AN OPEN LETTER TO DALE FRANCISCO
Dear Dale,
Before your recent election victory, you and I had a little debate regarding alternative transportation. I was for it; you -- while not against it -- didn't really see the value. Here is a quote from your rebuttal to my comments in which I referred to you as defeatist:
It is not "defeatist" to note that private transportation's overwhelming popularity is due to the choices and convenience it provides. It is far more realistic to work on technologies that improve private transportation--i.e., making it more green--than to continue in a policy of "encouraging" people to "get out of their cars," when there is little empirical evidence that such measures work.
I don't know if you read it or not, but I responded this way:
Why not do both? And what's the evidence that such measures don't work? I've been to Toronto, Paris, London, and Amsterdam in the course of the last few years, and public transportation is just awesome -- and highly utilized -- in those cities. Would you tell them it doesn't work? I might agree with you that a strategy to "get people out of their cars" would be a hard sell "today," but we're not talking about today; we're talking about the future.
Well, it's beginning to look like the future might just be here. In case people may not have noticed, the average price for a gallon of gas just surpassed the $4 mark for the first time in history. And this unfortunate benchmark got me thinking about an article I read a few weeks ago titled Gas Prices Send Surge of Riders to Mass Transit. Here's part of it:
With the price of gas approaching $4 a gallon, more commuters are abandoning their cars and taking the train or bus instead ... Mass transit systems around the country are seeing standing-room-only crowds on bus lines where seats were once easy to come by. Parking lots at many bus and light rail stations are suddenly overflowing, with commuters in some towns risking a ticket or tow by parking on nearby grassy areas and in vacant lots.
Now, I wouldn't imagine that Santa Barbara is to this point yet, but it doesn't seem as if gas prices are going down any time soon. Thus, it might be in Santa Barbara's best interest to continue strengthening our public transportation infrastructure rather than going in the opposite direction. Your recent positions, however, don't encourage me. For example, The Daily Sound quoted you as saying the following about dedicated transit lanes:
To me, any practical implementation of the idea of dedicated transit lanes is going to be astonishingly expensive … This would not be the time to be spending upwards of half a million dollars that we don’t have.
When is the time, Mr. Francisco? Should we wait until gas is $8 a gallon? I would ask that -- in light of recent events -- you reevaluate your hard line positions on this issue and consider the changes going on around the country. The NYT article I referenced earlier ends this way:
"Nobody believed that people would actually give up their cars to ride public transportation," said Joseph J. Giulietti, executive director of the authority. "But in the last year, and last several months in particular, we have seen exactly that."
Hmmm, I wouldn't say nobody believed it.
Sincerely,
The Average Man
Labels: alternative tansportation, dale francisco, santa barbara city council
posted by Trekking Left @ 7:54 PM
10 comments
10 Comments:
"what's the evidence"
Not a factor for ideologues like Dale.
"I've been to Toronto, Paris, London, and Amsterdam in the course of the last few years, and public transportation is just awesome -- and highly utilized -- in those cities."
I would suggest that the population density and distribution in those very large urban cities is very different from Santa Barbara's. Thus attempting to support a mass transit system that would provide frequent and widespread coverage throughout all of SB would require an enormous subsidy.
Not counting the price we pay for gas, we are already paying massive subsidies to allow us to drive our cars, including the price to provide parking (about $20,000 per space in new construction), road maintanence (that's where the lion's share of Measure D and other transportation taxes are spent), traffic police, health costs for the hundreds of thousands of people injured each year in car accidents, loss of open space to roads, and cleanup of air and water pollution from cars and pavement runoff.
The amount of money we will need to "subsidize" decent alternative transportation is pretty small compared to that, particularly since people will be willing to pay higher transit fares to avoid the higher gas prices.
The Average Man has it right - I hope a lot more Average men and women vote in the next City Council election.
Thank you saying it straight and true Average Man.
-An Anonymous Councilmember
As one ideologue to another, Mr. Francisco is simply being realistic. Have you tried comparing different forms of transportation in real life? For a while, I was commuting to Carp. It was a 12 mile trip each way. Door-to-door time was an hour on the bus, 70 minutes by bicycle, and 20 minutes by car. A bus ticket is $1.25, gas for my car at $4.50/gallon would be about $2.25 one way. In my car or on my bike, I could stop anywhere along the way for an errand with no time penalty. With the car, I did not have to worry about how much stuff (like groceries) I could carry. The bottom line is the added value of convenience and time savings is still worth the price of the gas, even at $8/gallon. I have a very flexible schedule, and few demands on my time. I prefer the bike because I enjoy it. Consider asking a mom with a kid or two to give up her wheels and ride the bus instead, and what do you think the response will be? The presumed availability of on-demand, rapid transportation is woven very deeply into every aspect of our community. It is going to take a long time to weave in practical alternatives that are palatable to enough people to work. Subsidizing transportation that has to be force-fed to reluctant users may not be the most efficient way to effect change.
And please, if you are going to compare subsidies, don't pretend that mass transportation is going to eliminate the need for roads. And you might as well stop pretending we are spending anything meaningful on traffic police around here.
The community's documents are clear. The City of Santa Barbara will become more dense and you will be seeing more transit. It is time for Dale Francisco, et al to get on the bus and stop considering transit as for an underclass that serves up martinis and pasta.
Francisco represents a regressive constituency. Wanting to keep the city frozen in their "Happy Days" development genre, the old timer Mary Louise-Davis types, car clubs and low-density advocates now have a stronger voice on the council. It is however a tiresome obstructionist voice that will hopefully fade soon. The pre-Francisco council was cautious enough so with Francisco's voice it is becoming increasingly constipated.
We must look forward. There are far too many places in the city that are deteriorating and need redevelopment. Just as the city cannot deny a legal plan for a residential remodel, second story or room addition the city cannot deny property and development rights based upon Francisco's "private" mobility choice no matter how "popular."
One point that needs to be made is that a community can choose it's transportation mode regardless of density. The community, if it really wants to be thoughtful, kind, generous, efficient, would choose denser development, walking, biking and transit. It would return its original residential streets back to the people who own them. The drivebys are overusing this city's original residential streets grid to the property owners "quality of life" and financial detriment. It is actually worse than eminent domain because it is essentially the taking of ones property without the customary compensation.
Anonymous (9:45 PM) said - "The bottom line is the added value of convenience and time savings is still worth the price of the gas, even at $8/gallon ... It is going to take a long time to weave in practical alternatives that are palatable to enough people to work."
I think you (and Dale) continue to miss the main point here ... I am not suggesting that we simply "force" people to use alternative transportation. What I am saying is that we need to make it such an attractive option that they will WANT to do that (and I would add that $8 a gallon gas might be the "stick" that puts folks over the edge). If people like Dale continue to fight these things, however, then we will never "weave in practical alternatives that are palatable to enough people to work."
When is the time, Mr. Francisco? Should we wait until gas is $8 a gallon?
I have to say that one more year isn't that long to wait. ;D
trekking left said...
"What I am saying is that we need to make it such an attractive option that they will WANT to do that"
I agree with that completely. Where I disagree is that financial cost is the determining factor. I think time and convenience are at least as significant, and probably more so. If there were an alternative transportation proposal that addressed this, I think you would find that Mr. Francisco and many others would have no problem getting behind it. But I haven't seen anything so far that does not have a very steep penalty in consuming the user's time. Perhaps if the buses were subsidized to be free for a period of time, we could get an idea of just how many people would actually get out of their cars.
anonymous (9:45)
Average Man,
Regarding our earlier exchange, I did read your response, but I thought I had made my point sufficiently in my original post.
I wouldn't dream of telling people in Paris that their mass transit system doesn't work. I've used it, and it works fine. But they didn't build that system because they thought it was ethically or environmentally correct; they built it because their population and jobs density made such a choice economically sound.
According to Wikipedia, Paris has roughly 15 subway stations per square mile. If we assume that the "urban" area of Santa Barbara is about 12 square miles, we'd need a subway system with 180 stations to duplicate the convenience the Paris Metro offers.
If you believe, as I do, that we don't have the water to support a Parisian population density, then I predict it is highly unlikely we will ever build a Santa Barbara Metro.
It is not surprising that a doubling in gas prices has made many people give up the convenience of personal transportation for mass transit, especially for the commute trip. Some environmentalists have advocated European-style energy taxes to achieve exactly this effect.
Still, fuel prices will have to go very high indeed for most Santa Barbarans to give up their automobiles for shopping. And shopping is mostly what people do on Upper State Street. That's why I believe that dedicated mass transit lanes in that area would be counterproductive (by effectively doubling traffic congestion) and a waste of money (because they would be underutilized).
I have no "hard line" position on this. I'm quite pragmatic about it. We have a low-density city, and our work and our personal lives have been shaped in part by the easy availability of personal transportation. It will be far cheaper in the long run to provide environmentally sound personal vehicles--fitting our lives and our infrastructure as they are--than it would be to create a truly convenient mass transit system from the ground up.
Best regards,
Dale Francisco
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