Public transportation on the chopping block

You've probably noticed that fares for public transit all around the Bay Area have already been going up -- and you may well have found that one of your favorite bus lines stopped running recently. 

That can make your life a bit tougher in this economy, but as KALW's Nathanael Johnson reports, it reflects how bad things are for public transportation.

*     *     *

NATHANAEL JOHNSON: The Samtrans 292 is rolling along, and Ariel Castillo is relaxing in his seat, with a book.

ARIEL CASTILLO: Most of the time I read, I just tune myself out to the world and keep up my reading. And I really like the bus because right now I can read 2-3 books a week.

JOHNSON: Castillo works at the airport and lives in San Francisco. He rides both Muni and Samtrans to make the commute, and for him, it’s an obvious choice. It’s about $5 a day – compared to BART which costs $16.50. And he doesn’t have a car. But last year, Samtrans fares went up 25 cents. Not a lot, but enough to change Castillo's life. He decided he needed to cut back.

CASTILLO: Before, I ate my lunch every day at the airport I didn’t have to make lunch or anything. I purchased my lunch at the airport, but now I make my own lunch, so that means I have to get up early I have to go to supermarket and all that.

JOHNSON: There’s another 25 cent fare hike coming up, which, if the pattern continues, means Castillo will have to cut back even more. All this doesn’t make a lot of sense. 2009 was a banner year for Samtrans. More people rode the bus last year then ever before. So why are they short on cash?

The problem is that usually Samtrans gets 22 percent of its budget from the state. And last year the state grabbed a lot of that money back, and the bus service had to be cut for the first time in history.

Samtrans isn't the only agency in trouble. San Francisco’s MTA, which includes Muni, lost $180 million it had been expecting from the state. MTA representative Judson True says they are looking at cutting service for almost every route, raising fares, and increasing parking fees.  And he says, that’s not the worst of it.

TRUE: We’ve issued 100 layoff notices in the past month and there are more to come if we move forward in reducing muni service.

JOHNSON: Which means, instead of helping to create jobs the government is contributing to more losses.

TRUE: Underfunding transit basically means that we are making it harder for people to get around in San Francisco and the Bay Area as a whole, and that hurts our economy. It hurts productivity, it takes time out of people’s lives where they could be at work or with their families, and it’s very sad because it’s not just a way of getting around, it’s crucial to our quality of life every day. So these cuts degrade our quality of life.

JOHNSON: For many of us, the quality of public transportation does have a big impact on our quality of life. And as we try to rely less on hydrocarbon fuels, public transit officials say bus and train lines should be expanding – and instead they have no other option but to cut back.

For Crosscurrents, I'm Nathanael Johnson.

*     *     *

HOST HANA BABA: And Nathanael joins us now in the studio. So Nate, is this just another symptom of the state crisis?

JOHNSON: That’s a good way to put it. The fact that legislators have been unable to agree on a rational budget has led to all kinds of unintended consequences. The strange thing with this though, was that transit was supposed to be different.  For example, part of the state sales tax on gasoline is supposed to fund public transportation. But in 2007 when the state hit the skids, it raided that money and used it for other things.

BABA: Is that legal? Can the state just take transit money and spend it on other services?

JOHNSON: No, it’s not legal. And the California Court of Appeals said as much last June. But Governor Schwarzenegger appealed the ruling to the California Supreme Court, and in the meantime went ahead and took more money. Then the California Supreme Court came back and said, you know, what the lower court said was right, you really can’t divert this money.

BABA: So now that the court has sided with transit, is it going to get more money this year?

JOHNSON: Probably not. I think it’s fair to say that all around the Bay Area, public transit administrators are freaking out, because the Governor has proposed not just cutting transit funding, but eliminating it altogether and forever. Basically the court said you can’t take a dedicated tax and use it on something else. So the governor said, fine, let’s just eliminate the tax and replace it with a “user fee,” which is basically another name for a tax but without the same legal requirements.

BABA: Is that a proposal the legislature is going to accept?

JOHNSON: Maybe. The problem is that the state is so strapped for cash, and this is one of the few available pools of money. You need a two-third majority to raise taxes in California, and all the Republicans have vowed not to raise taxes. So the only way to fund one program is by raiding another. There was a hearing last week on transit, and lots of legislators talked about how important transit was, but no one offered any concrete proposals for fixing the problem. So who knows how that will turn out.

BABA: All right, so that's Sacramento. What about locally? How are other transit agencies coping?

JOHNSON: Some better than others. Caltrans doesn’t get any money directly from the state, so it’s insulated. Golden Gate transit gets a little less money from the state, but it’s still looking at cutting positions and raising the toll on the Golden Gate Bridge.

In San Francisco, people are fighting over the scraps, with the SEIU and some supervisors saying there should be fewer layoffs. AC transit cut 200 jobs last year. It was going to build this new rapid transit system between Berkeley and San Leandro, but instead it had to use that money to keep the lights on. You know I asked Jim Gliech, the deputy general manager of AC transit what it was like to cut into the muscle like this, he said they had no choice - it was either cut that exciting new service or make cuts that people really depend on:

GLEICH: The vast majority of AC Transit ridership are people with incomes below the poverty level. A high percentage are transit-dependent. (Laughs grimly) It's really a disaster. And there does not seem to be anything going on in Sacramento that's going to correct it.

BABA: This is all pretty grim, is there any hope for local transit?

JOHNSON: Well, public transportation will still be around, it  just won’t be as good. There’s still a chance that the state will just let the money go to transit, but then it will have to make cuts elsewhere, or find new money.

BABA: Thanks Nate.

JOHNSON: Thanks.