Buses, Boats and BART – Part 3

Two weeks ago, frustrated by the Bay Area Transportation & Land Use Coalition Report (see www.transcoalition.org), I presented my vision of what mass transit needs to provide:

Within the next 5 years you will primarily use Bay Area Transit to commute to work because: 1) you will be able to get where you need to go in a time that is comparable to or better than your optimal driving time; 2) you will be able to easily schedule and pay for your trip; 3) the cost of the trip will be competitive with the real cost of driving; and 4) the trip will minimize the mental and physical stress associated with space, uncertainty and Newton’s Second Law of Motion. (If you missed the previous articles, see www.CarquinezReview.com)

Last week I proposed a system employing new carpool-scheduling and lane-control technology that could potentially realize this vision in 5 or fewer years.

But what about Newton’s Second Law of Motion, you ask?

Good question.

Newton’s Second Law states that the force acting on an object is a product of its mass and acceleration, F=ma.

And what’s that got to do with mass transit?

Another good question.

Mass transit that knocks you about like a marble in a tin can, i.e., that applies forces to you by constantly starting and stopping, by constantly accelerating and decelerating, is very uncomfortable mass transit indeed and is only suitable for short trips.

Trains and automobiles are designed to minimize jostling. While ferries are subject to water conditions, they’re large, giving you plenty of room to move about, and you can go outside for fresh air should you need to calm your stomach.

Buses, on the other hand, can be barf buckets. Subject to traffic-flow uncertainty and frequent stops, buses jostle you about so much that many of you, like me, are probably overcome by motion sickness if you try to work or read.

When I taught high-school mathematics more than 30 years ago in Chicago, I started out as a substitute, living on the South Side without a car. I rode the bus to many of my schools and was one sick puppy until I secured a permanent position at a school on the West Side close to an Elevated train stop. Though it was not the smoothest of rides, the ‘L’ was far better than Dan Ryan express buses.

Buses are stuffy – it’s rare that one has good air circulation – and the four-across seating is cramped and the aisle narrow because, after all, a bus must be cost effective and fit within existing traffic lanes. All in all, riding a bus tends to be a claustrophobic and uncomfortable experience.

The Coalition Report claims that future express buses will be different. Accommodations will be as good as an airline’s only more spacious. Right! If you believe that, I’ve got this great deal on the latest stereo technology: eight-track tapes. (Cash in advance; small bills only; all sales are final.)

If mass transit goes primarily to express buses, commuters will continue to desert buses for cars as soon as buses decrease traffic congestion. The day after an average commuter, who’s crammed in next to someone who ate too much garlic the night before, looks out on smoothly flowing traffic, he’ll be in his car, alone, driving to work.

The Coalition is pushing express buses because they’re cheap, but they are decidedly not "World Class", an expression the Report overuses. A true world-class mass-transit system must consist of advanced carpool technology, very fast trains that ring the Bay and that connect with feeder trains to outlying areas, fast ferries that stop everywhere they possibly can and many, many buses, both local and express, that provide the flexibility needed to transport commuters over short runs to faster and more comfortable transportation.

Too expensive? How can it be too expensive when millions of commuters are wasting billions of dollars and years of their lives stuck in traffic? The impact on productivity and worker morale is staggering. Businesses and commuters should be jumping at the chance to fix the problem.

But do we have the political will in our balkanized Bay Area to create world-class mass transit? Sadly, we may not, since we can’t even get the Solano Transportation Authority to fund a study of a proposed Benicia train station on the Capitol Corridor commuter line from Sacramento to San Jose (see Benicia Herald, 2/9/00)).

Are we stupid, or what?