Alexander Hirji

Yay, SB63 signed into law, authorizing a regional transit funding measure for the SF Bay Area, essential to save and improve service for BART, Muni, AC Transit, Caltrain! Bill allows a signature-gathering effort that would passage with 50%+1 of the vote. www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/u...

Muni had to remain a part of the project, including financing most of the overall cost, because that 2022 bond failed, which took away the major dedicated funding source for this project. If that had passed, then things likely would have turned out very differently.

I mean the idea was more along the lines of traditional joint development, provide a needed resource (housing) in tandem with the bus yard and also bring in revenue for the agency. That whole equation fell apart in 2020 when D9 and D10 supes mandated it be 100% affordable in exchange for approvals.

I think in a way yes the federal money did flood the market almost too much, but at the same time that observation is tricky because the global supply chains were so screwed for 2 ish years. So I’m not sure exactly what the true impact is, but I’d still hazard that it did have an impact.

I think you see the issue with federal cash wrt how many people tried to order and rush BEBs into service during the Biden years, and how people tried to reform things too late. Doing a clean slate PCC style reform would have been a better start rather than working backwards to standardize imo.

Add in global tensions and trade wars, and the risk of having to pay ransom to get bus parts in the country for your random Greek bus manufacturer becomes a giant issue. Going with the somewhat reliable but expensive choice is 100% going to seem safer for a public utility.

And finally a note about why others can’t break in: risk. Agencies can’t afford to place risky bets nowadays on things like buses. Money is tight and they need something reliable. New flyer is expensive but a known player, random European company is unknown and a risky proposition wrt reliability.

A certain Bay Area agency literally has one of their buses condemned and set aside because it’s a fire hazard since proterra hasn’t been bothered to fix it for over two years. Bottom of the barrel bus manufacturer - yes they’re bankrupt now but that wasn’t always the case!

The bigger thing that I think is also at play is that parts/support game. It comes as no surprise to me that Nova left given that New Flyer has so much of the market cornered with its parts and support game. Likewise with why NF has such a hold on large agencies and others can’t break in.

If a vendor cannot send a tech to fix their broken product for over a year, it comes to no surprise that said vendor will get a bad rep. If that vendor also tweaks with battery safety settings and lies to agencies about that, it also comes as no surprise that said vendor will go under.

bsky.app/profile/davi...

Of note here, this isn’t exactly true. Proterra went under because their product was inferior to the big players product, they cut corners with safety, their price point was out of touch with reality, and their customer support was beyond pathetic.

bsky.app/profile/davi...

Furthermore that “duopoly” is more a monopoly, and the one big player a) has massively jacked up its prices, but b) has had its quality go down the drain a decent amount and c) is having its own problems with vendor lock for things like diesel hybrid buses, which further constrains the market

A couple of thoughts though:
- agencies have already eliminated a ton of their customization, the main things that differentiate different buses like seats don’t cause too much price changes
- the fact that the market is a duopoly is far more impactful than this paper makes it out to be

Very neat paper www.brookings.edu/wp-content/u...

They’d have to hire up + remain extremely competitive. Muni has a pretty decent issue with not losing linemen and other overhead lines employees to utilities with higher pay.

To put this loan amount in perspective:

California is spending $500 million to widen a 10-mile stretch of Highway 37 in the northern Bay Area (through a wetland, no less).

But $750 million to save the *entire* Bay Area’s transit systems is apparently infeasible.

Hi my name is (your name), I live in (your town), and I was so relieved in July when I heard that the state budget would include a $750 million emergency loan to BART, Muni, AC Transit, and Caltrain to stop massive service cuts, before funding starts to flow from a regional funding measure) . These transit agencies provide essential service to our communities and I depend on them to get where I need to go. However, I’m very concerned that with just eight days left to issue the loan, the Governor hasn’t followed through on his promise to protect our communities from these devastating cuts. I’m calling to urge him to make good on his promise and issue that loan ASAP to these transit agencies and stop these terrible cuts. Thank you.

Gov Newsom still hasn't signed the $750m loan to Bay Area transit agencies that would get us to the Nov 2026 funding votes. He has eight days to act.

Please take a moment to call his office at (916) 445-2841 and use the attached script, copied from a @transbaycoalition.bsky.social.

If I recall correctly he paid salaries for random staffers in his own office with the MTA budget! Not just random other departments raiding Muni, his own office 🙃

To an extent, it probably would have received a small sum of that money (like $5-10m for overall subway systems renewal of which the special trackwork project is a part).

Though this has been languishing since pre pandemic. Funding aside there’s never been an easy time to actually do the project.

Just ancient, overdue for replacement switch components. All of the subway interlockings are due for replacement, embarcadero unfortunately happens to have the worst condition frogs which is why there’s a years long speed restriction on the outbound side.

Philadelphia transit hits ‘death spiral.’ More cities could follow. Across Philadelphia and its suburbs, commuters are bracing for a dramatic reduction in public transit after state lawmakers were unable to agree on funding.

Across Philadelphia and its suburbs, commuters are bracing for a dramatic reduction in public transportation after state lawmakers were unable to agree on how to fund the struggling system.

SEPTA officials have called it a “death spiral.”

doing a heritage livery for a few cars is fine, doing a new livery that uses elements of a past livery and then tastefully remixes them is fine. but I 100% don’t like “oh we’re just going to do what we did 50 years ago” and then slap some random giant M on it that ruins the throwback.

might get crucified for this but I think they all suck. if you’re going to brand these as “super different/fleet of the future,” then don’t make them look like the same trains that are from the 70s. be bold! do something totally new and interesting!

Nobody even comes remotely close to da mayor

Contrast this to another west coast agency that is trying to light as much money on fire as possible while building a rapid transit extension

Bart studied I think conventional Bart as well in the very early 2000s. Went nowhere.

Troubling findings in this new UCLA report:

Americans are taking far fewer trips than they did before the pandemic. When they do travel, they've shifted toward driving and away from transit.

Those trends are particularly pronounced among youths 15-29.

escholarship.org/uc/item/3gd0...

a graph of ridership growth of Caltrain in the Bay Area, showing a massive increase in ridership post-electrification

Some good news is that ridership on the Bay Area's Caltrain continues to skyrocket in the wake of the route's electrification—passenger counts are up 79% compared to this time last June

I mean fwiw BART also was monopolistic and blocked AC transit from considering restarting transbay rail service. Not saying CPUC and traffic planners at the time weren’t evil, but it’s not as simple as that.