An article in today's
San Francisco Chronicle says that, despite the great environmental benefits of BRT, and despite Berkeley's big talk about reducing greenhouse gases, Berkeley may stop this BRT project serving the entire East Bay, because our local NIMBYs are so vocal.
Mary Oram, the one opponent of BRT quoted in the article, is so automobile-dependent and so hostile to transit in general, that she has written in a letter to the
Berkeley Daily Planet "what sits under Union Square is a large, relatively low priced parking garage. As a result of this, Union Square is the one part of San Francisco where I am willing to shop."
http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?issue=05-07-04&storyID=18818Here is the
Chronicle article.
Bus rapid transit project could hit roadblock in Berkeleyby Carolyn Jones
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Imagine a bus route that's so fast and reliable that it's like light rail without tracks. And 10 times cheaper.
That's what AC Transit is proposing for its busiest route in the East Bay, the 15-mile-long stretch from Bay Fair BART Station in San Leandro to downtown Berkeley.
The $400 million bus rapid transit project would look a lot like light rail, with elevated stops in the middle of the street and dedicated lanes free of cars. Buses would run every 10 minutes and sail through intersections.
But the project may hit a roadblock in Berkeley, where some neighbors and merchants are lobbying furiously against it, saying it would worsen traffic and be the death knell for the beleaguered Telegraph Avenue shopping district.
And if Berkeley rejects the plan, the entire project is imperiled - which leaves some people in town wondering how one of the region's most green-thinking cities could say no to public transit.
"The City of Berkeley would have to be out of its mind to turn down a multi-million-dollar investment in public transit," said Robert Wrenn, a city transportation commissioner and proponent of the rapid bus plan.
"We'd be the complete laughing stock. It would be a great embarrassment to the city."
Residents and city officials in Berkeley, Oakland and San Leandro are considering the plan, which AC Transit hopes to start building in 2009 and finish in 2011. After the agency receives feedback on the plan in the coming months, it will make revisions that reflect local needs.
The route, called Intel because the bulk of it runs along International Boulevard and Telegraph Avenue, would run along East 14th Street in San Leandro, cross Oakland and zip through Berkeley along Telegraph.
Buses would run in center lanes, stopping at elevated platforms in the middle of the street. Each stop would be about a half-mile apart so that buses could go faster and bus drivers would have the ability to turn stoplights green using GPS technology. Each stop would have an electronic sign informing riders when the next bus is scheduled to arrive.
Scaled-down versions of bus rapid transit already exist, although without dedicated lanes they're more like glorified express buses that are subject to the same sluggish traffic patterns as cars.
While there are supporters of bus rapid transit in Berkeley, which is striving to meet its voter-approved goals to reduce greenhouse gases, dozens of neighbors and merchants along Telegraph think the transit plan would spell disaster.
They fear it would bring more traffic congestion when a lane of Telegraph is closed to cars, and would result in more high-density housing along the route.
"It's a gigantic waste of money," said Mary Oram, a longtime Berkeley resident who lives south of the UC campus.
"To me, it looks like they're preparing for light rail. Light rail is wonderful if you're in the middle of nowhere, but we already have BART just a few blocks away. It doesn't make any sense to me."
Oram and other opponents said AC Transit buses aren't brimming with passengers through Berkeley, while merchants worry that customers will shop elsewhere, deterred by the traffic or lack of parking if the city decides to eliminate parking along Telegraph to create an additional lane for cars.
Clarence Johnson, an AC Transit spokesman, said the agency is eager to get people out of their cars and into public transit as a way to reduce pollution.
"If we put this dedicated lane in and people continue to drive, then the opponents are probably right," Johnson said. "It will lead to more pollution."
But that has not been the outcome in other nations, he said. Cities in Europe, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere in the United States that have built bus rapid transit systems have reported great success, he said. Business has not been hurt, and it has led to more transit riders and less automobile traffic.
Johnson added that 95 percent of motorists opposed dedicated bike lanes when they were first unveiled, and now the lanes are accepted as part of the streetscape.
Wrenn, a former chair of the Berkeley Planning Commission, said residents will have to make sacrifices for the city to meet its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. Taking the bus occasionally should be one of them, he said.
"If we're going to be serious about global warming, people are going to have to drive less and ride transit more, simple as that," he said. "Traffic's going to get worse anyhow. We'd be crazy not to do this."
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/14/BA27SNT4N.DTL
