Coastal
Post Online
June, 2003
Golden Gate Transit to Slash Services
By Carol Sterritt
It is an institution, much of it on
wheels, with more than 320 million dollars in assets. It employs countless
people, everyone from secretaries to welders and painters, structural
engineers, and of course, its drivers. You may think of it as your ride to
work, or your ride home from a friend's when you're too tired to drive. It is
the Golden Gate Bridge District, and its fleet of buses and ferries.
Recently thousands of people in Marin
and Sonoma were shocked by the Bridge District's recent announcement. Due to a
$202 million budget crisis, significant cuts in service are being considered.
Since the Marin County Transit Board contracts the services of Golden Gate
Bridge District to provide our County with its transit system, the Bridge
District's forlorn financial system is our loss, too. According to proposed
scenarios, the transit cuts could total as much as $20 million. Familiar and
traditional routes would be slashed back. Some routes would go from every half
hour to once an hour. Others would simply be axed.
These cutback decisions will involve
a large and varied group of riders. People in Sonoma trying to make their way
into San Rafael or points south, including San Francisco, are now at a loss as
to how they will commute. There are West Marinites, immigrants from the Canal,
Belvedere executives and Marin City college students all shaking their heads
and asking, "What do I do now?" The story is a familiar one-a public
agency, bloated through the good years now desperate and struggling to survive.
(Does anyone else remember that multi-million dollar bridge party the District
threw back in 1987?)
Various rationales from the District
Board have been made: insurance premiums that skyrocketed in the wake of 9-11,
decreased ridership on ferries and buses due to the economic decline, expensive
seismic retrofitting along with renovation of bridge cables, the $14 million
purchase of the Mendocino ferry, and the purchase of 14 new buses for Marin
County, etc. Which of these items is truly responsible for bringing the transit
service to its knees is questionable. Some commuters feel the obvious answer is
not one or even several of the above but a larger issue-poor management.
We might try and examine the last
audit, concluded in December of 2002. Hashing through the numbers, most
individuals would end up pulling at their hair. The common operating procedure
at Golden Gate seems to be to spend $3 for every $1 that is taken in as
revenue. For instance, during 2002, bus fares gave the District a whooping
$16.5 million in operating revenues. However, operating expenses came to an
even more impressive $66.7 million. Fortunately, the state and Federal
governments made grants totaling over 15 million dollars. So the actual ratio
of spending comes down to $ 2 for every $ 1 dollar taken in.
Details of spending for bus transit
operations were quite similar in 2001. The District took in 17 million in fares
and spent 62.3 million. The state and Federal monies totaled over 13 million
for that time period. As I examined this report, a puzzle emerged. Bridge
officials have been quoted as saying that it is falling revenue from both
bridge tolls and from the decline in ferry and bus passengers that are financially
impacting the District so negatively. But the audit figures show that in 2002 a
significant increase in state and Federal monies just about makes up for this
decline. The Bridge Officials don't mention that offset.
Furthermore, although the numbers of
people coming across the Bridge fell in 2002, the fact that the bridge toll is
now at $ 5 took up some of the slack. Still we must consider the major
expenditures. Sixty-one million dollars were made available for the seismic
retrofitting of the Golden Gate bridge itself. Included in those monies are the
bills for renovating the bridge cables. Mendocino obtained a ferry; Marin
County obtained 14 new buses. It can be argued that the ferry was needed. But I
question if the buses were needed, at least in the current configuration as gas
guzzling behemoths.
For as we examine the cutbacks, a
significant trend emerges. Some of the mid-day bus routes are not high in
ridership. Across America, small college towns and cities with more savvy to
their planning now have shuttle-sized buses (really, nothing more than
oversized vans.) These cost a lot less to purchase, and also cost a great deal
less to operate. I rode the Route 20 home from San Rafael to Sausalito on May
20th. I did this during one of its mid-day runs. At no time were there more
than twelve people on the bus. By the time that the bus rode through my home
city, there were only three of us. A van could have done this job a lot, lot
cheaper.
Later that day, I sat through one of
several scheduled public hearings. This meeting was attended by most of the
nineteen Golden Gate Bridge District Board members. The public eagerly filled
the San Rafael City Council Chambers to overflow capacity. The meeting began at
7 p.m. and was still going when I left at 10 p.m. Many community members signed
up to speak and each person was allowed three to four minutes to convey their
thoughts on the coming crisis.
Here's what almost all of these
people agreed upon: this is a crisis that will affect nearly everyone who lives
in Sonoma, San Francisco, or Marin. It will affect not just transit patrons but
anyone who even occasionally uses surface streets or the freeway. Once the
proposed cuts are in place, countless people will be forced back into their own
cars or the cars of a carpool. Many of the people now using commuter buses,
filling them to overflow during rush hour, will soon be on the road in
individual vehicles. This means increased gridlock, starting as far north as
the city of Sonoma, and extending into San Francisco itself. As one part of the
cutback policy comes into play, commuters who still ride the few routes not
affected by outright elimination will find that their buses will no longer go
all the way into the city of San Francisco. Rather, on the new schedule, they
will be required to transfer to Muni transit buses at the Bridge toll plaza.
This will cost each rider a great deal of time, and the additional fare for the
Muni.
Likewise, Sonoma commuters who
previously stayed on their buses from Sonoma all the way into San Francisco
will have to transfer at San Rafael. Many speakers addressed the fact that
these changes will add as much as an hour to a commute that is already an hour
long one way.
A constant theme of speakers at the
May 20th hearing was that bus and ferry fares should simply be raised. Indeed,
the fare system in Marin County that Golden Gate has employed for years has
never kept up with inflation. Along with raising the fare, the idea of raising
bridge tolls came up. Mention was made that in New York City, bridges are now
$9 a vehicle to cross into the city. One of the reasons that officials there
took that step was to limit traffic-which now chugs along Manhattan boulevard
at a resounding 7 miles an hour.
Another theme was that of social
justice. If fares were raised, this should affect only those willing and able
to pay for such an increase. Other patrons, and among them we can include
college students, the disabled, and low income people, should have a discount
card, much like seniors do, in order to still afford their transportation
needs.
One or two speakers addressed the
severe financial neglect that the transit system has been battered by.
"Did this two hundred million dollar deficit really spring out of nowhere
overnight," several community attendees pondered out loud. "And
why," asked one speaker, "didn't the District Board ever consider the
possibility of selling bonds as a remedy to the situation." Other public
agencies do things like issuing bonds. Why not Golden Gate?
There were countless pleas from
speakers on behalf of residents too poor and intimidated by the system to come
and speak for themselves. Many of the bus cuts would heavily impact the
immigrant population found mostly in the San Rafael Canal district. Buses would
still be operating at 5 o'clock in the evening. (Although under the new
proposals, they will be severely overcrowded.) So workers would still get to
work. However, the buses to take them home when their shifts end six or seven
hours later would no longer be running. This impact will affect not just the
workers but the restaurant and hotel businesses, their patrons, and many other
service-based industries. The immigrant population simply does not earn enough
money at these jobs to allow them to live in Marin and to afford a car.
The next scheduled hearing on this
issue will be on May 29th, two or three days before this paper goes out. In
June, the staff recommendations will go to the Transportation Committee on June
12th. The Board will take final actions on June 27th. In July, the new bus
schedules and driver assignments will occur.
Try to be part of the solution. Be
Pro-Active now, rather than Re-Active later. Call or write the Golden Gate
Bridge District. (Their website, which has comment forms available, is
"goldengate.org".)
Also now is the time to contact your
Supervisor. Since the County contracts out our transit services to Goldern
Gate, it is a wise idea to think of taking control of the transit issue. With
local control, perhaps we would see things like smaller sized shuttle vans. And
we might no longer see thing like the speeding bus blinking its "Not in
Operation" sign at you, as you stand, like a character out of Ionesco,
vainly waiting for Godot.