Hi, Here's the draft with Jerry's concerns addressed, and also Streets & Cars added. Please send me revisions. Don't send stuff in Word! This is just text; why make it so complicated to read? Transportation Plank Draft 3, 6/12/04 The San Francisco Green Party believes good transit policy is an essential part of creating a safe, healthy, and attractive city. Public transit should be an efficient, reliable and attractive option for all citizens, not just those who have no other choice. Walking and bicycling should be promoted as healthy and safe options for the able-bodied. Taxi service must be improved, without compromising safety or drivers' livelihoods. Cars should be accommodated gracefully in planning, but not given priority over other forms of transit. In particular, we advocate that drivers should pay more of the true costs of automobile operation and parking, which are currently subsidized at the expense of other means of transit. The Southeast neighborhoods of our city, which bear a relatively high share of transit costs in the form of air pollution from our freeways, should be compensated by focusing other transit improvements in these neighborhoods. Several of our proposals would require changes in state law; we ask that our local legislators and representatives attempt to change California law to enable San Francisco to control these aspects of our transit policy. A. Transit Justice Many of our current ways of funding transit are regressive: working class people pay a much higher share of sales taxes and fixed fees. We advocate moving to more progressive forms of funding. We also support efforts to relieve the air pollution in Southeast neighborhoods of the city, which is partly caused by freeways with diesel trucks, and advocate for special attention to be given to improving transit in these neighborhoods. The San Francisco Green Party advocates: 1. Ensuring that neighborhood residents get a major share of the new jobs created by transit projects which impact those neighborhoods, such as the 3rd St Light Rail. 2. Muni should hire more local people for jobs at all levels, so income from these jobs stays in the City. 3. Muni buses in the Southeast neighborhoods should all be converted to electric or less-polluting technology such as CNG, to mitigate air quality problems caused by the highways and other sources such as power plants. 4. We call for creation of local car registration fee, based on the engine size, weight, fuel efficiency, and value of the car. This fee should be offset by a transportation tax credit to reward drivers of cheaper, less polluting, and more efficient cars. 5. More of the cost of transit should be paid by commuters: in particular, parking spaces used primarily by commuters should be extremely expensive. These costs could be lowered on weekends to encourage people to come to town to patronize local businesses. 6. An increased share of transit costs should be paid by downtown businesses, which benefit tremendously by the ease of accessing downtown on transit. 7. The corporations that profit the most from our current car-oriented culture should be asked to pay more of the costs of other forms of transit. 8. Regional planning is necessary for smart transit development. Planning should take into account the transit impact of commuters as well as residents: areas such as San Francisco, which have a higher daytime population due to commuters, should receive a higher share of representaion and funds. B. Muni and Regional transit In order to encourage ridership, public transit needs to be efficient, affordable, and reliable. Muni's performance and reliability should be increased to the point where it's an attractive option for most people going about their daily business, not just commuting to and from work. We should increase funding for Muni and work to shift the operating costs to other sources than the riders: public transit should eventually be free to riders, funded by all citizens just as public parks, public schools, and public libraries are. Increased Muni ridership benefits everybody: businesses get the added benefit of more mobile customers, drivers will benefit from less congestion, and everybody would get better air quality. The San Francisco Green Party advocates: 1. Creation of a citywide bus rapid transit network to ensure that people can reliably travel between any neighborhoods of the city in under half an hour. 2. Gradually replace bus rapid transit on the heaviest lines (such as along the Geary and Mission corridors with light rail to enable moving more people quickly and decrease boarding times. Build the "G line" by running historic streetcars from Market Street up Church, out to 9th Ave via the N-Judah tracks, to a new branch up 9th Ave into Golden Gate Park. 3. Immediately roll fares back to $1 ($35 Fastpass) and make Muni free to youth, seniors, and the disabled. Continue to roll back fares towards zero as new funding sources become available. 4. Ensure that as long as riders have to pay fares, frequent riders receive a substantial discount for use of the Fastpass, which speeds boarding time and encourages casual ridership. 5. Maintain infrastructure in good repair, so less money is spent on breakdowns and other emergencies. 6. Eliminate redundant Muni stops on the same line that are only one block apart. 7. Ensure faster service by allowing Muni buses and trains to change lights as they approach. Replace stop signs along busiest Muni routes with this type of traffic lights. 8. Expand the diamond transit-only lanes, to prevent Muni buses from getting stuck in traffic. Clearly marked lanes such as those on the N-Judah between 9th and 19th Avenue will discourage cars from driving in transit lanes. 9. Establish no-wait transfers at key junctions. 10. Expand Nextbus or equivalent service to all lines. 11. Transition the Muni fleet to cleaner-fuel and electric buses, and buy new low-floor vehicles to ensure easier boarding. 12. Extend Caltrain downtown and electrify it. 13. Improve transfers between all public transit systems in the City: in particular, allow direct Muni-BART transfers at Civic Center and Embarcadero stations, and improve connections at Balboa Park and Glen Park stations. 14. Maintain 24-hour OWL service on major routes, to ensure people can safely walk the distance to the nearest line. If ridership is low, run smaller buses or vans at night on these routes to save money. 15. Institute "class pass" programs at the city's colleges in which fares are prepaid as part of school fees, similar to the program at UC Berkeley, and institute student discounts for all students on Fastpasses. 16. Include the cost of a monthly Fastpass in parking permits, to give every driver the option of taking Muni at no additional cost. 17. Improve transit service in the Southeast: build a new Caltrain station at Oakdale Avenue to better serve the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood. Improve the Bayshore station, with direct connections to Third Street light rail and Geneva Avenue buses to better serve the Visitacion Valley neighborhood. 18. More regional funding should be directed towards Muni's operating costs rather than expensive capital projects. 19. Aggressive enforcement of double parking in bus/rail lanes, or violating transit-only lanes. 20. Muni should receive more funding from a variety of sources, including parking fees and fines (see Parking section), an increase in the TIDF, and aggressive collection of unpaid TIDF fees from developers. 21. Muni drivers and other transit operators should have more reasonable shifts, including 6-hour days at the same rate of pay. C. Parking: Parking has a huge impact on our transportation system. Every car needs a space to live at its owner's residence and 3 to 4 spaces elsewhere. Space used for the storage of private automobiles amounts to vast acres of pavement and building space that could be used for parks, natural areas, public recreation, housing, sidewalks, bicycle lanes, transit lanes, or many other public benefits. With 210 million square feet in San Francisco dedicated to car parking, even a reduction of 10% in the amount of space we need to store our cars would free up 21 million square feet! Providing so much parking also subsidizes car use by San Francisco residents and visitors and discourages transit, walking, and bicycling. Parking reduces population densities, requiring people to travel greater distances to meet their needs. Parking gets in the way of efficient and safe bicycle and transit travel. Parking lots and garages create dead environments at the street level that penalize people who prefer to walk. The following recommendations will help to reverse the ever-increasing provision of parking at the expense of walking, bicycling, and transit. The San Francisco Green Party supports: 1. Allow conversion of garages in private homes to living quarters. Refer to specific legislative ideas. Prevent eviction of current tenants. 2. Prohibit new public parking facilities in the downtown district north of Townsend and Division, and east of South Van Ness and Van Ness Avenues; and within 500 feet of a transit preferential street anywhere in San Francisco. Discuss Portland's "parking cap" and the rationale for limiting traffic growth. 3. Increase the tax on commercial parking lot operators. Discuss what to do with the money. Discuss the progressive nature of the tax. ADD tax on spaces not just receipts. 4. Eliminate parking requirements for new housing, and institute new maximum parking limits, ranging from one parking space per housing unit in transit-poor locations to 1 parking space per four housing units in transit-rich areas. Discuss difference between eliminating minimum and new maximum. Discuss impact on housing affordability and urban design. 5. Reform the residential parking permit program to provide parking for people who truly need it, and raise revenue by charging a fair price for that parking. Discuss need to protect current residents from massive tax increases. Discuss decentralized disbursion of revenue generated. 6. Convert certain public garages and lots to housing. Discuss practicalities of identifying garages and benefits. 7. Mandate car-sharing parking spaces in every neighborhood. Discuss benefits of car-sharing. 8. Discourage businesses from providing free parking for their customers who drive at the expense of their customers who don't. 9. A ban on parking garages in city parks. 10. Eliminate free parking for city employees unless they are required to use their personal vehicle for their job. 11. Eliminate free VIP parking at the airport. 12. Eliminate the building requirement that parking spaces be independently accessible. 13. Eliminate the minimum parking requirement for affordable/SFO housing. 14. Convert 1 car space at the end of many city blocks to motorcyle-only parking. Install a physical barrier protecting motorcycles in the parking spaces from being hit by incompetent drivers. 15. Allow dedicated motorcycle parking on streets adjacent to sections of curb between driveways that are too small for cars. Many of these areas are currently painted red. These spaces should be illegal for cars, but legal for motorcycles, and a different markings (e.g., striping on the curb or street) should be used to indicate this. [from Susan] 16. Aggressively ticket cars that park in dedicated motorcycle spaces: give one ticket per blocked spot. [from Susan] D. Taxis and Paratransit In that each local cab makes on average 18,200 trips per year for a cumulative total of 25 millions rides, and in that cabs operate almost continuously, thus contributing to air pollution less than private automobiles (cars produce the most air pollution in the first half hour of operation), San Francisco's 1,381 cabs should be should be acknowledged as a part of the city's transit first policy. The San Francisco Green Party supports: 1. Creating a professional class of drivers through one of two options. The first option would be the creation of a municipal taxi service in which cabs are owned by the city and leased to drivers. Under such a system, drivers would be paid an hourly wage plus commission for any fares over 15 to 20 per shift in order to encourage efficiency. Under this system, drivers could also be brought into the city's benefits system. The second system would maintain the fleet of privately-owned vehicles but would charge a concession fee to owners of medallions. Under either system, drivers could be incorporated into the City and County Health Services and retirement system. Currently, drivers are considered independent contractors and must pay for their own health insurance. 2. Maintaining the gate cap that medallion holders can charge drivers who rent vehicles as long as taxis remain in private hands. 3. Establishing centralized dispatch. Currently cab companies, which do not own cabs themselves, are responsible for doing dispatch. However, in that cabs drivers are the customers of the cab companies, there is no incentive for cab companies to hire more dispatchers. 4. Using taxis to supplement Muni. People who work odd hours need dependable and affordable transportation, and taxis can fulfill this need during odd hours. 5. Incorporating taxis into any future local and regional Translink pass systems to ease the transition from buses and BART to cabs. 6. Requiring taxis to take credit cards. 7. Installing phones on buses so that riders can call dispatchers and have cabs available for themselves when they disembark from buses; [JMC: I don't like this one; would be expensive and not needed if there are cab stands or people have cell phones] 8. Create cab stands at termini of Muni lines, major transit junctions, commercial areas, and in parts of the city underserved by Muni OWL service and other forms of transit. Cab stands are good for drivers, riders and the environment. 9. Creating transit only streets that can be used by Muni and cabs. 10. Educating the public and police about the right of cab drivers to park in bus zones when picking up and dropping of fares as long as no buses are in the bus zones; [JMC: I don't like this one either; it's not a good use of money] 11. Requiring that all cabs be low emission vehicles by 2015. 12. Requiring that cabs be inspected a minimum of for times a year. The average cab is driven about 100,000 miles per year, and cars that are tuned up generate less pollution. 13. The elimination of right turns on red (seniors and the disabled hate these). [JMC: blocking concern on this! Would lead to more traffic, therefore more driving and pollution] E. Pedestrians At some point in the day, everyone is a pedestrian. The advantages of walking are borne out in both the health of pedestrian, and the health of the environment itself. The San Francisco Green Party assumes the task of lowering the number of households with cars from the current rate of 29%. The proposed solutions encompass three main areas of pedestrian welfare: safety, health and access. In this section we might also want to say something about the creation of livable communities in which schools, grocery stores, bookstores and libraries, etc., are plentiful enough to be within walking distance of most residents (unlike most of the Sunset now) [Sue. JMC: this looks like good material for the intro, if somebody would draft language!] The San Francisco Green Party supports the following measures: 1. Fund education for Police and DPT regarding enforcement of laws relating to pedestrians. A better division of the DPT fines would make these programs self-sufficient. The allotment of funds, 40% to MUNI, 40% to a general fund, and 20% to seniors, would decrease the reliance of these programs on grans funding, as well. [Concern from Sue: this is the current breakdown; what we want is enforcement] 2. Dedicated funds for funding of pedestrian and bike projects. 3. Fine increases: a. Raise fines for parking on the sidewalk to $100. [Ted: this is regressive. Sue: already is $100.] b. Double speeding fines in problem areas, beginning with 19th Ave. c. Ticket motorized vehicles traveling over 10 MPH on sidewalks. [Sue: we want a more strict penalty] 4. Plant more trees along sidewalks and increase the number of benches to prevent sidewalk parking of vehicles, including motorcycles. [Ted: take out motorcycles] 5. Expand the number of pedestrian countdown signals and the zebra stripes in crosswalks. 6. Motorists must be held accountable for pedestrian deaths. Push the DA to change the penalty to murder, not merely vehicular manslaughter or moving violation. 7. Vehicles that completely block the right of way of pedestrians should be towed, without anybody having to call DPT. [Sue] 8. When designing sidewalks, city planners should use Level of Service (LOS) standards which account for pedestrians in motion. [Sue] 9. In this section we probably also want to address traffic calming measures that improve safety for pedestrians. Such measures would involve narrowing streets, planting trees and enforcement of sidewalk parking (cars parked curbside narrow traffic lanes and force people to drive more slowly). [Sue] 10. Bulbouts are good traffic calming measures for pedestrians. They can be constructed in such a way that bike lanes go through them OR in such a way that bikes waiting to go through intersections serve as a buffer between pedestrians in the crosswalks and cars (which wait behind the bikes). [Sue] 11. In high-density neighborhoods with many pedestrians (e.g., Haight Street, Chinatown), we advocate redesigning the crosswalks to allow diagonal crossing, and a cycle in which lights are red in both directions. [Sue, JMC] 12. We demand that state law must be changed in order the D.A. to treat pedestrian/motor vehicle collisions as anything more than moving violations. If someone goes through stop sign and hits and kills a ped, unless intent can be proved, the driver is only charged with a moving violation (going through a stop sign). [Sue] F. Bikes In freeing ourselves from dependance on the car, the bicycle is an essential tool. To make it possible for the bicycle to become a dominant form of transportation - it must become easy, safe, pleasurable and affordable. The San Francisco Green Party recommends the following measures to accomplish this: 1. Allocate more resources to contine building the city-wide bike network. 2. We need more and better bicycle parking - on sidewalks for short term and in our workplaces for long term. 3. Engineer better and provide more access for bicycles on Muni and CalTrain. Advocate for the return of Driver Education to our schools with a special emphasis on safety and sharing the street with cyclists. Also fund other education efforts on the health and environmental benefits of cycling. 4. Design our streets to encourage slower and safer speeds - and less competitive driving. This may include - narrower street lanes (and wider everything else) so as not to give a freeway-like atmosphere to city streets. Also turning one way into two way streets for the same reasons, and timing traffic lights to encourage slower speeds. [JMC: mention SOMA? May overlap with section G] 5. Generate funding through a luxury tax for vehicles over a certain value, engine size, weight and gas mileage. [JMC: see A.4] 6. Finally, we advocate city funding for bicycle cooperatives that would provide less expensive bikes for those who can not afford them - and also less expensive rentals. These coops would also provide a place to repair and learn about bikes - especially health and safety. Coops could also sponsor teach-ins which would strive to reach out to potential cyclists and anyone who wants to participate in making transportation better for all. 7. Treat certain stop signs as yield? Special signing? [JMC] 8. Bike patrols should ensure bike lanes are clear during all times, especially commute hours. 9. Only one environmental impact report should be required for the entire bike plan. G. Streets and Cars The San Francisco Green Party recognizes the need of many people to use cars for business and personal reasons. However: 1. World fossil fuel supplies are dwindling and there is as of yet no viable, cheap alternative to gasoline or natural gas. 2. The number of dwelling units in San Francisco has increased by 34,000 while the number of cars has increased by 165,000 since 1955, severely impacting the quality of street life in the city. 3. Obesity is becoming epidemic across all ethnicities, and especially in children, in some part due to the fact that Americans automatically drive places instead of walking or biking. The San Francisco Green Party therefore supports: 1. Non-profit car-sharing enterprises, such as CityCarshare. 2. The elimination of the minimum parking requirement, and the implementation of maximum parking that accommodates shared vehicles in new residential and commercial developments. 3. Fleets of hybrid, electric and low-emissions vehicles at worksites for people whose jobs necessitate driving. For example, building inspectors and visiting nurses require vehicles in order to efficiently do their jobs. 4. Traffic-calming measures that make streets safe for drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians (but do not impact emergency vehicles) such as narrowing roadways, planting trees, pedestrian bulbouts at intersections, and zebra stripes at crosswalks. 5. Increased enforcement of traffic violations such as speeding and blocking intersections. Specifically, the SFGP supports legislation to double the fine for speeding along 19th Avenue. The SFGP also supports stricter enforcement of sidewalk parking violations along 19th Avenue and other streets. Cars parked on streets, as opposed to sidewalks, are a traffic calming tool. 6. Increased density along major transit corridors and the development of truly livable -- and therefore walkable and bikable communities -- that have grocery stores, libraries, bookstores, parks, community gardens, clothing stores, restaurants, schools, medical offices and everything else that is necessary for healthy and joyful lives. 7. Supporting experimental programs such as "Way to Go Seattle" that paid families to leave their second car at home and only depend on one car or on alternative means of transportation. 8. Triple fines for any moving violation that occurs while the driver is talking on a cell phone. [Ted recommends for SUV also] H. Paratransit This will only get written if Bruce Oka gives us a list; otherwise, we'll drop it. JMC -- John-Marc Chandonia (jmc@sfgreens.org) http://www.dolorespark.org/