Transportation (News)

Over the last several months, we've written occasionally about the need to solve the impending transit funding crisis. For longer than that, we've worked around the country, but especially in California and New York, to find new and innovative ways to advance transit service. Lately, we've also implored Congress to provide emergency funding to keep drivers employed as legislators have considered jobs bills.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 12, 2010

Obama Administration Denies BART $70M in Stimulus Funds, Citing Civil Rights Failures Funds Shift to Bay Area Transit Operations

Federal Transit Administration Chief Peter Rogoff today [February 12]  sent a letter to BART and MTC rejecting BART’s corrective action plan to address Title VI violations found in an investigation prompted by a complaint from civil rights, transportation and environmental advocates. Due to action taken by MTC at its January meeting, the funding will now be reallocated to transit projects across the Bay Area, where it is desperately needed to preserve jobs and transit service.

In the first action of its kind, the Obama Administration has pulled $70 million in federal stimulus funds from a proposed Oakland Airport Connector (OAC) project due to multiple civil rights violations by the Bay Area Rapid Transit district (BART). The strong action underscores a recent promise made in the President’s State of the Union address to continue “prosecuting civil rights violations.”

How the deal fell through: An annotated guide to the Oakland Airport connector

November 2000 – Alameda County voters approve a sales tax for a list of possible transportation improvements. A new link from the Coliseum BART station to the Oakland International Airport is included in this list. TransForm and other nonprofits begin working with BART on the project.

July 2001 – BART completes a draft of the Environmental Impact Statement on a new link from the Coliseum BART station to the Oakland International Airport. BART Proposes a train which would cost $200 million to build, and then $7.3 million annually to operate (by 2020). For comparison, the existing bus service would cost around $2 million to operate annually.

March 2002 – BART completes the final Environmental Impact Report. It finds that a train on it’s own dedicated track is the preferred option. The BART board votes to build it.

By Yonah Freemark

$70 million will be redistributed for operating funds at cash-strapped local agencies; fate of $422 million more also committed to the project is unclear.

One clear outcome of the distribution of stimulus funds to transit agencies across the country was a marked preference for using the money to increase capital spending, rather than a ramp up of operations. Even as cities from New York to Denver have invested hundreds of millions of federal dollars in renovations and new line construction, they have cut spending on existing services. This has led to a peculiar situation in which transit agencies seem to be willing to trade bus drivers for construction workers.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 16, 2010
Contact: Wynn Hausser, 650-619-1032

On Eve of Stimulus Anniversary, Obama Administration Denies Funds Due to Civil Rights Failures $70M taken from BART project, Distributed among Bay Area Transit Agencies

San Francisco, CA – In the first action of its kind, the Obama Administration has
pulled $70 million in federal stimulus funds from a proposed Oakland Airport
Connector (OAC) project due to multiple civil rights violations by the Bay Area
Rapid Transit district (BART). The strong action underscores a recent promise
made in the President’s State of the Union address to continue “prosecuting civil
rights violations.”

By Malia Wollan

SAN FRANCISCO — The Federal Transit Administration pulled $70 million in stimulus money from a planned expansion of the commuter rail service here Tuesday after it found that the local rail agency had not appropriately studied the project’s impact on low-income and minority residents.

Posted on  by Becks

Wow.

After almost exactly a year of trying to make the Oakland Airport Connector (OAC) project equitable and cost-effective, it looks like we’ve finally won the original battle. Back in February 2009, more than a 100 advocates urged the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) not to provide stimulus funds to the OAC and instead to provide the funds to all the regional transit agencies to prevent service cuts and fare hikes.

By Francisca Porchas

In the first successful action of its kind in the nation, Bay Area members of Transit Riders for Public Transportation (TRPT), Public Advocates and Urban Habitat, filed a civil rights complaint to stop $70M in stimulus funds from being allocated to the $500-billion boondoggle rail project, the Oakland Airport Connector project (OAC).