Your Unanswered Questions From the Silicon Valley Bike Summit

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Oct 14

[facebook][retweet]You may recall the rousing plenary discussion at the 5th Annual Silicon Valley Bicycle Summit between our Executive Director, Shiloh Ballard; head of VTA, Nuria Fernandez; and head of San Mateo County Transit District, Jim Hartnett. We had so many excellent audience questions that we couldn't get to them all and so we promised to follow up with our speakers and have those questioned answered for you, our dear audience. So without further delay, here are the answers from:

Mark Simon, Senior Advisor/Strategic Initiatives, San Mateo County Transit District
Nuria Fernandez, General Manager and CEO of Valley Transportation Authority

How are your agencies addressing questions of equity (economic, racial, modal) in transportation and transit? How can we actively engage low-income communities in improving access to safe bicycling and transit?MS: We are required by law, ADA and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, to operate both our systems within federal guidelines for social, racial and economic justice. Any change in service or fares triggers a Title VI review and public meetings that include multi-lingual outreach and information that includes targeting low-income and minority communities. SamTrans carries significant numbers of low-income customers – 67 percent don’t have a car, 41 percent have a household income below $25,000. Most take the bus to work or school. As you might expect, these numbers are substantially different for Caltrain, but for both systems, we have an extensive discount program for low-income, senior and student customers. Encouraging cycling – as you know we provide more bike space on our trains than any system in the country and cyclists can bring their bikes on our buses and use the two-bike racks on the front.NF: Providing ample opportunities for the public to participate in decision making is essential to delivering transportation solutions that meet the needs of Santa Clara County. There are many ways to address equity and engage low-income communities in the work VTA does, including, but not limited to, the following:

Our Public Participation Plan outlines strategies that VTA takes when engaging the community, and has a special focus on reaching traditionally under‐represented communities such as low‐income, minority, and Limited English Proficient (LEP) populations.
For our upcoming update of the Countywide Bicycle Plan, we will develop an outreach strategy that draws from VTA’s Public Participation Plan, including multi-lingual outreach, going into communities, and offering non-traditional ways to engage people. The Bicycle Plan Update will also focus on communities that have a significant concentration of low income, limited English proficiency and minority residents, zero-vehicle households, seniors over 75 and individuals with disabilities (Santa Clara County’s Communities of Concern).
VTA provides vital transit services for typically underserved communities, and is making improvements in many of those communities. For example, our BART Extension to Silicon Valley and our Santa Clara Alum Rock Bus Rapid Transit projects, both under construction, will serve minority and low income communities in downtown San Jose and East San Jose.

Do you support biking on El Camino Real? MS: We are co-sponsors/conveners of the Grand Boulevard Initiative, a regional effort to make El Camino Real a more vibrant, pedestrian- and bike-friendly regional roadway. Our primary concern would be ensuring that El Camino can be used safely by cyclists. That does not appear to be the case right now.NF: It’s a good route for bicyclists for the same reasons it’s a good route for transit and cars: it’s a major east/west travel corridor, and provides access to shopping, employment and services. The demand for uses on El Camino Real is why providing access by all modes is important. However in its current configuration, El Camino Real is uncomfortable for bicyclists. It’s listed as a Cross County Bicycle Corridor in VTA’s Countywide Bicycle Plan and several cities have identified El Camino Real as a bicycle corridor in their bike plans or general plans. VTA supports city efforts to provide bikeways on El Camino, for example, VTA helped fund the first bike lanes on El Camino, striped in Sunnyvale in summer 2015. Bike lanes are an option being offered to cities as part of the BRT project in segments with dedicated BRT lanes. We know that providing multiple transportation options is the way to preserve mobility. If everyone’s driving, then nobody’s moving.What is the status of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) on El Camino Real?MS: There currently are no plans in place in San Mateo County to implement or plan BRT on El Camino Real. There are high-level conversations about pilot BRT and dedicated busway concepts in other areas of the county, however.NF: VTA has completed a Draft Environmental Impact Study/Environmental Assessment that analyzed the project and projected impacts of seven project alternatives for bus rapid transit on El Camino Real. The next step is for VTA’s Board of Directors to select which of the seven alternatives they would like to pursue.The seven alternatives feature combinations of a dedicated lane street configuration (where a general use lane is converted into a bus-only lane in each direction and BRT buses serve median stations) and a mixed flow configuration (where the BRT bus will run in the right lane, making curbside stops). The seven alternatives range from 0 to 14 miles of dedicated lane configuration. In those areas, cities have an option of installing buffered bicycle lanes in place of on-street parking or providing bicycle lanes and on-street parking if the median is narrowed.VTA is also currently preparing a new fleet of buses to replace the 522 fleet. These vehicles will have on-board bicycle storage for three bicycles as well as room for three bicycles on the front rack. The new buses will be deployed with the start of BRT service east of Downtown San Jose, though the precise date of that deployment has yet to be determined.How can County-level funding be allocated to support the higher biking and walking mode share goals? For SMC, 3% of Measure A sales tax revenue is for bike and pedestrian projects, how can we increase it so that alternative modes get a fair share? In SCC, VTA adopted a 2008 countywide goal of achieving 10% bike mode share for commute trips by 2035, why aren't we spending 10% of capital and operating costs to achieve this goal?MS: Currently, the only way to increase the bike share of Measure A is through a vote of the people. I would hesitate to characterize this as an issue of fairness without a more thorough definition of what constitutes fairness in the context of the full range of transportation and mobility needs for the entire community and not only cyclists. Increasing the share to bikes reduces the share elsewhere.NF: VTA programs funding for transit, highway, local roads, bicycle, and pedestrian projects. VTA also operates the countywide bus and light rail system, and provides funding to Caltrain and (soon) BART for operations and maintenance to support service in Santa Clara County. VTA takes a balanced look at transportation needs when making discretionary decisions about transportation funding and works closely with its Member Agencies—the fifteen cities and Santa Clara County—to make sure programming meets their transportation needs. VTA has heard the community and the local agencies’ desire to fund street improvements that support walking and biking, and our programming reflects this. At the same time, we have also provided for the other important transportation needs in the county, including transit, pavement maintenance, and highways.VTA receives this funding from numerous sources, including local sales taxes, and state and federal funding. All of these funding sources come with strict restrictions on how VTA can use the funding, which are set by other governing agencies, and written into State and Federal law. However, looking at the most recent programming for these sources, VTA has programmed more than 10% to support bicycling and walking:

Of the $35M programmed for Santa Clara County in 2015, $11 (31%) is programmed to bicycle & pedestrian projects.
One Bay Area Grant 2013 (which includes STP and CMAQ funding): of $89 M in discretionary funding, $39 M (44%) is programmed to bicycle & pedestrian projects (estimate).

What are your organizations doing to train your bus operators how to safely negotiate our roadways with people on bicycles?MS: All bus operators go through an extensive and intensive 10-week training course and regular, required re-training. Safety is a primary emphasis and that includes awareness and attention to the unique nature of cyclists as vehicles on the roadways.NF: VTA bus operators are trained to drive safely in mixed traffic, including driving around people walking and biking. VTA instructs bus operators based on California Vehicle Code and Department of Motor Vehicles protocol. VTA covers this information in its ongoing operator safety training classes [for initial trainings and re-trainings]. VTA also issues Operations Notices informing operators of new laws, special events, and other important information on an as-needed basis, like the new 3 foot passing law.What are the plans to increase the number of bike racks, e-bike lockers, secure bike cages/rooms, or valet biking parking at Caltrain stations?MS: Please refer to the Caltrain Bicycle Access and Parking Plan. As part of the proposal for the purchase of new electric rail cars, a proposal has been offered to spend $3 million on initial implementation of some elements of the BAPP, but it is only a proposal.Are your agencies planning to provide more real-time data on when the next bus or train will arrive and bike capacity, to allow bicyclists to decide whether to wait or ride?MS: Our next bus/train information plans do not currently include information on bike capacity. Several months ago, we launched an [online form] that allows customers to report bike bumps in real time. Our hope had been that the app would allow people to tweet that information, but we have not been able to get it to work right.NF: VTA is working to improve the real time information available to passengers. Currently all buses and light rail vehicles collect real time data. Bus real time data goes to a web application, which updates every 90 to 180 seconds. To improve the provision of this information, VTA is adding new GPS and Wi-Fi to all VTA buses (50% complete) and feeding the new GPS data to the mobile Rider application and www.tripplanner.vta.org application. We have real time arrival information at 80 bus shelter signs and at this time have no funding to expand the shelter signs. We are looking at adding 8 Transit center Kiosk units that would include Real Time Data.At the light rail station platforms the train control system predicts arrival at 5 and 10 minutes. Staff is in the progress of upgrading the light rail platform signs and will provide a much more accurate and continuous prediction. Deployment of the first 30 light rail platform signs will start in October 2015.As part of our innovation program we have modified one Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) 60-foot bus to track bike rack usage and wheelchair usage. We’re in the process of doing some code change to the Tripplanner.vta.org application that would accept the information and provide it to the customer. Once the application software is completed in early 2016 we would run a pilot using all of the BRT vehicles and obtain customer feedback.