'seamless’ Bay Area Transit System Proposed To Attract New Riders

The Bay Area’s tangle of public transportation operators is proving to be an obstacle to getting more people to take or try transit, concludes a study to be released Tuesday. While BART, Caltrain and Muni are bursting at the seams as the region and the economy grow, just 3 percent of Bay Area commuters take transit, and the fragmented nature of the transit system is partially to blame, the report says. The report, from the regional urban think tank SPUR, calls for creation of an integrated transit system that makes it easier for existing and potential riders to navigate the Bay Area’s labyrinth of transit systems as if they were one. Titled “Seamless Transit,” it is scheduled to be released in conjunction with a Commonwealth Club transportation summit attended by experts from major metropolitan areas Tuesday. “The Bay Area used to be a leader in public transit,” said Ratna Amin, transportation policy director for SPUR and author of the report. The system works pretty well for the person who makes the same trip every day and has figured it out, but let’s make it work for people who want to start taking transit or want to go somewhere they don’t always go. Aside from a presenting a daunting array of names often unknown outside of their service areas, the sprawling collection of transit agencies presents a number of problems, including: Different agencies have different types of fare systems “distance-based (BART), zones (Caltrain) or flat rates (Muni, AC Transit)” as well as different passes and different discounts for seniors, youths and disabled riders. Past efforts at simplifying the Bay Area’s transportation network have focused on consolidating the number of transit operators, an approach that obviously hasn’t worked. [...] it suggests offering incentives for transit agencies to consolidate. Randy Rentschler, spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, said the report makes sense but that the Bay Area needs to reduce the number of transit agencies.