Saturday, October 10, 1998

By Laura Hamburg
CHRONICLE STAFF WRITER

In a triumph for people who ride buses, trains and ferries, a key committee of the Bay Area's transportation agency gave tranrators more money to fix and replace dilapidated equipment yesterday.

The extra $375 million in transit money, to be spread over the next two decades, came as a welcome surprise to dozens of vocal transit supporters who attended the Metrolitan Transportation Commission's Program Committee meeting yesterday.

"This is a monumental victory," said Stuart Cohen, director of the Bay Area Transportation Choices Forum (a project of TALC as of 2003), which spearheaded the campaign to score more transit funding. "It's also a victory for drivers stuck in traffic -- because more transit means less congestion."

The money will be added to a 20-year transportation blueprint for the Bay Area that was approved yesterday by the committee. The full commission will make a final decision on October 28.

The sweeping $88 billion plan is a laundry list of projects that will get state and federal cash over the next two decades. The plan is updated every two years.

BART, AC Transit, Caltrain, Golden Gate Transit and others will receive about half of the funds to maintain existing service. A third of the money will go to maintaining roads, with most of the rest spent to expand roadways. The extra funds promised yesterday will be used to replace aging buses and trains and worn-out equipment.

As the regional planning agency, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission collects billions of dollars for the area from state and federal sources and doles it out to local governments to expand freeways, fix potholes and to pay for improved bus, train and ferry service.

But which projects get on the list and how much money they get is a heated debate, often pitting inner-city transit users against suburban drivers, and environmentalists concerned about urban sprawl against motorists who want wider freeways and more bypasses.

Yesterday's meeting was no exception. Nearly 50 speakers addressed the committee, most of them pleading with commissioners to yank some freeway projects off the funding list in exchange for more money for transit and for bicycle and pedestrian improvements.

Hale Zukas, a paraplegic who is unable to speak, addressed commissioners in his wheelchair, slowly using a pointer attached to his head to tap out his message. "I can't drive", a translator repeated. "I ride transit, and there are many people in my position."

A vocal contingent of homeless advocates and homeless people vowed to storm the full committee meeting in two weeks unless commissioners gave transit more money.

Representatives from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told commissioners that the plan does not do enough to address pollution problems expected to worsten when a million additional cars hit Bay Area roads over the next 20 years.

Other predictions are equally alarming. According to the transportation plan projections, by the year 2020, there will be 29 percent more people living in the Bay Area; the number of trips made by vehicles will increas by 29 percent as well, and the numver of vehicle miles traveled will soar by 46 percent as a result of longer commutes.

In some already congested corridors such as Interstate 80, the Sunol Grade on I-680, state Highway 4 in Contra Costa County, and HIghway 101 between Sonoma County and San Francisco, the amount of time people spend wedged in traffic is expected to climb by more than 200 percent.

In unanimously approving the additional transit funding and in not whacking other freeway prjects, commissioners said yesterday the plan will help reduce congestion.

"I think the commission has a responsibility to fund transit at 100 percent," said James P. Spering, chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. "It's what we've heard over and over again from the public. And it's what we should do."