Candidate for
Director; San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District; District 3

Political Philosophy

I am well aware of what a good transit system should be and provide for I have extensive experience and traveled widely viewing various forms of transit and am knowledgeable of overall developments and land use. I have belong to several professional associations and groups actively involved in transportation and land use development. Yes, I work towards providing a transit system that is convenient cost effective, less intrusive to neighbors, convenient, environmentally sound, and a clean system with social equity. But what I believe utmost is the importance for consideration to examine and work on how we are going to develop an overall transportation system that will address our growing problem of congestion, air pollution, energy and water use, and the utilization of our land.

What many do not realize is we are reacting overly to a symptom, congestion, and we should be judiciously working towards a transformation rather than a cure for congestion that should be based on comprehensive integrated regional plan, that includes social, racial and economic equality and improving our environment, which we are not doing while spending vast public funds. We treat transportation including transit as an end in itself or in isolation and we are spending funds without really making progress in improving our environment our social condition or our mobility.

In my detailed position papers I wrote about social equity. To make clear of social equity is since we spend such great amount of public funds for mass transit, we should try to spend it with social equity considerations that include racial and sexual values, low income, disadvantage, and elderly. Are we doing this when the average subsidy for the two eastern BART extensions cost so much that we are subsidizing each rider at least $30 per trip when including the capital cost and this means $60 round trip for an more affluent middle class household. In general suburban household income is about twice that of the average household income of Oakland or San Francisco. At $60 per day this is more than what we provide a family of three on welfare for bare existence. Why did we extend BART? It was basically a reaction to growing congestion

As we experience continual increasing congestion one should also ask who is generating the congestion and consider what other developed countries do because they too have experienced long-standing congestion. They have embarked on a program where they no longer try to relieve congestion but are learning to cope. Studies and history show congestion will occur no matter how we try to relieve it. So, they have imposed pricing and other control to discourage auto use through system management. They charge 4-10 times higher gas tax, higher registration fees, imposed tolls on expressways, and are beginning to impose an entrance fee to enter congested areas, and despite this they are still experiencing increasing congestion. They are placing stronger controls for auto use and funding more transit that serves dense developments and integrating planned developments to transit or what we call TODs (Transit Oriented Developments).

Additionally, they have placed a stronger emphasis on their environment and considering ways to use less energy. Most countries have adopted the Kyoto Agreement because greater evidence is showing our world is warming and causing many abnormalities in weather and increased melting of glaciers. They are concerned if the warming continues it will cause serious effects on the worlds coastal areas where millions live so near to the sea level. It will affect our water supply in the amount of rain and snow we will have, which will have dire effects on water supply as well as its effects on many of our plants and animals with the likelihood of their extinction. Much of this warming is caused by the way we live and travel because we use so much fuel to power our cars, generate electricity and manufacture products. So the U.S. should also be as concerned and begin to embark on similar programs.

Studies show that the oil supply of the world has just about reached the optimum available resource level and have entered the point where we will run out roughly in 50-60 years. Yet the world's consumption is increasing each year, especially in the third world countries like China. So its price will dramatically increase. America currently consumes about a third of the world's oil production whereas our population is less than one tenth of the world and of this amount we consume about one half is for transportation. Obviously this should show we need to conserve and consider alternatives. The primary way to conserve is to use more public transit and develop more compact developments where more would walk or use other means for mobility other than using the oil-consuming vehicle and we need to discourage sprawl because with sprawl each household has 2-4 cars and every activity is dependent on the auto for mobility.

Even with the highly touted fuel systems Hydrogen which is definitely far less polluting, but to produce the hydrogen is a serious matter for to produce from raw material it will take far more energy than all that required for oil from discovery to dispensing. If Hydrogen produced using electricity it will require as some estimates say will require 10 times more per power unit than oil. And where this electrical energy generation coming from for we are already getting short in its supply. Most sources generally generate it by plants using some form of carbon fuel, which produces more global warming gas.

Still most of our current problems for congestion relief propose transit improvements or road widening. History shows in a few years after the roadway improvements we experience increasing congestion. When BART is proposed claiming it will relieve congestion and is placed on the ballot, since BART is so appealing most votes for it. But records show BART does not ever relieved congestion. A good example is why does CC County press for the 4th Caldecott tunnel where BART operated paralleling the Tunnels for over 30 years. I believe the 3rd tunnel was built shortly before the completion of BART. What is evident though that more people will ride BART when congestion increases because the number of BART riders in the congested direction increased as congestion increased. Now the ridership is 5 times greater in congested direction than the other direction. You may wonder why? It is because there is poor access in the suburban areas compared to the access in urban dense area. For the less dense suburban areas density is so low that we build large parking for riders to access BART instead of walking or using other means in more dense urban areas.

This is just as true with the Bay Bridge when the congestion increased from an hour per morning peak to now almost the whole morning and the BART's riders using the underwater Tube that parallels the Bridge has increased over the years to where BART currently carries more than the Bridge itself during peak periods.

We need to examine this problem in a more holistically manner perhaps like most other developed countries do facing this problem. Politicians without any comprehensive analysis propose most BART and roadway improvements. Then MTC allocates the regions funds provided by the Federal and State Governments to these large projects. MTC has a professional staff that should make an independent holistic analysis before approving the project. The analysis should be based on standard performance measures established by the region and should be on its cost-effectiveness, social equity, benefits to the environment and whether it is integrated to existing or planned established future development. This is also true with many of our roadway projects for the road widening usually promotes more sprawl and is congested again in a few years because it induces more sprawl with increased auto use and congestion to adjoining areas. This is why there is a great need to develop a Comprehensive Integrated Regional Plan that all the communities initially agree and will abide to.

Portland, Maryland and Vancouver B.C. have developed such a Regional and State Plan so their cities and region will have communities knowing where transit and roadway improvements will be provided and where development should take place. Also such a Plan for the communities can determine to what extent their area should be developed with varying developments and density. It is a rational effective coordinated way for communities, cities and counties to develop. In the long run this will be more effective and cost much less than building various uncoordinated projects as we do presently.