San Francisco Bails on Free Transit Idea
An independent report has found that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's idea to make transit free in the city would greatly increase delays, overcrowding and costs. Newsom has backed away from the idea.
"That bleak assessment by private consultants who evaluated the free-rides idea has led Newsom to quietly abandon the concept, top administration aides told The Chronicle on Monday."
"Newsom asked transit officials in March to study a no-fare system, saying at the time, 'If it could happen here, it could happen anywhere.' His suggestion was aimed at luring people out of their cars to reduce air pollution and traffic."
"The consulting team hired by the city, led by Sharon Greene & Associates, looked at what happened when other jurisdictions adopted free transit programs. In larger cities, such as Austin, Texas, Trenton, N.J., and Denver, ridership increased by nearly 50 percent."
"If that happened to Muni, which now provides nearly 700,000 trips on an average day, the annual operating and maintenance costs would rise by nearly $69 million. Muni's annual budget is about $670 million."
"The extra costs would come from paying more drivers, maintenance and cleaning crews, supervisors and security guards."
"In addition, the city would have to add an estimated 267 buses and streetcars to its fleet of about 1,000 at a cost of approximately $537 million. New storage and maintenance yards also would be needed to accommodate the new vehicles."
- Login or register to post comments
- Email this page
Related News Stories
New Train Tunnel Ads Irk Riders, Draw Revenue - May 15, 2008
A Congestion Pricing Plan For America's Most Famous Bridge - May 11, 2008
Streetfilm: A Car Tour of Hollywood with a Pedestrian Advocate - May 08, 2008
L.A. Transit Chief Calls for Highway Tolls - May 06, 2008
Debating L.A.'s Growth, Traffic and Transit - May 06, 2008
Strike That... Reverse It
So if free transit is "bad" then full cost transit must be "good." Right?
SF Needs to Build a Subway System
San Francisco needs to invest in a few lines of underground subway. Upfront it will be expensive and disruptive but it will provide fast and uninterrupted travel throughout the city in the future and be much less to operate. Now buses limp along in traffic taking forever and requiring tons of drivers to the operate buses at a decent headway as they inch along their congested routes. San Fransisco has the density for subway and at just 7 by 7 miles in size, 20-25 miles of subway would cover a lot of ground. LA built twenty-some miles of subway 10 years ago so its not all that hard to do, the difference is those 20 miles would go a lot further in SF than LA.
Or SF Can Build Bus Rapid Transit
As they are planning to do on a couple of corridors, including (as I remember) Van Ness and Geary. Reserving a lane for buses speeds up the buses amd provides fast and uninterrupted travel at much less cost than a subway.
A subway may be justified in some locations in SF. (I really am not sure about this.) But BRT can be implemented much more quickly, at much less cost, with much less disruption, so it is justified in more locations.
Of course, they could also go with light rail on the exclusive lanes, rather than buses on the exclusive lanes.
Charles Siegel