Here's what we have so far; I'll incorporate the other sections as we get them. Please add more, including specific language, and say which points you have concerns with... we need to consense on final language online by next Tuesday night. Transportation Plank Draft 1, 6/10/04 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. Transit Justice Many of our current ways of funding transit are regressive: poor 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 SFGP 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. 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 SFGP 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, and the G line to Golden Gate Park) with light rail to enable moving more people quickly and decrease boarding times. 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. 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 SFGP 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. No free vip parking at the airport 12. Eliminate requirement that parking spaces be independently accessible 13. Eliminate 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. 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 cabs 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) 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) 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. More sections to come: Bikes Streets & Cars Pedestrian Safety Paratransit? JMC -- John-Marc Chandonia (jmc@sfgreens.org) http://www.dolorespark.org/