(Photo: Craig Miller)

A new study from the Brookings Institution finds that compared with the rest of the nation, the Bay Area offers pretty good public transportation options.

Among 100 major metropolitan areas, San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont ranks 16th, and San Jose-Santa Clara-Sunnyvale ranks second.  Areas were ranked according to how accessible transit is to riders, how long it takes to get to work on transit and how often the systems run during rush hours.

So…if Bay Area transit is so good, why doesn’t anybody seem to take it?

Just one out of ten people in the Bay Area commute by public transportation, according to John Goodwin of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. He says that number hasn’t changed much over the years, despite huge investments in the system. And the Bay Area isn’t alone in that. A recent study by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) found that between 1990 and 2008, the share of commuters taking transit increased by less than one percentage point, from 5% to 5.5%, despite the construction of 217 new rail stations, and the fact that more than a third of California’s transportation spending since the early 1980s has gone to public transit.

“The California public likes the idea of public transit in the sense that they highlight it as a place where we should be investing a lot of our dollars,” said the PPIC’s Ellen Hanak. “But there is a gap between what people say, and how they actually sort of vote with their feet. It’s almost like people would like their neighbors to take transit so they could have fewer cars on the road.”

That sentiment fits what I found in my reporting for a companion radio segment on The California Report.  Every person I talked to liked the idea of public transit, but most of them don’t take it very often. Everyone seemed to have a slightly different reason, but the broad themes were the same: time, convenience, cost, reliability, and, to a lesser extent, cleanliness/quality of experience.

Those issues aren’t likely to get much better in the near term, with Bay Area public transit facing a shortfall of $1 billion a year for the next 25 years, according to Goodwin.

“The situation facing Bay Area transit right now is quite bleak,” said Goodwin, adding that over the last two-to-three years, “virtually every transit agency” has either cut service, raised fares, or both.

He says that since 1997, while the cost of operating Bay Area transit has increased 52%, service has increased only 16%, and ridership has increased just seven percent, which, he admitted, is a “crummy” business model.  Right now MTC is in the middle of a two-year analysis called the Transit Sustainability Project, which is looking at how to make the Bay Area’s public transportation better and more cost-effective.

But the transit itself is just one piece of the puzzle. And it’s a big puzzle.

According to PPIC, transportation makes up 37% of all greenhouse gas emissions in California. Passenger cars and trucks account for almost three quarters of the transportation slice, or 28% of all emissions. Senate Bill 375 was passed in 2009 to address this by prodding regional planning agencies to find ways to link land use and transit in ways that will get people to drive less.  Last year the California Air Resources Board set reductions targets for each region. They vary but most aim for about a seven percent reduction by 2020 and 15% by 2035.

MTC and the Association of Bay Area Governments have released an “Initial Vision Scenario” that outlines how the Bay Area might meet these goals.The agencies are currently accepting public comment on the plan, holding public workshops through the end of May.

According to the PPIC study, our best bet for getting Californians out of their cars is to increase high-density development, improve alternatives like bike lanes and carpooling programs, and use pricing strategies to raise the cost of driving alone and parking.

“No single policy on its own is going to work”, said Hanak. “Price signals are the most effective strategy on their own, but even with pricing it’s more effective to combine that policy with better land use and transportation policies.”

For more on the opportunities and the challenges facing California’s efforts to plan for sustainable growth, and to try out your own “vision,” visit our Miles to Go series page.

Flooding along San Francisco's Embarcadero during an extreme high tide in February. (Photo: Heidi Nutters/Flickr)

Even if the world stopped emitting all greenhouse gases today, scientists say, the climate would continue to change, perhaps for centuries, before it stabilized.  Since a zero-emissions world is unlikely, to say the least, and considering that global carbon emissions are continuing on their upward trend, finding ways to adapt to what many see as inevitable is getting more and more attention.

The San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR), a local think tank focused on sustainable growth, has just released a 40-page report that outlines the Bay Area’s biggest climate risks and lays out a road map for how communities can start preparing.

The upshot?  We’ve got a lot of work to do.

“We need to beginning planning on many fronts because climate change is going to affect the way we do business. It’s going to affect everything from people’s health to property values on the shoreline,” said SPUR’s Laura Tam.

The report finds that the climate change impacts most threatening to the Bay Area are more intense heat waves, water uncertainty (droughts, wildfires, extreme storms and flooding), and sea level rise. It lays out step-by-step instructions for addressing these risks, in terms of public safety and health, water supply, transportation infrastructure, biodiversity, and the region’s energy supply.

Heat waves are a big focus of the report, which, if you live in San Francisco like me, may seem improbable.  Yet, Tam says it’s exactly places like San Francisco that are most vulnerable to increased heat waves because we’re not prepared for them.  (How many people here do you know with air conditioning?)

The report says that by 2100, the Bay Area may experience between 74 and 90 days above 81 degrees Fahrenheit per year.  Throughout the 20th century, the Bay Area averaged about 12.  An increase like that means greater risk for heat-related illnesses and some infectious diseases, as well as poorer air quality.  To address this, SPUR recommends communities identify vulnerable populations, reduce the “urban heat island effect” by promoting white roofs and urban forestry, build communications and public warning systems, and develop robust “heat response plans” and air quality monitoring programs.

Will Travis, the executive director of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) and a SPUR board member, said that cash-strapped cities and towns have been “reticent” to deal with climate change adaptation because it can seem like a problem of the future.  But, communities are going to have to act soon to avoid a crisis that’s both environmental and economic, he said.

“Our region is not going to be able to remain competitive and attract the capital we need to make our innovative economy grow if we don’t address this problem right now,” said Travis.

According to BCDC, the Bay Area may see 55 inches of sea level rise by 2100. The SPUR report says that means more than 186 miles of major roads (including I-80, I-880, U.S. 101, Highway 37, I-680, and Highway 12), more than 105 miles of regional rail track, and 93% of Oakland Airport and SFO property will be vulnerable to flooding.

“That transportation infrastructure is the lifeblood of what makes our economy work,” said Travis. “We need that mobility, so we’re going to have to be retrofitting those facilities to make sure that they don’t go underwater.”

The report recommends agencies conduct a comprehensive transportation vulnerability assessment, design resilient new transportation projects, and develop emergency transportation alternatives for cases of extreme weather events.

The report is dense and detailed, and it’s a sobering look at exactly how much needs to be done to prepare for what many state and regional agencies agree is likely on its way. Odds are, none of this will be cheap. And yet, according to SPUR’s Laura Tam, beginning to deal with climate change impacts now could save money as well as lives.

“If we don’t start planning ahead and preparing, we will end up dealing with crises that emerge as emergencies, and we don’t want to be in the position of having to respond to climate emergencies,” she said.  “We want to know what to expect, and be prepared, so that the least amount of property is damaged and the least amount of people suffer.”

Tonight the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) kicks off the first of nine “Plan Bay Area” workshops, aimed at gathering public input on plans for sustainable growth in the region. The planning agency is seeking comment on the Initial Vision Scenario, which was released by MTC and the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) last month.  This scenario is the first draft of the Bay Area’s Sustainable Communities Strategy, a planning document required under the state law, SB 375, which was passed in 2008 and requires planning regions throughout California to cut greenhouse gas emissions from cars by integrating land-use and transportation planning.

The Bay Area, Sacramento, and San Diego
have some of the most aggressive reductions targets: seven percent per capita by 2020 and 13-16% by 2035 (compared to 2005 levels).  The South Coast (by far the biggest region, including Los Angeles, San Bernadino, Ventura, and other counties) is shooting for an eight percent reduction by 2020, and 13% by 2035.

“The Initial Vision Scenario really does center on accommodating the growth that we expect over the next generation within the existing urban footprint of the Bay Area,” said MTC public information officer John Goodwin. “Ninety-seven percent of all the new households that would be formed in the Bay Area over the next 25 years would be accommodated in already existing urban areas, which is pretty impressive.”

He said the new plan looks at all the expected growth in the region over the next couple decades and accommodates for all the people working in the Bay Area to be able to live in the Bay Area, instead of relying on commuters from other regions such as the Central Valley.

“That’s a big change,” Goodwin said. “Realizing that vision is a big step, and we’re a long ways from it.”

Last fall when the state Air Resources Board issued the regional greenhouse gas reductions targets under SB 375, opponents voiced concerns that they were too aggressive and that they would stifle economic development, trigger increased transportation costs for families, and hurt an already suffering construction industry.

But advocates say the targets won’t stop growth.  In some cases, they’ll just encourage a different kind of growth. Denser communities closer to public transit – rather than sprawling new suburbs – could have a positive effect on the environment, air quality, and public health by reducing the number of miles people drive.

“The beauty of SB 375 is that it’s a performance standard,” said Amanda Eaken, deputy director for Sustainable Communities at the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco.  “It gives each region all the flexibility they need to choose the policies and programs that are most appropriate for their region.”

Tonight’s public meeting on the Initial Vision Scenario for Plan Bay Area is in Mountain View. Next week’s forums will be in San Francisco and at the San Mateo Public Library.  There is a calendar of the public workshops and their locations on the One Bay Area website.  The final draft of the plan is not expected until 2013.

You can see more coverage of how the Bay Area, and the rest of California, is grappling with the opportunities and challenges of sustainable growth, on our Miles to Go series page.

The plan includes $400 million (0.2%) for a “Transportation Climate Action Campaign”  to raise public awareness about climate change and individual actions that residents can take to reduce the region’s carbon footprint. The campaign will also include a grants program to subsidize demonstration projects  for reducing auto emissions with alternative fuels or car-sharing projects.  An additional $1 billion is set aside for bicycle facilities and programs.

But when, by the MTC’s own numbers, 40% of the Bay Area’s emissions come from the transportation sector, $1.4 billion to fight greenhouse gas emissions seems paltry given that this is the plan to carry us through to 2035. By law, California’s greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced approximately 30% by 2020.

MTC Executive Director Steve Heminger said the plan “tees up two strategies that we have consistently indentified as the most important in making progress in reducing environmental emissions like CO2, in reducing vehicle miles of travel, and those are road pricing, and a better link to land use without transportation investment.”

The idea is that reducing traffic congestion by increasing the cost of driving, be it with higher bridge tolls or charging drivers to use HOV lanes,  greenhouse gas emissions will decrease.  And by upgrading aspects of the region’s transit system, more people will choose to forgo the car and opt for public transit.

“From an infrastructure perspective, I think this plan is about as climate positive as it could be,” said Heminger.

Use the audio players to hear Heminger explain how the plan attacks climate change: