After two years of exhaustingly interminable meetings, reports, investigations, dialogues, public meetings and God knows what else, WTA’s landmark report calling for comprehensive regional ferry service is headed to the California legislature.
Published: January, 2003
On December 11, the Water Transit Authority (WTA) delivered its Implementation and Operation Plan, entitled “A Strategy to Improve Public Transit with an Environmentally Friendly Ferry Service,” to the California State Legislature. After a long-awaited 18-month planning period, complete with a multitude of technical studies, the WTA prepared a well-thought-out plan for expanding the San Francisco Bay’s ferry system with convenient landside connections.
Plan for Ferries Clears MTC’s Review
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) reviewed the WTA’s plan and affirmed that ferries are a cost-effective option, comparing favorably to other transit options such as express buses, BART, or Caltrain.
Steve Hemminger, MTC’s Executive Director, underscored MTC’s advocacy for a diverse transit system, saying, “Ferries, along with other transbay improvements, will be needed to serve the 40 percent increase in travel projected by MTC.” Commenting on the method the WTA developed for counting future ferry riders, MTC’s report stated, “The [forecasting models] are the most comprehensive tools yet developed to estimate ferry ridership. Implicit in the forecasts is the recognition that riders of ferries often choose to use these services for reasons other than simply time and cost.”
MTC’s incoming Chair, Marin County Supervisor Steve Kinsey, spoke at a recent Commonwealth Club/Mineta Institute-sponsored forum on ferries, saying, “MTC is struggling right now under a burden of a number of lawsuits that are specifically targeted at this very issue of how we, as a region, create an increased transit ridership.” Commenting on the core of the issue, he added, “Clearly, mobility is a fundamental component of quality of life, it’s also a real driver of the economic opportunities of the Bay Area.”
Funding Transit Enhancements
The WTA’s plan for funding its system looks only to new sources of money rather than to the dwindling supply of existing sources. For instance, the agency looked to a portion of a proposed dollar toll increase to state-owned bridges, county sales tax authorizations, and untapped or new sources of federal dollars.
Dollar Toll Increase
State Senator Don Perata, Senate Majority Leader, plans to introduce legislation in early 2003 to ask voters to approve increasing tolls on state-owned bridges for transit enhancements. Speaking at the Commonwealth Club forum on water transit, Sen. Perata described the urgency of moving forward with a toll increase. Sen. Perata said, “I will tell you categorically I think raising bridge tolls is something that we’re going to be able to do once and then we’re going to have put it in the drawer for another decade or decade and a half. So my interest is to see how far we can get the public to go to create more transit opportunities.”
Sen. Perata elaborated on the regional transit system, saying, “We have to recognize that we’re not really talking about ferries exclusively. This is an integrated expenditure plan that as BART gets stronger, as AC Transit can put more buses across the Bay, and we can use carpool lanes to their God-intended purpose, if we can make the ACE trains stronger so the service coming into the southern part of the Bay is enhanced, we are integrating the whole system, we are making everything stronger; and that makes ferry service plausible and possible.”
Local Funding
Six counties will be considering sales tax measures on the 2003-2004 ballots, including San Francisco, Contra Costa, Marin, San Mateo, Solano, and Sonoma. Proposed local fund sources include developer transit impact fees and local sales tax authorizations for transit. For a county to authorize a portion of the sales tax to be used for transit, a 2/3 vote is required. MTC vice-chair Steve Kinsey urged a change to that requirement, stating, “We absolutely need to change the voting of tax increases for transportation from a 2/3 majority to a 55 percent or some reasonable super majority.” He justified the need for this change by explaining, “In spite of being one of the most congested areas in the country, four of the five transportation sales tax measures in our state went down to defeat.”
Federal Funding
The WTA is seeking to increase the Federal Ferryboat Discretionary Fund from its current annual $38 million to $75 million, with a reserved set-aside for the Bay Area. Other states, like Washington, Alaska and New Jersey get set-asides. WTA Federal lobbyist Peter Friedman said, “Thirty-eight million is very
little spent on ferries. For the first time, the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) has included ferries on their wish-list.” In addition, Mr. Friedman suggested that there may be funding for environmental research and development from such sources as the Dept. of Energy.
Regional Agencies Applaud WTA’s Plan
In a letter delivered to the WTA, BART General Manager Tom Margro said, “Since the WTA’s proposed ferry system primarily links bayside communities with San Francisco, there is clearly a mutual and potentially complementary relationship between ferries and BART. Some portions of the BART system may have limited capacity in the future to accommodate new riders during certain time periods, which could be addressed by ferry service enhancement.”
The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) expressed its support for the WTA plan in a letter reading, “We applaud the WTA for the other sound transportation commitments that the agency has made, including increasing [landside connections] to ferry terminals and reducing the use of automobiles for these trips.”
Marin County Supervisor and WTA Community Advisory Committee member Cynthia Murray summarized the appeal of an integrated transit system thus, “We need more choices, and we have different people who have different transit modes that appeal to them. We have a huge demand for increased transit because we have huge congestion.” She added, “One of the best parts of this whole [proposed] system is that the WTA has built in the connectivity. They haven’t said, we’re just going to only look at what we’re going to put on the water, they’re looking at how to make sure that people reach their final destination.”
Final Destination
For now, the WTA plan has reached its final destination, the State Legislature. Next, Sen. Perata plans to sponsor two pieces of legislation. First, he will sponsor legislation adopting all or part of the
WTA’s plan; concurrently, he will sponsor legislation to send the proposed dollar toll increase for funding various regional transit enhancements to the voters. To join Sen. Perata in supporting expanded water transit, write your legislator. Don’t have time to compose a letter? Go to www.watertransit.org; click on Public Participation/Support the WTA’s Plan for a handy template you can use.
