REPORT APRIL 2015 SEAMLESS TRANSIT How to make Bay Area public transit function like one rational, easy-to-use system Contents Seamless Transit is generously supported by 4 Executive summary the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. 6 The Bay Area needs a more integrated public transit system The SPUR Board of directors adopted this report as official policy on November 19, 2014. 14 A patchwork approach to transit creates challenges Primary author 28 How and where the region can integrate public transit Ratna Amin 33 CASE STUDY: Hannover, Germany Co-author 34 Recommendations Sara Barz 38 CASE STUDY: London, England Contributors 43 CASE STUDY: Seattle, Washington Brian Stokle, Jake Rosen, Eric Eidlin, Dan Feeney 49 Conclusion Primary photography 50 Plan of action Sergio Ruiz We are grateful to the staff and leadership of the region’s transit and transportation agencies who informed this project. In particular, we thank the staff and leadership of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, who have worked on these issues for many years. We also thank the SPUR Board, the SPUR Transportation Policy Board, Tony Bruzzone, Joshua Karlin-Resnick and the many other civic leaders and transportation experts who reviewed this material and participated in interviews and workshops about how we can make transit work in this region. Edited by: Valerie Sinzdak and Karen Steen SPUR c/o Impact Hub Oakland 654 Mission Street 76 South First Street 2323 Broadway San Francisco, CA 94105 San Jose, CA 95113 Oakland CA, 94612 tel. 415.781.8726 tel. 408.638.0083 tel. 510.250.8210 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Seamless Transit How to make Bay Area public transit function like one rational, easy-to-use system Executive summary The Bay Area has more than two dozen different Difficult transfers between operators public transit operators — and yet only 3 percent Many of the region’s transit hubs were not designed of all trips here are made using transit. Despite for easy transfers. Connecting from one operator to significant spending on building and maintaining another can present complex navigational challenges, transit — and in contrast to the crowding along difficult walks or long waits. Transfers can be some key corridors — overall ridership has not been physically demanding, and pathways or waiting areas growing in our region. How can we get more benefit at transfer hubs can feel unsafe and uncomfortable. from our transit investments and efforts? In many ways, having so many different Financial penalties for riders using more transit systems makes it harder for riders to than one operator understand and use the services available to them. From divergent maps, schedules and fares to Fare structures differ from operator to operator, uncoordinated capital planning and investment, the which can discourage riders from making multi- fragmented nature of our transit system makes it operator trips. Existing fare passes establish loyalty less efficient, less usable and less likely to help us to specific operators, rather than to a regional meet our goals for a thriving and sustainable region. transit system. Evidence from other cities indicates Meanwhile, as Bay Area cities work to orient new that strategic coordination in fare structure and housing and jobs around transit rather than the methods of payment can boost ridership. car, they face the challenge of coordinating growth with multiple transit agencies and transit planning Limitations of the fare payment technology processes. The current Clipper fare payment system has By integrating our many public transit services removed a barrier between operators. The so they function more like one rational, easy-to-use technology reflected the state of the practice when network, we have the opportunity to increase the it was designed in the late 1990s and early 2000s, market share for transit and make better planning but it cannot easily support many of the features decisions for the future of our region. that riders have come to expect, such as mobile We have identified five barriers that our region ticketing or the ability to add value to a card in real needs to overcome in order to improve the transit time. Many fare discounts aren’t supported by the experience for riders: Clipper technology. Poor information about how to make a Gaps in the region’s transit network and multi-operator trip duplicative services A lack of sufficient information deters potential As a result of fragmented planning, riders face riders, who don’t want to take the risk of being gaps in transit service, whether it’s a long wait at stuck at a transit station without knowing what to a transfer station or the absence of transit service do next. Complicating the issue, each transit agency between important locations. At the same time, in the region has a unique nomenclature to describe transit agencies duplicate each other’s services in its transit services, unique transit vehicles, unique certain corridors. maps and unique wayfinding signage with a distinct graphic style. 4 SPUR REPORT APRIL 2015 SEAMLESS TRANSIT SPUR proposes five strategies for integrating transit services across the Bay Area: Strategy 1: Help travelers understand the value of the region’s transit system and how to use it. Bay Area public transit services should be marketed as one system in order to help travelers make better use of available services. This effort should target greater consistency in visual styles, service names and symbols across operators. To increase regional transit ridership, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) should lead development of a commonly used regionwide transit map. Strategy 2: Standardize fares and develop passes that encourage use of the region’s entire transit system. MTC should work with operators to develop integrated regional transit passes and other fare products that maximize regionwide transit ridership. Fare revenue from a regional product should be shared among operators, and temporary funding should be set aside to compensate operators for any losses that may occur when fares are integrated. The fare payment system should offer mobile ticketing and rider loyalty programs, and it should integrate with other transportation costs, such as car sharing and bike parking. Strategy 3: Develop transit hubs that make transferring easy. Sergio Ruiz Well-designed multi-operator stations can attract riders to the transit system and help make them feel more comfortable, relaxed Our vision for a seamless transit and informed. The transfer experience at hubs can be continually improved. Integrating transit hubs into neighborhoods will reduce network the need for transit services to get people to the station. With a truly seamless network, people in the Bay Area would Strategy 4: Use an integrated approach to transit know how their regional transit system works. Great local transit network design. would be highly visible and leveraged as the building block of Looking at transit service in an integrated way can lead to quicker, a strong regional network. New transit infrastructure would be less expensive and more effective solutions to meeting demand. designed for easy connections. And new transit service would For example, a corridor-based planning approach might allow us be directed to the routes where there was demand, even if they to solve rush-hour congestion problems in the Bay Bridge and crossed operator service boundaries. Peninsula corridors. We recommend that regional transit expansion How do we get there? Many metropolitan regions around investments be made in the context of the entire network. the world have created transit systems where different operators function together like one network. Learning from them, we know Strategy 5: Use institutional practices to promote that successfully integrating transit systems depends on three integration. things: Transportation agencies should develop better capacity to work 1. A focus on improving the customer experience with data and to improve the design of the transit customer experience. Having fewer operators in the region would make all 2. Leadership, trust and sustained partnership types of integration efforts easier. To promote those mergers that 3. Business practices that improve collaboration and revenue make the most sense, local, regional, state and federal funding generation programs could be altered to incentivize consolidation. Consolidating some transit operators might be part of the solution, but a focus on mergers can be a distraction from the See pages 50-51 for a plan of action identifying the parties many other ways we can work with the system we have. responsible for implementing these recommendations. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY SPUR REPORT APRIL 2015 5 INTRODUCTION The Bay Area needs a more integrated public transit system The Bay Area’s prosperity is threatened by fragmentation in the public transit system: Riders and decision-makers contend with more than two dozen transit operators. Inconsistent transit experiences and disjointed planning and investment make our transit system less efficient, less usable and less likely to help us meet our goals for a thriving and sustainable region. The Bay Area economy and labor market is Bay Area invests heavily in transit. We are spending increasingly regional: 29 percent of Bay Area $21 billion over the next 25 years to build public commuters cross a county boundary to get to transit infrastructure and $159 billion to operate work each day.1 These long commutes, many of and maintain the transit system.2 Despite similar which traverse the bay, put incredible stress on expenditures in the past, overall transit ridership has constrained transportation corridors. Two-thirds of not been growing in the Bay Area, as shown in Figure Bay Area commuters drive to work alone, creating 2 on page 10. Part of the reason it’s hard to increase significant congestion on the region’s freeways and transit ridership here may be due to how fragmented bridges. Dramatic growth in employer-run shuttles our system is compared to others.