Express buses take back seat to other transit

HAYWARD -- Ferryboats will crisscross the Bay with greater frequency. Workers will speed along rapid bus lines from San Leandro to Oakland and Berkeley and back. But local riders waiting for faster buses on Hesperian Boulevard can keep waiting, perhaps for years or decades.

Metropolitan Transportation Commission

officials are looking at dropping a plan that would have created a rapid-bus transit system along Hesperian, Foothill and MacArthur boulevards in Hayward, San Leandro, San Lorenzo and Oakland.

The regional agency needs to prioritize its projects, said MTC spokesman John Goodwin, and that means putting a few on the back burner for the time being.

Near the top of the Alameda County priority list is a project creating a rapid-bus system that extends from Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley through East 14th Street in Oakland to the Bayfair BART station in San Leandro.

"The rapid stops are further apart than your regular bus stop," said Clarence Johnson, spokesman for the Alameda Contra Costa Transit District. "Obviously, the idea is to speed the commute along for people who need that kind of service."

Rapid bus systems also hasten bus rides by creating a mechanism that overrides traffic stoplights, causing a green light to linger until a bus passes.

And, in theory, major bus stops are upgraded to provide shelter and other amenities that make them more like a station.

The rapid-bus system, if it succeeded in the north part of the county, was designed to eventually trickle down to Hesperian Boulevard and other densely populated corridors south of Oakland. At least, that's what the MTC determined in a regional transportation plan adopted in 2001.

"These are high ridership corridors and have been for years," Goodwin said.

But as project costs escalate, Goodwin said, the agency must bring certain projects to the forefront in order to make it easier to obtain state and federal money.

Priority items include a $180 million project to expand the Bay Area ferry system and the $175 million bus project in Oakland, Berkeley and San Leandro. Most of the projects are funded primarily through bridge toll revenues and voter-approved half-cent sales taxes.

Today, the MTC's planning committee is scheduled to gather in Oakland to make revisions to the regional transportation plan.

MTC officials have recommended they remove the rapid-bus project for Hesperian, Foothill and MacArthur boulevards from their list of priorities.

Meanwhile, the committee is expected to more explicitly prioritize the expansion of ferry routes in Berkeley, Alameda, Richmond, Hercules and South San Francisco, plus improvements to the ferry terminal in San Francisco.

MTC officials are increasingly prioritizing projects using "smart growth" guidelines: The more people who live near a proposed transit project, the more likely that project will get funded.

But the agency has different thresholds for what it defines as a dense population: If it's near a proposed rapid bus station, it must be 2,750 people in a half-mile radius; if it's near a ferry terminal, it need only be 750 people in a half-mile radius.

Matt O'Brien can be reached at (510) 293-2473 or mattobrien@dailyreviewonline.com.

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