Saturday, October 10, 1998

By Ronna Abramson
Staff Reporter

Swayed by the pleas of bus riders and environmentalists, a key transportation committee Friday recommended giving $375 million to area transit districts during the next 20 years to replace and renovate buses and trains.

But in its unanimous recommendation to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the Work Program Committee didn't indicate which road and highway projects the money should be diverted from to pay for the work.

Instead, the committee -- whose members are primarily county supervisors and mayors from around the Bay Area -- directed staff to come up with a list of potential improvement projects and some guidelines by which to better judge their value.

The full commission will consider the committee's recommendation Oct. 28 when voting on the Regional Transportation Plan, which outlines how the Bay Area is to spend $88 million in transportation funds during the next 20 years.

If the plan is approved, staff will return to the commission in May with a proposal specifying where the additional money for transit work is to come from.

"This is a massive victory for the coalition and other people who rely on transit," said Stuart Cohen, who brought elected officials and environmentalists together to form the Bay Area Transportation Choices Coalition, which has been lobbying the commission for more transit money.

"In some ways they (the committee members) gave us more than we asked for," noted Cohen, who was "shocked" by thecommittee's decision.

The coalition had proposed moving $135.5 million from six road and highway expansion projects -- including the proposed Foothill Freeway in Hayward and Route 84 extension on the Peninsula -- to AC Transit, Golden Gate Transit and Caltrain.

But committee members also decided Friday to look for money to cover the remaining $240 million that other transit agencies such as BART and San Francisco Municipal Railway are expected to need during the next 10 years.

They declined, however, to unilaterally take money away from local highway projects suggested by the coalition.

Their recommendation came after hearing from nearly 50 people, most speaking for total transit funding.

The only ones who supported a Regional Transportation Plan that falls $375 million short of what transit districts need were county transportation planners, the California Trucking Association and the California Alliance for Jobs.

"It's already difficult and unsafe to take the bus," Malkia Cyril, who is currently homeless in Oakland, told the committee.