graduate Transportation Seminar and public service groups on transit and transportation. That is the reason many Academics, Professionals and public interest groups involved and knowledgeable of transportation, transit and planning have endorsed me. Also for my emphasis for the need to use a comprehensive and holistic approach for transit projects.

If BART utilized the fundamental concept of requiring better planning and integration at the onset of BART extension plans, BART could minimize the need for much of the parking. It will assure the neighbors that a planned TOD wil occur in the near fitire that will be a benefit, an asset and enhance livability to the area. I have stressed this need for comprehensive planning to the Board and Staff, and suggested that Staff work with communities to change their land use zoning to what is compatible to TODs because BART lacks powers to change land use zoning beyond the parking lot. Having this integrated plan agreement or understanding with the Cities before the BART plan is finalized and accepted, will lead to future BART TODs with less pollution and auto congestion. Because of my various analysis of extensions that I send to the Board and Staff some of my thoughts are beginning to slowly and gradually be accepted for consideration. The Staff has since provided the Board the Strategic Plan as well as the Station Area Development Plan, which the Board has approved as Policy.

Actually if one really made a thorough assessment of our extensions, they would not extend BART into the suburbs because they are so costly. A Metro system like BART should only serve high-density areas, which is what other countries Metro systems do, and they do not extend lines into suburbs. To serve the suburbs most other countries use commuter rail, which cost far less. Our region already has several commuter rail lines that parallels BART, which could easily and readily be upgrade at far less cost rather than extending BART.