Berkeley Lecturer Emeritus W. Homburger in BDP

photo courtesy of ITS

W. Homburger's (Institute of Transportation Studies Lecturer Emeritus and former acting director) recent talk to the Berkeley City Commons Club was written up this week in the Berkeley Daily Planet. The topic concerned, among other things, the proposed Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) designed to ease traffic issues in the San Francisco Bay Area's East Bay (most notably, for Berkeley residents, eliminating a lane on Telegraph Avenue for BRT operations). Homburger is skeptical of this project, noting that, despite his general support for some associated measures,

AC Transit wants to spend capital funds, which is money with a ribbon-cutting at the end. [...] When’s the last time you saw a ribbon-cutting for maintaining a building?

Homburger goes on to explain that more robust support from local citizens is necessary for the proper implementation of such a system. He is not without his critics, however. A blog entitled Friends of BRT Blog has written a recent post criticizing some of Prof. Homburger's thoughts on BRT in the East Bay (which came in the form of another article in BDP). Charles Siegel, of the Berkeley-based Preservation Institute, explains in the blog post that

Homburger claims that "loss of a pair of lanes on Telegraph will increase congestion and the anger of residents on parallel streets where backups are already formidable." In reality, the BRT project would actually reduce, not increase, the number of cars entering the neighborhood.

For example, AC Transit analysis forecasts that the number of vehicles traffic crossing a line just north of Ashby Avenue stretching from Sacramento Street to College Avenue during the afternoon peak hour in 2025 would be 15,400 without BRT and 14,900 with BRT - a decrease of 500 cars. In addition, AC Transit could provide traffic calming devices to protect residents of streets near the BRT line.

Of course the East Bay BRT project is still in its planning stages, so no commitment has been made one way or another by AC Transit on the matter. Information on the proposal can be found here.

-J. Chipman

AC Transit's Van Hool débacle

AC Transit (Alameda County, California) in recent years has eliminated bus routes (from 157 to 93), raised fares (to $1.75 local without a transfer, with a plan to raise fares to $2) and increased taxes for county residents all to facilitate the purchase of Belgian made buses against the advice of experts and to the detriment of riders and the agency's own drivers. A recent article by Robert Gammon in the East Bay Express details the saga of AC Transit administration's extraordinary expenditure on Van Hool busses. The agency has recently spent $97.2M in public funds on 236 buses, which one AC Transit driver describes as, "the worst buses we have."

The reasons given for purchasing the Van Hools are the low floors and the extra set of doors, both of which facilitate boarding and leaving the bus. With the low floors, however, come sections of seating on raised platforms which have resulted in a post-boarding injury rate 100% higher on those buses. The third set of doors requires a shorter wheelbase which results in a much bouncier rider -- especialy for passengers sitting behind the rear wheels -- so AC Transit is now ordering some new Van Hools to be custom made with a longer wheelbase and only two sets of doors ... just like the old domestic buses.

In the second part of this two part story, Gammon tells us that to purchase the Van Hools AC Transit has spent over $1 million on employee trips to Western Europe and paid for a bus inspector to live near Antwerp for over five years, at more than $500,000 -- including $2,637 a month for his auto allowance -- on top his $121k annual salary. Since 2001 general manager Rick Fernandez, who earns $260k/yr., has made seven trips to Europe at taxpayers' expense totaling $22,983. During that period, 2001 through 2007, AC Transit employees filled out 163 travel vouchers for trips to Europe for a total of $947,238. And AC Transit has just increased the meal allowance from $50 to $134 per day.

Bus Rapid Transit explained

The proposed East Bay Bus Rapid Transit program has attracted much comment in the local media, some of it ill-informed or hostile. (Why are so many people in "progressive" Berkeley scared of change and opposed to making life better for non-drivers?)

Wolf Homburger, a professor emeritus at ITS Berkeley, brings some measured judgment to this imbroglio, explaining how BRT works and what it entails for the region in Commentary: An Analysis of Bus Rapid Transit in the Berkeley Daily Planet.

(Image from AC Transit)