Tell BART: Don't Balance Your Budget on the Backs of BART Workers and the Working Class!

Make the Rich Pay for BART! Parking Fees for Yuppie SUV drivers in suburbia arelong overdue! (Besides, when the airport extension opens, airline commuters will use BART to get free parking anyway, rather than paying the exorbidant SFO parking fees if BART doesn't charge for parking).

The following SF Chronicle opinion piece doesn't go far enough, but it's a start. Attend the hearing! Make your voice heard!

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Wednesday, June 26, 2002 (SF Chronicle)
Pay to park at BART/Avoid fare increase and service cutbacks
Stuart Cohen, Mike Daley



PLUMMETING ridership and a slowed economy have left one of our region's
most popular and important public resources on the brink of fiscal
disaster. BART, the transportation lifeline for hundreds of thousands of
Bay Area residents, is facing a $28 million budget shortfall and has a day
left to finalize a plan to close that gap.
BART appears to favor a three-pronged approach to the budget crisis: fare
increases, service cuts and a small amount of paid reserved parking at
some stations for well-heeled customers. Service cuts and layoffs mean
fewer and dirtier trains, less safe and dirtier stations and more
transfers. When combined with increased fares, the result will be
decreased ridership, something that BART and the region's roads cannot
afford. Clearly, charging customers more for a lesser product is a recipe
for disaster.
Fortunately there is a better alternative. A daily parking fee has the
potential to increase ridership while helping to solve the budget crisis.
Although parking fees might strike some as unfair, it's important to
remember that "free parking" is not really free, it's unpaid. A 1993 BART
study found that it costs more than $7 million a year to operate and
maintain BART's parking facilities -- about $1 per parking space per day.
That's a cost everyone pays, although just 25 percent of BART riders use
the lots and those who do, on average, are wealthier than BART riders who
don't. Free parking made sense as a way to attract riders when BART began,
but the policy is outdated now that lots fill by 7:30 or 8 a.m., leaving
many would-be riders to drive to work.
This proposal would entail a five-step approach:
-- Parking fees would be charged during the morning commute: $1 at lots
that don't fill and $2 at lots that do.
-- Fees would be lowered if parking lots do not regularly reach capacity.
-- Reserved spots at a small percentage of parking spaces, priced at a
higher rate, would provide a valuable service for those who cannot arrive
before the lots fill up.
-- Excess spaces would be made available to long-term and airport parkers
once the BART-SFO extension opens.
-- Parking after 10 a.m. and on weekends would remain free.
The proposal has a number of advantages over fare increases , layoffs and
service reductions. Daily parking fees are supported by elected leaders
who specialize in transportation: Sens. Liz Figueroa, D-Fremont, Don
Perata, D- Oakland and Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch, and have the support of a
coalition of transit, environmental, labor and consumer rights groups,
including the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense and the Bay Area
Transportation and Land Use Coalition.
This well-tailored parking proposal would provide a new revenue source
that by its second year would generate between $10 million and $25 million
annually.
These funds would go a long way toward solving the budget crisis. Once the
crisis is solved, parking fee revenue could be used to improve feeder bus
service to BART stations and create and improve bike trails to stations.
This five-point proposal is good for the environment as it has the
potential to increase BART ridership. Every day, people who would ride
BART end up driving when they encounter full lots. More than half of
BART's parking lots fill before peak commute hours; even nearby privately
owned lots (such as at West Oakland, which charges $5-$6 per spot) fill to
near capacity. BART's studies show that a large percentage of people who
park at BART live less than a mile away. By charging a modest parking fee,
many riders, especially those who live near BART stations, would be
encouraged to carpool, bike, walk, or take public transit to BART, freeing
up space for those who must drive.
The proposal is good for families. Free parking rewards those who can
arrive early in the morning before the lots fill up. But these early hours
are tough on families and people with fixed 9-to-5 work hours. Parking
fees would be a better way to allocate spaces.
There is no easy solution to the current budget crisis. But one thing is
certain: Reasonable parking fees are a preferred alternative to service
cuts, layoffs and fare increases. BART and the Bay Area can't afford
anything less.


Parking, fare increases
Who: BART Board of Directors
What: Public hearing on fare increases and parking fees
Time: 9 a.m., June 27
Place: BART Board Room, First Floor, 800 Madison St., Oakland
Stuart Cohen is the director of the Bay Area Transportation and Land Use
Coalition, and Mike Daley is the conservation director of the Sierra
Club's San Francisco Bay chapter. For more information:
http://www.transcoalition.org
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Copyright 2002 SF Chronicle