Overcoming politics

In this case, I'm not sure competition is a good thing. Public transit does not necessarily benefit from the free market, partly because infrastructure is so expensive, and partly because the various systems are not in direct competition, except perhaps at their boundaries.

One example of how the system doesn't work: I planned an airport return to SF in order to connect with a 10:30 PM Caltrain to Palo Alto, using the BART connection from SFO to Millbrae. Got to BART in plenty of time with a train in the station, which waited just long enough to leave that I missed the Caltrain and had to wait until 12:30 AM for the next one. There is absolutely no excuse for that lack of schedule coordination, except that BART and Caltrain, despite sharing an "Intermodal Center" did not communicate, and, in fact did not get along. With a unified "SFBay Area Transit Authority" this just would not have happened.

Fantastic question Joe - and it hits at the problems. TransitCamp was fantastic in brainstorming some of the topics, but the issue of politics (which governs so much of what happens in any topic) is so much harder to solve.

I had no idea there were 36 separate bodies.. that's just... crazy. And yes, there are other examples in the U.S. where amalgamation and a centralized agency does work (or having some sort of centralized agency running things - Boston, NYC, etc.). I think one of the first steps would be to map them out and figure out who covers what. As much as I love the populist nature of BarCamps, perhaps having a few urban planners, transportation engineers and other folks who have studied the problem might be useful - see if they can share what they know, and what other cities and areas have done about the problem.

We had urban planners, transportation engineers and other experts there last week, and even a few politicians! If we could lock Nathanial Ford of Muni and his counterparts with Caltrain, BART, AC Transit, samTrans and VTA, along with Gavin Newsom, the SF Board of Supervisors and a few other key politicians in a room together and not let them out until they found some mechanism to cooperate, we might get somewhere! The difficulty is that someone is going to have to give up some power, and those are the folks who are loathe to do so.

My instinct is that we would best hope to end up with an overall parent organization (the SF Bay Transportation Authority???) which would absorb all of the currently competing systems, just as the MBTA in Boston took over the private Eastern Massachusetts bus system and the defunct Old Colony Railroad commuter lines, among other transportation companies. Getting there is a daunting task, and I have to confess that I don't see an easy way to it.

Of course, when we succeed in getting the 36 transit agencies working in sync, we can then have a camp to brainstorm solving the politics of the Middle East!

The Boston story, according to Wikipedia:

There were a number of private companies that provided transit in several different modes since the 19th century. In 1947, the Metropolitan Transit Authority was created (by the state, I believe), to consolidate all of the service within the area centered on Boston (14 cities and towns). In 1964, that service area was expanded to 78 cities and towns covering many of Boston's northern and southern suburbs. The MBTA gradually took over (by purchase) the busses and surviving commuter rail lines within the enlarged district, most of which were private companies heavily in need of subsidization. In 1999, the MBTA district was expanded to comprise 175 cities and towns (all of Eastern Massachusetts!), most of which were served by the commuter rail system (but the MBTA did not assume responsibility for local service in the outying communities).

A challenge for the Bay Area: The state of Massachusetts created the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Would any of the Bay Area transit judicatories willingly give up power to a state-run public authority? Currently, most transit agencies are already government-run, usually by a county or municipal board. The way the BART Board, MUNI, Caltrain, samTrans, VTA and AC Transit are run now, I cannot see them easily folding into a Bay Area Transit Authority. Look at the hullabaloo recently caused by the creation of a Ferry Authority to consolidate and expand some of the current water transportation!

Interesting discussion, thanks for the historical perspective. I'm curious as to what sort of issues people want to see resolved. I know that there are specific problems with the commute in the bay (like wanting later cross-bay BART service), but I'm curious as to what sort of inter-agency cooperation issues people are specifically referring to.

Best example is what I related above about a missed BART-CalTrain connection at Millbrae, the much touted "Intermodal" center. The two systems did not mesh their schedules, leaving me with a two hour wait for a train. And I sensed that not only did they not mesh their schedules, there was an affirmative attempt to not co-operate -- the BART train could have left SFO in plenty of time to make the 10:30 CalTrain connection. SamTrans and BART have also often been at odds. The difficulty in instituting a Bay Area-wide Translink Fare System is another example. The technology is there, but agencies are so tied to their own proprietary systems, there is resistance to working with other agencies.