Uneasy Rhetoric

Today’s Bee reports on a survey, conducted by Regional Transit, that shows, if gas goes up to $3.25 a gallon, more people might take transit if it were “reliable, secure, and easy.” The survey also shows that more than half of people wouldn’t change their commuting habits at all.

Improving RT is a serious undertaking, given the rinky-dink nature of our region’s transit system. Only a handful of lines run on weekends and even then they run infrequently. On weekdays, unless you are a strict 8-5 worker, planning a bus commute can be challenging if not impossible. The lines themselves were designed to accommodate a population distribution that Sacramento hasn’t seen in years, in decades. Light rail was poorly planned to serve major population areas and destinations in favor of the “park and ride” concept. If you’ve ever been to the Florin Road station at rush hour you know not may people are parking and riding.

RT also has to face the fact that getting people on to light rail will be difficult and getting them onto buses will be even harder. Light rail can be fun and buses have stinky people on them and, oh yea, there might be some walking involved. When survey participants say they would use transit if it were “easy,” what does that mean? Put a map in front of someone and ask them to design the ideal bus line and they will draw a line from their door to their work. Even then, I know people who could literally step out of their door and onto a bus then step off the bus and walk a block to work (yes, in Sacramento!), yet they drive.

RT is suggesting a transit tax to pay for improvements to the system in order to attract more users. I would support such a tax, especially if it went to improving the overall system. But how much is RT willing to redesign the system? Are they willing to reconfigure routes, operate more buses more hours, and market the system as a viable alternative to driving? Or will they take the money and use it to tinker with the light rail system because trains are cool and no one wants to ride the bus anyway?

Hopefully, RT is looking at system-wide improvements. I think RT should find a way to run a few discreet tests. And I also think they need to find a way to get more people who are already well served by transit (I think of all my Land Park neighbors) to use it. Such activities would go a long way to improving public support for our small-town transit system.

In the end though, gas is going to have to go much, much higher before the public starts clamoring for a better transit system. We’ve already seen a doubling of prices over the past few years and people seem to largely have absorbed the cost. I don’t think an extra 50 or 75 cents a gallon is going to make people flinch. I’m not even sure $4 a gallon will change anything.