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Hello Archinect,

I’m at 518 Valencia in San Francisco for a panel hosted by San Francisco Transit Riders on the role of public transit in fighting climate change.

The event will be moderated by Ellen WuExecutive Director of Urban Habitat and the panelists are:

  • Amanda EakenChairman of the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) and Director of Transportation and Climate at the Natural Resources Defense Council
  • Jason HendersonProfessor in the Department of Geography and the Environment at San Francisco State University and author of Street Fight: The Politics of Mobility in San Francisco
  • Tom RadulovichPolicy & Planning for Livable City, and past elected director of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District from 1996 to 2016
  • John Anderson350 Member of the San Francisco Coordinating Committee

6:39: Ellen Wu asks Amanda Eaken to do the prelude, and Eaken asks the small assembled crowd: How much of San Francisco’s emissions come from traffic? We throw out guesswork and it turns out the answer is 42%. How much of our transport emissions come from private cars? 72% And how much of our total emissions come from public transport? 1%.

Left to right: Amanda Eaken, Jason Henderson, Tom Radulovich, John Anderson. Not pictured: Ellen Wu.

6:43: John Anderson: …We are looking at conditions on planet Earth that nature has never encountered before and facing changes that we cannot predict. We know that if global temperatures rise by two degrees or more, we are on an irreversible course.

Ellen Wu: Thanks for throwing down the gauntlet; We will spend the rest of our time tonight talking about how to mitigate that risk.

Tom Radulovich: There are other costs of our current car-centric transportation system in the United States, not just climate. The United States spends as much on parking as it does on the military. And low-income communities are disproportionately affected by pollution and traffic violence.

So when we think about climate justice, we also have to think about health – and by extension, the importance of infrastructure for livable cities through cycling and walking.

… We also have to think about things like: How do we help people to find new jobs if we phase out polluting industries?

6:50: Jason Henderson: Climate justice is about cumulative emissions over time, and that affects generations. The United States’ cumulative emissions far exceed those of the rest of the world, and that’s important. Another thing we don’t always take into account is displaced emissions, the global emissions of making things that are consumed by the wealthiest 10% of us [disproportionately in the United States].

Henderson points out that people can really change their behavior significantly and quickly; Mobilization can be rapid. For example, when the Covid lockdowns took place, people generally complied despite the politically polarized environment in the United States.

Host Ellen Wu

Wu asks the panelists to think about how we can turn this crisis into an opportunity. Eaken responds first, addressing the tax cliff faced by the SFMTA and other transit agencies across the state.

Eaken: You all know that transit has been hit hard during the pandemic. And yet 100,000 people drove MUNI every day – mostly essential workers. Today we’re back to 400,000, but we haven’t fully recovered yet. So we need to increase ridership, help get more people paying, and push the state to provide gap funding to bridge us over the transit tax cliff when federal funds run out. In addition, federal highway funds may be used to cover local public transit.

Radulovich commends Seamless Bay Area for working on the tricky problem of how to help our various transit companies work better together for drivers.

Wu: What political hurdles stand in our way?

Henderson: That’s what I study. San Francisco has a lot of car values, a focus on parking and a sense that curb space is private. That said, it’s also true that as the city gentrifies, there are people who rent and park their cars on the street and wealthier people who buy houses, which more often have their own garages. So there are fairness issues in that regard.

There is also resistance to cycling – not so much political resistance, but more institutional. The infrastructure just isn’t there. At San Francisco State University, where Henderson teaches, more students would likely ride bikes if it was easier to get their bikes on MUNI buses. “So that’s some feedback for you, Madame Chair.”

Eaken: “Thanks for your comment!” [Audience laughter; we all know that Chair Eaken spends a lot of time in SFMTA meetings hearing public comment.]

7:06: Wu: What can we learn from other cities?

Radulovich: Mayor Anne Hidalgo in Paris has done a lot to shift the street space from cars to pedestrians, cyclists and public transport. And they’re seeing huge changes downtown and even the outer ring.

And there are also things that we did well in San Francisco, such as:

And [State Senator] Scott Wiener says we should always build a subway, and that’s great – but that work is slow. We could build two or three miles of subways in a decade. Alternatively, we can build a light rail system if we have the political will to allocate surface street space for it. One reason people prefer subways to overground transportation is that street space remains untouched. but does that always have to be the goal?

Wu: What makes you hopeful?

Henderson: The 2024 election will have a large turnout, especially in San Francisco. So we need transit priority on the ballot and link it to climate and our goal for 80% of travel to be “sustainable” (which has been defined as transit, cycling, walking and carpooling for this purpose). [Henderson is referencing the fact that higher turnout elections tend to have more progressive voters].

Eaken tells stories of many cities building priority lanes for transit. In a city where 1% of the vehicles are buses carrying 50% of the people, the first day the transit-only lane was used, the bus flew past the rest of the traffic and “people were literally cheer for the bus.”

Eaken: There is a tale that ridership has fallen. But as Tom pointed out, where we’ve invested in improvements, we’re actually exceeding pre-pandemic ridership. The 49 Van Ness bus is at 109% of pre-pandemic ridership; and we can do this quickly and relatively cheaply. [Note: the 49 is spectacular and has a ton of ridership, but it’s been pointed out to me that its ridership is also boosted by the suspension of the 47 route, which covers similar areas.]

Radulovich: Thorough lanes, slow streets, car-free areas are all exciting things to do in San Francisco. We’re also seeing cracks in the narrative surrounding electric vehicles (EVs) as we realize they’re not the complete answer we’ve been looking for. EVs have a lot of embodied energy, so they need to be driven a lot to offset those environmental costs upfront; and they need a lot of infrastructure changes. We know that 95% of a car’s particulate matter pollution doesn’t come from the exhaust but from the friction of the tires – and electric vehicles are heavier, so they generate more of it.

So we recognize that we need walkable and cycleable cities and modes of transport.

Anderson: I still think electric vehicles are part of the solution. A survey by the Economist a few weeks ago, which showed that young people’s interest in owning a car is declining sharply, gives me the most hope.

Question from the audience: What role do you see in fare-free and cheaper local transport?

Eaken: We made Transit free for youth, which we’re really happy about. My kids kept losing their Clipper cards so that’s great. But our financial challenges are so great, and we know that the number one reason people don’t take public transport is the service, not the fares. So until we have a funding source to cover the revenue from the fares, going fare-free isn’t realistic.

However, there are some people for whom the fare is a liability and we need to have that conversation and subsidize there. But not for the many who aren’t burdened because we have a $100 million tax cliff. $100 million is 20 lines of ammunition, and no one wants to cut 20 lines.

Radulovich: I understand because I used to run a transport company too. But when we think about what we want to encourage as a society and what we discourage – driving alone – then we think about how we price parking compared to public transport. That’s crazy!

With public transport, you should pay for each trip, but when it comes to parking, we hide costs from motorists wherever we can. There is a basic cost to parking because someone had to pay to build this road. You can charge people for the cost of building and maintaining the road and add a means-tested program to subsidize them for low-income people.

So it’s crazy because we’re creating the wrong incentives.

Eaken addresses the audience: If – it’s not a question of if, but when – we propose unpopular things like raising parking fees, we need you all to support it.

Wu: What strategies can we use to make transit as widespread, cool and diverse here as it is around the world?

Eaken: Did you make it to SOMArts for the Muni Raised Me art exhibition? It was amazing! And I love the idea of ​​introducing unexpected experiences and joy What if one in two hundred buses was an art bus, or one in a thousand trips to the DJ? But the transit must also be immaculately reliable. And as Vice Chairman Borden has advocated, we need better customer service. For example, paying for your fare needs to be as easy as possible by tapping on your credit card when you want to.

Radulovich: I’m probably the wrong person to ask how to make things cool for young people. But one thing is skateboards, which are popular with younger people. Skateboard advocacy is still growing and is where bike advocacy was twenty years ago. For example, you can’t take your skateboard into buildings everywhere, and there’s more we can do for skateboarders.

Another thing is electric scooters; something about it caught the imagination of young people. And it’s not just tech bros driving these; It’s a diverse group. We must therefore take young people’s mobility wishes seriously.

Anderson: My dream is to attract local movie stars and celebrities and maybe you’ll find them on the bus. I would also like to see places where scooters can ride that are safe but not on the sidewalk; and being able to bike across the Bay Bridge.

End.

Thank you for reading!

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