BART Board member Joel Keller called it a “hold you nose” kind of vote when his board agreed yesterday to become the latest transit agency to raise fares in the midst of a recession.

The message from the board: Don’t hate us. We hate doing this to you as much you will hate paying for it. Read the rest of this entry »

The AC Transit board tonight is expected to raise fares in the latest of a series of public transit fare increases sweeping across the Bay Area and California.

For anyone who wants to attend, the meeting is scheduled to start at 5 p.m. at AC’s headquarters at 1600 Franklin St, Oakland. The basic fare is proposed to rise from $1.75 to $2 on July 1. 

It’s too bad, many transit advocates say, that fares are going up after a year in which ridership made strong gains as many people, frustrated by higher gas prices, left their cars at home and rode the bus or train.

AC Transit board members have said a fare increase is a bitter but necessary medicine to combat the sharp decline in sale tax revenues that provide much of bus operating funds. AC leaders also grumbled that their district  took a $25 million hit in the state’s raid on transit funds to balance the state’s budget. Based on those repeated statements, a good guess is the board will adopt the fare hike.

You also can expect some public grousing though. Some district critics are incensed that AC Transit is going after a fare hike even though the district won voter approval in November to double a parcel district from $48 to $96 annually in most of the district.  Other transit systems in the East Bay don’t collect parcel taxes to hep them cover operating costs, critics note.

Many public transit riders are getting a raw deal these days: less service and higher fares. The Bay Area isn’t immune from the trend, either.

Boards for both County Connection bus system in Contra Costa County and the Wheels bus system in the Livermore Amador Valley area have voted to boost their basic fare from $1.75 to $2, starting in late March. Both agencies also are reducing service. 

The AC Transit board also will consider adopting the two-buck bus fare when it meets 5 p.m. Feb. 25 at AC Transit headquarters, 1600 Franklin Ave., Oakland. Some critics are steamed, saying the fare hike is coming much too soon after AC Transit voters decided last November to boost their parcel tax from $48 to $96 a year to avoid fare increases and service cuts.  Read the rest of this entry »

BART might steer its train cars into new money-making territory: turning the cars into moving billboards to help bail the transit system out of a budget jam.

We can hear the outcry. Don’t tarnish the sleek silver and blue cars, a well-known symbol of BART, with tacky advertising. Don’t let advertising invade one more place in our cluttered landscape. Those arguments will be one part of the debate whether BART should proceed with the advertising scheme.

But transit officials also said the economic downturn and the state’s raid on transportation funds has driven BART to scour and scrape for new ways to cut costs or raise money. Read the rest of this entry »

This week was a disharmonious convergence of most things I love about transportation in the Bay Area.

There was Spare the Air, which refused to be discredited as it died with a “yee-ha!” yesterday, racking up nearly 400,000 BART rides in one day, which happened to be the day after I blogged about what a futile gesture the final day of “Spare the Air” free transit was going to be.

As I watch the glare of the lights over the Coliseum, I can safely assume that more A’s fans will take BART home than in any previous year. No matter how much they complain about fares, they know that gas is more expensive. There may even be one or two fans who have already seen their personal scales tip in favor of selling their only Read the rest of this entry »

After three weeks of on-again-off-again vacation and quality time with my intercontinental marriage, I am back and promise to keep the blog from getting stale. I am also somewhat ashamed that when my colleague next door is writing haikus and quoting Lao-tzu for his blog, I’m doing the sound of one hand clapping.

And as luck would have it, my overflowing e-mail box contained a pitch for me to talk to a company that provides traffic data for navigation services.

It said that San Francisco/Oakland area has the nation’s ?-worst traffic congestion and seemed to imply that this should make me stand up and take notice. (I can’t tell you Read the rest of this entry »

Once again, I feel compelled to share my mis- fortunes at the expense of revealing my stupidity. I have to believe that there are others who regularly miss buses and have to drive an extra 15 miles to retrieve a forgotten mobile phone.

Perhaps it was my punishment for doubting that high-speed rail would ever be built in my lifetime. Perhaps it was what I deserve for not believing that people will all switch to public transit if only it were more convenient.

Or perhaps it was ignoring the sign in front of the Sacramento parking garage that said it closed at 7 p.m.

So I was in a hurry to get to the High-Speed Rail Authority board meeting where the board decided not to decide, thus deciding on a South Bay route for high-speed rail, which will improve the lives of millions of Californians and will be coming Read the rest of this entry »

After getting the most vigorous response to date for my Nov. 30 post, I shouldn’t dwell too much on the positive aspects of taking public transit.

But I believe in fairness, and today was a good day for transit; at least it was for this and a few thousand other commuters.

I made it to the train station with five minutes to spare and had the wisdom to avoid taking my bicycle because of the wet forecast. That left me with the dilemma of how to get the last 1.7 miles from the Oakland Coliseum Amtrak station to work on Oakport Street.

No worries, the 98 bus was there, waiting for me. It left about five minutes later, leaving some leeway in case the Capitol Corridor had been late. I made it to work in good time, which is more than I can say of Read the rest of this entry »

TransLink, the universal transit fare system that just launched, after two decades worth of development, service on AC Transit and Golden Gate Transit buses, has clearly had its share of problems.

I mean, they’re trying to integrate 26 different transit systems, some of which have trouble keeping things together within a single agency.

Now they’ve got the thing up and running, and Eric Schatmeier of Alameda raises yet another point for the system to worry about: Statements.

Here’s part of his e-mail to me:

I, too, have been a Read the rest of this entry »

When it comes to consumer credit, I’m not unique among Americans. I see, I want, I buy, I pay interest.

I understand that credit is expensive, that saving is good and borrowing can get you into trouble. That’s why credit cards are reserved for those impulse purchases that you can’t pay for NOW, but just need to stretch those dollars until the end of your billing cycle.

Along comes the end of the billing cycle, and whaddaya know? There’s rent, there’s that wireless bill or car payment (By the way, car notes simply aren’t Read the rest of this entry »