While recent job growth has certainly made the traffic problems of the Bay Area worse, a deeper cause can be found in the functioning of the agency behind Regional Measure 3, the proposed $3 toll increase on the June ballot.
Because local elected leaders govern the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, its plans reflect local wishes. In setting the region’s transportation priorities, MTC has never actually done region-focused planning.
As a result, traffic conditions have steadily worsened under decades of MTC’s leadership. But total regional transit ridership hasn’t increased since 1982, despite the many billions spent on BART.
If MTC knew how to cut traffic, it would have done so by now. That’s why the claims of congestion relief in Regional Measure 3 are nothing more than PR, paid for mostly by Silicon Valley businesses, who want the public to pay for their employees’ commutes.
Voters should reject RM3, and demand instead a plan that invests in facilities for large numbers of commuters to conveniently travel by transit, shared rides and bikes.
MTC’s own projections for 2040 show a million more cars, with total driving increasing by 21 percent and congestion delays increasing by 44 percent. Despite investing many more billions in transit projects, the same percentage as now is projected to drive alone. This is what RM3 will actually do.
Avoiding gridlock will require a wholesale shift of travel choices from driving alone to shared travel, bicycling and walking. The only way our region can cope with the projected 2 million more residents is by implementing a strong Transit First policy.
RM3 is not that. Instead, it splashes money around at a variety of politically popular projects. That won’t change how people choose to get around. It would take a dense network of bus lines and protected bike lanes to do that.
The root cause of traffic congestion is the excessive percentage of solo drivers. Traffic is monstrous now because MTC has continuously spent our resources to facilitate solo driving. That strategy can’t possibly work long-term in the Bay Area — there simply isn’t enough physical space to accommodate the millions of vehicles seeking to travel at the same time.
MTC’s highest funding priority is a system of toll lanes, which enable solo drivers to pay to use carpool lanes. By continuing to focus its resources on solo drivers and not on shared travel, MTC is actually making traffic worse.
Improving mobility is going to require attractive alternatives, including picking up a passenger using a smartphone app, using convenient transit, and riding in protected bike lanes.
MTC, on the other hand, has no such aspirations: “Carpooling has stayed steady over the years and our goal is to maintain that percentage-wise as the population grows,” said MTC’s government relations manager, Rebecca Long.
As politicians, MTC commissioners give voters what they want. The problem is that what people want no longer works in a region of 7 million people.
The desire for a solo commute from garage to destination puts too many vehicles on the roads at the same time, resulting in massive traffic jams. Traffic is the result of the cumulative choices of all of us.
Other parts of the country are taking a different approach to the challenges of traffic. On our website OccupyMTC.org, we show how Seattle’s voters approved a comprehensive bus network and achieved a major shift away from solo driving. Bay Area residents could make a similar choice to have a brighter future.
However, unless you vote no on Regional Measure 3, MTC will persist with its failed strategy.
David Schonbrunn is president of TRANSDEF, a nonprofit transit advocacy group seeking better solutions to transportation, land use and air quality problems in the San Francisco Bay Area.
