Hi all, As you might remember, there was a Transpo WG meeting in November. As circumstances had it, it was held solely by three of us who have not regularly attended Transpo meetings in the past, so it was sort of a fresh look at transpo issues from a different perspective. With that said, it was a good meeting at which some very solid recommendations were crafted for this year's TWG objectives. Here are the basics: Attending were Micheas Herman, Eric Brooks and Jim Dorenkott. Main topics of discussion were - Free Muni - Transit Riders' Union - Other Miscellaneous Transportation Improvement Suggestions (We did not approve previous minutes because, not being regular members, we did not have them readily at hand, and had also not attended the previous meeting.) FREE MUNI The first hour of the meeting was held only by myself and Micheas, and we spent the entire hour hashing out a rough proposal for a practical and reasonably achievable roll out for a free Muni transit plan. The proposal was a basic timeline for gradual introduction of free Muni service until the entire system has become free over the course of a five (or possibly 10) year plan. Its details were: (Riders entering during free hours would be given transfers.) It should be noted that from the -beginning- of this timeline the Transit Dept. and the Supes/Mayor would be developing and passing a coinciding funding plan, to pay for the free Muni roll out as it proceeds. Below is a listed 5 year plan, but the stages of it could be engaged every two years, instead of every year, if it were to be decided that a 10 year roll out would be more desirable. 1) In the first year of the roll out, make all night owl service routes free (roughly 1am - 5am) and to reinstate previous owl routes that have been recently shut down. (The idea here is that the owl routes are a low revenue generator anyway, and so would be easiest for Muni to swallow first. The subsequent roll out proceeds in this same fashion, gradually introducing free Muni to higher ridership times over a 5-10 year period.) One good way to sell the free Owl routes is to connect them with the idea of keeping people from driving home under the influence by giving them free service (like we do during Halloween, etc.). 2) In the second year, the evening non peak hours from 7pm to 1am would be made free. One potential way to help sell this, is the increased foot traffic it could bring to local businesses on the transit corridors. (It is possible that this could increase revenues to the General Fund that might help make up for increased costs. I'll write more on funding mechanisms after laying out the timeline.) It is possible at this and in the next stage, employers and employees who can, will start shifting work schedules in a way that enables employees to get home from work (and in the next stage both to and from work) on Muni free. 3) In the third year, the morning/afternoon non peak hours from 10am to 4pm would be made free. (Covered in this schedule would be school students negating the necessity to carry bus fare to get home. We might just want to also institute a 'children ride free' policy at this stage.) 4) In the fourth year, the peak evening hours of 4pm to 7pm would be made free. Again increased traffic to small businesses on transit corridors might arise. 5) In the fifth and final year, the peak morning hours (the final most costly ridership block) of 5am to 10am would be made free. (It is possible that stages 4 and 5 could be reversed to provide more of a boost to workers earlier. ) 6) Once Jim showed up, he suggested the idea of also/or gradually introducing phased free 'Zones' and/or Lines. In other words, there could be specific locations at which free entry is allowed, most importantly where a lot of workers (especially low income workers) need to get on (Mission, Market, Sunset, Excelsior, etc.). This would cost more up front, but have the benefit of making the free phase in immediately popular and tangible to large numbers of riders. We could also make low ridership -lines- free early on, as we are also making low ridership time periods free. Business/Transit Improvement Districts (BTIDs): After some discussion we also introduced the idea of helping pay for the last two strategies mentioned in point 6 by establishing 'Business/Transit Improvement Districts'. In other words, in just the same way that businesses now get together to volunteer to be taxed for Business and Neighborhood improvement, we could develop a specific strategy for Business improvement based voluntary 'Pro-Transit' tax districts. We could go to specific business corridors along transit lines and pitch them on Business/Transit Improvement taxes that would basically pay for themselves through the increased revenues that businesses in the newly formed district can expect due to increased foot traffic (lots of studying would have to be done to identify and show likely positive zones where this would work). The actual mechanism would be that riders are allowed to get on Muni free in any Business/Transit improvement district. One draw back would be that such a district wouldn't promote the key benefit for businesses of riders -starting- their Muni shopping day free, however this could possibly be solved by making entire corridors -or even specific Muni lines- free. These would be 'Adopted' by the improvement district members. This idea has the benefit of providing funding right off the bat, but I expressed my own feeling that we could be in danger of slowing or crippling the roll out of free Muni if we are dependent on Improvement Districts to provide the funding. My call is that the 'time zone' plan should be rolled out as the primary mechanism and that these improvement districts should only be plugged in to that plan where it would be a good way to help boost and logistically encourage the progress of the roll out. In other words each improvement district would open up -more- free Muni -sooner- than the time zone roll out plan. This would have to be a very strictly and carefully legislated overall roll out plan to make sure that it doesn't cause the plan to wait for BTID funding, but instead works in rhythm and harmony with it. Funding: Besides BTIDs, we didn't focus too much on funding mechanisms. This is because Supervisor Peskin and others have already started floating ideas for getting around the fare based funding requirements for Fed and State matching funds, and that those ideas should be able to be fairly easily geared up and passed to meet the need. We did specifically float the ideas of higher fuel taxes and parking fees as part of the strategy, including fuel taxes on airport and sea/bay port fuels. However Micheas was very strong on, and repeated the point that, in his view, it s crucial that we eliminate this mandated rider fare requirement for Federal and State transit matching funds and that we might find it very hard to make any progress until that happens. I expressed my view that this might -never- happen and that we should proceed with a Muni plan that is specifically designed to free us of our addictive and incestuous dependence on these matching funds. In other words, let's just say damn the torpedoes and go for it and tell the Feds and State where they can stick it. We didn't really resolve which of these views has more validity and potential utility. However, we by all means should pursue changing the laws as we also pursue a free Muni roll out that is not dependent on such changes. If we were to win the law changes, it would simply make the whole package all the easier. On this point, Micheas said we have a good relationship with the new Rep. who just replaced Pombo and that we might be able to get him to introduce a federal level bill to repeal the rider fare requirement. I also suggested that we contact Rep. Pete Stark who might be a good candidate for helping us introduce the law change. SAN FRANCISCO TRANSIT RIDERS UNION After Jim arrived, we all had a short but pretty productive discussion on the SFGP getting very actively involved in starting an SF Transit Riders Union (I suggested calling it SF TRU.) Jim made the point that the main reason he came was to talk about pushing for a transit riders union. Micheas expressed doubts that helping start an SF transit riders union would mesh well with the overall basic goal of the SFGP taking on projects that help do party building while we work on them. Jim and I replied that in our view the SFGP is impotent to meet its overall civic and environmental goals in regard to transit until a strong riders union is established, and that we simply -must- pursue this coarse. I added that riding Muni has become more and more expensive and resembling a pseudo-nazi like police state, and that to protect the poor and personal civil liberties, we likewise, must make a -top- priority of helping start a riders union. In order to allay Micheas' doubts and make the move of the SFGP helping build a union more concrete as -specifically- beneficial to party building, we suggested the following strategies. 1) SFGP volunteers can, ride the buses and rails, and table at transit entry points, with the dual purpose of signing up transit riders into the union while -at the same time- registering them as Green voters (perhaps if it is legal we could give them free or cheaper union dues by financially subsidizing each who registers Green). Then we would finish up giving them info that both promotes GP transit concepts and informs them on good transit union strategies. 2) A cornerstone of our transit riders' union campaign could be to pass a charter amendment that would establish a District (and/or proportional representation) based, fully elected Transit Authority to oversee all Muni and other public transit in San Francisco. This would tie in very strongly with point 1 and make the importance of employing a joint union/registration strategy crystal clear. If successful, this would the give us at least 11 more public offices in San Francisco for which we can run Green candidates, which would be a huge potential for party building and organizing. In the end, we consensed that the Transpo WG should have a specific near future meeting on fully fleshing out an SFGP pro Transit Riders Union strategy. OTHER PROPOSALS We also consensed on a couple of other goals for the year as: 1) The SFGP should push for more and stronger concrete additions to Business/Neighborhood Improvement District plans which specifically promote 21st century transit goals such as; walkable car free areas, transit zones as mentioned above, pro-bicycle plans (see point 2 below), pro car share plans, reduced reliance on parking, and dense housing on transit corridors. 2) The SFGP should make a specific point of pushing hard enough in the next year to win a 'Yellow Bike' program for San Francisco. ('Yellow' bikes are public bicycles that are rented, ridden and then re-racked (usually at destination) in the same way that City Car Share provides public auto rentals. City bike programs are successful in various cities and have the added benefit of potentially setting up a public worker training program for bike repair and maintenance. (Local jobs for a greener city.) That's the extent of what I remember from the meeting. I am certain that I missed some other discussion points. Micheas, Jim... additions or corrections? peace Eric Brooks