California STATEWIDE TRANSIT STRATEGIC PLAN BASELINES REPORT 2016-2017 Authors By Juan Matute*, Teo Wickland, Jasneet Bains, Brian Taylor, Ribeka Toda, Herbie Huff, Riley O’Brien, John Gahbauer, and Charles Ye UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies *Project Manager For California Department of Transportation Division of Rail and Mass Transportation Project Manager: Jila Priebe Contract Manager: Joshua Pulverman Statewide Transit Strategic Plan Caltrans Contract #74A0884 Designer: Marisa Cheung Table of Contents An Introduction to the State Strategic Transit 1 In Plan 1 A Portrait of California Public Transit Agencies 11 State and Federal Policies Impacting Strategic 22 2 Transit Planning Local Planning for the Future of California 45 3 Public Transit 4 Use of the California Transit System 96 5 Revenues for Transit 146 6 Cost Effectiveness of Transit Service 174 Private Provision of Shared Transportation 194 7 Services in California Standardized Transit Data and Transit 208 8 Performance Metrics 9 Conclusions 229 INTRODUCTION Introduction to the Statewide Transit Strategic Plan Introduction to the Statewide Transit Strategic Plan The UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies is working with the Caltrans Division of Rail and Mass Transportation to create the 2017 California Statewide Transit Strategic Plan, recognized as one of seven statewide modal plans under the umbrella of the California Transportation Plan 2040. Researchers at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies previously worked with the Division to prepare the 2012 Statewide Transit Strategic Plan.1 This report is a follow-up to the 2011 report, Baselines: Current and Future Transit Trends2 prepared by researchers at UC Berkeley under contract with Caltrans. The 2017 Baselines Report is a broad-based, descriptive profile of transit’s goals, funding, operations, use, and trends in California intended to establish a common set of facts for the Statewide Transit Strategic Plan Project Advisory Committee, a group of transportation professionals from State, local, and regional transit agencies and organizations. This report will inform phases 2 and 3 of the Statewide Transit Strategic Plan project. Phase 1: This Baselines Report: A broad, descriptive profile of transit in California. Phase 2: Stakeholder Engagement: Insights from interviews and workshops with the Project Advisory Committee and other stakeholders. Phase 3: Strategic Transit Plan: Recommendations to meet the state’s goals and objectives for transit. What is Statewide Strategic Transit Planning? With the 2017 Statewide Transit Strategic Plan Project, the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies team asks the core question: How can California achieve its transit-related goals? In a departure from the 2012 Statewide Transit Strategic Plan, which made recommendations to the then Caltrans Division of Mass Transportation, the 2017 Plan will take a pan-governmental perspective that makes recommendations not only for local transit agencies and Caltrans but also other state departments and the Legislature. The Statewide Transit Strategic Plan will inherit state-level transit-relevant goals, policies, strategies, modeling assumptions, implementation measures from recent legislation, the 1 Matute, Juan M., Brian D. Taylor, Allison C. Yoh, Shira Bergstein, Julia Campbell, Melanie Curry, and Carter Rubin. (2012). Statewide Transit Strategic Plan: Recommendations for Caltrans. UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies. Available at www.dot.ca.gov/hq/MassTrans/STSP/STSPrecommendations.pdf 2Available at http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/MassTrans/STSP/Baselines_rpt_11-08-11.doc 1 | California Statewide Transit Strategic Plan Governor’s Office, the California Transportation Plan 2040, and the Caltrans Strategic Management Plan. Figure 1: 2017 Statewide Transit Strategic Plan Project Approach Making pan-governmental recommendations in support of achieving the state’s transit-related goals requires research into the common issues facing local transit agencies and statewide mobility. Understanding the combined effect of 1) trends internal to transit and transportation planning, 2) the state’s changing housing, mobility, and employment landscapes, 3) the state’s bold climate change goals and their implications for transportation, 4) volatile transit funding programs, 5) unprecedented uncertainty about the federal role in transit; and 6) further advances in information and transportation technology is essential to strategic transit planning. Since the 2011 STSP Baselines Report, the level of transit service provided in the state has recovered to pre-recession levels. However, per-capita transit ridership is trending downward and agencies provided fewer passenger trips in 2015 than in the prior year. A trend of increasing trip lengths fuels the continued growth in annual transit passenger miles traveled. 2 | California Statewide Transit Strategic Plan 2 | California Statewide Transit Strategic Plan Strategic transit planning provides an opportunity to reflect on statewide funding programs and formulas without the immediacy that attends a budget or bill negotiation. While the State’s Local Transportation Fund program has provided relatively stable and predictable funding for transit, other state programs have been more volatile. The prospect of decreasing federal support for public transit introduces a new variable into the effort to adequately fund transit and meet related statewide goals. Statewide strategic planning provides an opportunity to consider state support for the adoption of transit technology and data standards. While information and communications technology has advanced more rapidly than transportation technology, these advances bring novel tools and applications to public transit. In the past ten years, passenger access to network and schedule information systems has made service more legible for those with access to computers or mobile devices. Real-time arrival information has made out-of-vehicle waits less burdensome. However, California’s diverse transit agencies have not adopted technology and data standards that enable these advancements at the same rate. And a rapid pace of technological change will bring additional challenges and opportunities, particularly with enhanced automation and connectivity on the horizon for both passenger and transit vehicles. Many of the trends affecting transit are caused by factors that are external to transit and transportation planning. One dominant trend is increasing housing prices in the state’s urban centers, especially the large coastal regions that have the greatest share of transit trips. Another is market-driven changes to the mobility landscape, including the emergence of Transportation Network Companies, which can replace, integrate or compete with traditional public transit. What Statewide Transit Strategic Planning is Not Statewide strategic planning requires aggregate analysis in support of aggregate outcomes. Statewide strategic transit planning does not evaluate individual agency details unless examples are scalable or transferable. Statewide strategic planning excludes zero-sum political strategies or other actions which may help individual agencies obtain a larger share of fixed formula or discretionary funding. Topics like individual agency service and capital planning also fall outside the scope of strategic planning for statewide transit. 3 | California Statewide Transit Strategic Plan Guide and Outline for this Baseline Conditions Report This baselines report is a snapshot of the current state of California public transit. As such, it focuses on factors and trends internal to transit and transportation planning. Additional research into internal and external factors and trends will inform the development of recommendations for the Statewide Transit Strategic Plan (Phase 3). Each chapter in this report is designed to stand alone. The report can be read sequentially, from front to back or serve as an encyclopedic reference for readers interested in a specific chapter or section. An overview of each chapter follows. Chapter 1: A Portrait of California Public Transit Agencies Public transit is a decidedly local public service: the vast majority of public transit trips are local and service is provided by transit operators administered locally or regionally. However, the vast array of transit routes, services, and operators combine to form a critical element of the state transportation system. These local systems are influenced and largely funded by the state and federal governments. Because California has been a leader for decades in promoting high- quality local public transit in the service of state goals and priorities, and because California continues to have bold goals for how transit will reshape the state’s mobility and built environment, statewide strategic transit planning is of paramount importance. Chapter 2: State and Federal Policies Impacting Strategic Transit Planning While transit is decidedly a local enterprise, local planning and managerial decisions are shaped by state and federal policies, plans, and funding programs. These policies and plans, collectively, form the basis for a statewide strategy for transit. At least two dozen state laws and propositions from the past five decades have had major implications for transit. The California Transportation Plan 2040 and the Caltrans Strategic Management: Plan 2015-2020 each prescribe goals, objectives, and implementation measures that impact transit in California. The Statewide Transit Strategic