TRANSACTIONS NEWSLETTER ONLINEOctober 2000Shining Stars 24th Annual Transportation Awards MERIT AWARDS
AC TRANSIT / UC BERKELEY
The pass, which first came into use in the fall semester of 1999, has been a runaway success. Students who never used transit before are now regular riders. And AC Transit is adding buses and new routes around the campus to meet the increased demand. In short, transit has become a viable option for many students who in the past would have added to campus-area gridlock. "In the years prior to the Class Pass, we would sell about 1,600 AC Transit passes," said Nadesan Permaul, UC Berkeley's director of Parking and Traffic. "Last year we distributed 22,000 AC Transit stickers." But the Class Pass didn't appear overnight. In the fall of 1998, increasing traffic congestion and the parking crunch around campus led student leaders to look to public transportation as an answer. Negotiations with AC Transit, university officials and the city of Berkeley ensued. The parties worked together to find a solution that would benefit everyone, and came to an agreement to add an $18-per-semester surcharge to all students' tuition bills that would pay for unlimited AC Transit service. The agreement was then put on a student government ballot measure for approval by the student body in the spring of 1999. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the Associated Students of the University of California and the Graduate Assembly, awareness of the plan was high, resulting in a 'yes' vote from over 88 percent of student voters. Jaimie Levin, AC Transit's director of Marketing and Communications, sees the pass as a mutually beneficial partnership: "The city of Berkeley has an interest in ways to reduce congestion; we have an objective of getting more people on our buses; and the university has to deal with parking and congestion as well. So frankly, we have a great mix here of self-interested parties who can work together towards a common solution."
The Sunset Development Company -- owner of Bishop Ranch, one of the area's largest business parks -- was concerned that growing commute gridlock would become a drawback to attracting businesses to its San Ramon site. To bring more tenants to its facility and also help alleviate congestion, Sunset offered to partner with the Central Contra Costa Transit Authority to increase the frequency of peak-period bus service to the ranch, and to pay the entire cost of the improvements. Now, specially painted Bishop Ranch buses carry commuters from the Dublin and Walnut Creek BART stations to Bishop Ranch in 25 minutes or less, thanks to a high-occupancy-vehicle lane on Interstate 680 that allows the express buses to breeze past traffic snarls. GO GERONIMO
In 1997, residents of the rural San Geronimo Valley in western Marin County started an informal carpool system that has become a proven success, helping the area's residents become more mobile and reducing solo driving not just at peak traffic periods but all day. Participants in the program wait at designated stops, Go Geronimo ID card in hand. Drivers who are registered with the program flash their IDs before picking up passengers at the signed locations. It takes only a few minutes for Go Geronimo "hitchhikers" to catch a ride. And the program is safe; all participants have passed background checks with the Marin County Sheriff's Department. As of the fall of 2000, Go Geronimo has over 450 users -- more than 10 percent of the population of the entire valley. "Go Geronimo provides a vital service to people who cannot or will not drive," said Wendi Kallins, director of the program. SAN FRANCISCO LABOR COUNCIL
The San Francisco Labor Council, which represents all AFL-CIO unions in San Francisco, stepped in to help. For Walter Johnson, secretary-treasurer of the council, the situation posed a conundrum. Supporting a strike was the right course of action from a labor standpoint, but it would have left some of the Bay Area's most needy citizens without a lifeline to their community. Johnson chose the challenging but ultimately successful route of finding a new transportation provider, and the original provider bowed out of the contract. All this was accomplished without even one day's interruption of service. "Mr. Johnson was instrumental in making sure the new contract was put in place without delays," said Carol Bohnsack, chief of community services at the Regional Center. "Nobody was put out of work, and the Council was extremely sensitive to the needs of both the drivers and the disabled community." OUTREACH INC.
Photo: George Draper
Santa Clara County's paratransit provider, Outreach Inc., is meeting the special transportation needs of welfare recipients entering the job market. In an innovative and economical program, it provides a "guaranteed ride" for over 750 of California's welfare-to-work (CalWORKs) participants and their children who need emergency or transitional transportation to and from work, job training, education, childcare and other services. "People who would normally be faced with a crisis situation can stay on the job and feel secure about it," said Kathryn Heatley, president and CEO of Outreach. The new program uses the existing scheduling technology and vehicles of the paratransit network, thereby allowing Outreach to provide the service at little extra cost -- an important factor for a nonprofit organization. Since its inception in November 1999, Outreach has provided close to 20,000 trips to the program's participants. PACIFIC BELL PARK TRANSIT CAMPAIGN
The stadium's capacity is almost 41,000, but its parking lots have only 5,000 available spaces. Realizing this, the San Francisco Giants -- along with nine of the region's transit providers -- worked hard to make sure baseball fans would use public transit to get to Pac Bell Park. "We developed a transportation information piece that we mailed to all 30,000 of our season ticket holders and made it available to all transit agencies to disburse to their customers who were taking the train or the bus or the ferry," said Shana Daum, public affairs manager for the Giants. "It's a credit card-size pamphlet that opens up and has maps and schedule information... You can stick [it] in your wallet or pocket and bring [it] with you." In addition, several Giants players appeared in public service announcements, advising fans that transit is the best way to get to games. And the push was monumentally successful. Transit use at the stadium rose to unprecedented levels, with almost 50 percent of fans arriving by transit, bicycle or on foot for every game. San Francisco Muni's light rail and bus service was beefed up around the park on game days, and together carried a whopping 23 percent of fans to games. Caltrain ran extra service for games, and BART had a special campaign to encourage transit use to the park. RIDES for Bay Area Commuters staffed a hotline to give people information on how to get to Pac Bell Park, and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition had special valet bike parking to encourage pedaling to the stadium. Ferry service brought fans from locations around the Bay and dropped them off right at the ballpark, thanks to the newly constructed China Basin Terminal. Golden Gate Transit ferries, the Red and White Ferry, the Blue and Gold Fleet and the Alameda/Oakland Ferry all provided game-day service. The effort has worked so well that it is considered a model for other areas of the
country.
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Thanks to a small, shiny sticker that turns their ID cards into
a "Class Pass," students at the University of California, Berkeley, now have unlimited
access to all of AC Transit's bus lines, including transbay routes.
"Go Geronimo" is an innovative answer to the old question
of how to bring transit to low-density rural communities.
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