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By Leslie Stewart
The Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA) received a triple dose of bad news in December. Responsible for operating and maintaining the seven state-owned bridges in the Bay Area, BATA was presented with:
Earthshaking Concerns
The Antioch Bridge crosses the San Joaquin River on Highway 160 between Contra Costa and Sacramento counties; it is the easternmost bridge in the region and carries about 15,000 vehicles a day. The Dumbarton Bridge is the southernmost bridge, and carries 60,000 vehicles per day across the San Francisco Bay between Fremont and Menlo Park on Highway 84. The two bridges are the newest in the region, and were designed to meet strengthened engineering criteria put in place after the 1971 San Fernando earthquake, so they weren’t included in the initial retrofit evaluations after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Updated engineering standards indicate that both now need retrofitting with such measures as isolation bearings between the bridge deck and support structures, cross bracing for support columns, and stronger bridge approaches.
The $950 million price tag — $313 million for the Antioch Bridge and $637 million for the Dumbarton Bridge — includes a hefty allowance for contingencies and risk, drawing on previous experience with retrofit planning where costs escalated unpredictably. The environmental and design work is only 35 percent complete and these estimates will change. However, this conservative approach has already proven itself with BATA’s management of the retrofit on the eastern span of the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge, where as much as $250 million could remain in the contingency fund after work is finished.
Declining Bridge Traffic
“BATA is the banker for these bridges, so the first question that comes to mind is, how are we going to pay for this?” asked Steve Heminger, executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), which also serves as the board for BATA. He explained that the decrease in toll revenues and the “huge dislocation in the credit market” meant that it would be impossible to pay for the additional retrofit work from the current resource streams.
“Toll-paying traffic is the mother’s milk of the enterprise — that’s how we pay all the bills here,” said Heminger. However, fewer cars are crossing the bridges. A weak economy has repressed job growth, and sharp spikes in gas prices pushed many commuters onto transit such as BART — a benefit for the region, but a financial hit for bridge tolls. In addition, at peak commute hours, fewer of the cars crossing bridges are paying for the privilege. “We’ve seen a heartening trend” to more carpools, said Heminger, but “carpoolers pay the same toll as BART riders do: zero.”
Weighing Toll Increases in a Credit Crunch
The credit market crisis means it is highly unlikely that BATA can expect to get rates like those which made the last toll hike so effective in financing previous retrofit bonds, so other options are needed for funding retrofits and ongoing operations. These include operating cost savings such as restructuring toll collections; increased collection efficiency for toll violations; turning to the state and federal governments for funds; and an unavoidable increase in bridge tolls, according to Heminger’s report. He acknowledged that “there is never a good time to start a conversation about raising tolls, and the middle of a recession is probably the worst.” However, he also told the authority, “We have reached the point with a four dollar toll that we have squeezed everything out of it that we can.”
Three alternative packages of toll increases have been proposed. All of them would raise auto tolls from $4 to $5 and would increase per-axle tolls for trucks, which have historically had smaller percentage toll increases than autos. Two options would also charge carpools, as is the case on most other toll bridges and tollways in the country. Implementing carpool tolls would require carpoolers to use the FasTrak electronic toll system to keep the time savings that makes carpooling attractive.
Heminger stressed that BATA cannot delay a decision on increased tolls for very long. These strategies must all be implemented together to keep BATA on a sound financial footing and enable it to perform its role in keeping the bridges safe and functioning. By January 2010, the remaining environmental impact evaluations and design work will be complete for the retrofits of the Antioch and Dumbarton bridges, and the finances must be in place to allow the authority to fund contracts for the work.
Other Funding Sources and Legislative Action
BATA will seek federal funding for the retrofits, where appropriate, either as part of the economic recovery package or the upcoming federal authorization legislation. Previously, the authority has chosen not to compete with the Golden Gate Bridge district for federal retrofit funding.
At the state level, BATA will apply to add the Dumbarton and Antioch bridges to the state toll bridge seismic retrofit program, making them eligible to receive any unused contingency funds after completion of the eastern span. John Barna, executive director of the California Transportation Commission (CTC), told BATA members, “These are not just Bay Area bridges. These are bridges that connect essential parts of the state system and therefore from the CTC standpoint these are bridges that the entire state needs to support the retrofit of, much like we have done on almost 2,000 bridges statewide.”
However, while in past years the state has picked up 40 percent of the cost of retrofitting state-owned Bay Area bridges, the current state budget crisis may change this split. Instead, BATA will seek legislation to allow greater local control over toll bridge operations and to acquire the authority to put additional regional funding measures on the ballot similar to Regional Measures 1 and 2. Congestion pricing authority and the authority to integrate the bridges into a future high-occupancy toll network are also legislative goals that would gain flexibility for the region.
Changes in FasTrak will be part of the FasTrak Strategic Plan Update scheduled for February 2009. Consideration of the toll increases will continue over the coming months, with implementation of a final package scheduled for January 2010.
For further reading:
Antioch/Dumbarton Seismic Evaluation and Toll Bridge Funding Analysis
Tracking the Retrofits According to CTC’s Barna, the last three state-owned bridges needing seismic retrofits are the Antioch, Dumbarton, and San Francisco-Oakland Bay bridges. Click here for information on the ongoing seismic retrofit on the Bay Bridge. The Website includes construction-site Webcams and videos that give a past, present, and future look at the new eastern span of the bridge as it is built. Meanwhile, the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District completed Phase 2 of its own bridge retrofit in Spring 2008 and also awarded the contract for Part A of the third and final phase. Click here for more information about the progress of this retrofit. According to spokesperson Mary Currie, the district will be applying for $166 million for Part B from the federal economic stimulus package. |
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By Chris Ingraham
Although the ballots from November’s elections have long been tallied, it’s just now that the results are coming into effect. In Washington, we’ve inaugurated a new president. And here in the Bay Area, we’re beginning to see the fruits of Measure WW. In case you don’t remember, Measure WW is the renewed version of Measure AA, the 20 year, $225 million bond proposal of the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) that East Bay voters first passed in 1988. The original measure was responsible for the acquisition of some 35,000 acres of open space, along with hundreds of new park projects and trail improvements. Measure WW — which received 71.7 percent voter support last November — will provide $500 million from the sale of bonds and will furnish EBRPD with unprecedented access to funds allocated for the improvement of existing regional park lands, acquisition and development of new park projects, and per capita grants to all city park and recreation departments and special park districts in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties.
So what’s happening right now? Currently EBRPD is preparing to sell the first $50 million in bonds by June, and they have opened the local grant program for grant applications from parks and recreation agencies throughout the East Bay. Based on per capita allocations designated in the language of the measure, cities and special park districts with high priority projects may now apply for grants and will potentially be able to receive Measure WW funding by the end of this year — quite a success, given the complexity of implementing such a large scale grant program to distribute the funds. Of course, the success of grant applications will depend partly on what projects applicants have in mind, and how “shovel-ready” such projects are. Currently, local grant applications will be accepted through March.
Questions regarding the local grant program, its guidelines, and submittal deadlines may be directed to EBRPD Grants Manager Jeff Rasmussen at (510) 544-2204.
By Adelia Sabiston
One in five children in the Bay Area suffers from asthma, more than twice the national average. A contributor to the onset of this life-threatening disease and a frequent cause of acute asthma attacks is the smoke from wood burning, a major source of air pollution during Bay Area winters.
The difficulties faced by young people with asthma were brought into sharp focus by Marisa Hall at a public forum on wood smoke and wintertime air pollution held December 2, 2008 by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and the League of Women Voters of the Bay Area. An American Lung Association youth leader who has asthma, Hall used her own experiences with the disease to illustrate the challenges it poses to keeping pace with school work, family life, and outdoor activities. In one example, she described how the simple act of walking her dog on an evening when fireplace smoke hung over her Hercules neighborhood precipitated an urgent situation. Exposure to the smoke gave her an asthma attack that did not respond to home treatment and required a hospital emergency room visit.
Fellow panel members Robert Clear, Ph.D. (of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) and Sulochina Lulla, M.D. (of both Kaiser Permanente and Breathe California) identified the pollutants in wood smoke and described their health effects, which have the most impact on growing children, the elderly, and people with respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.
Wood smoke contains several categories of air pollutants, including particulate matter, toxic air contaminants, and carbon monoxide.
Thirty to forty percent of the Bay Area’s wintertime particulate matter pollution comes from wood smoke. Particulate matter consists of tiny solid and liquid particles of varying composition and size. Larger particles that are inhaled can be expelled by coughing or sneezing, but smaller ones of 2.5 microns or less get drawn deep into the lungs. (A micron, or micrometer, is one-thousandth of a millimeter, or 0.00004 inches.) These tiny particles cannot be expelled, but will remain in the alveoli, or air sacs, causing irritation and inflammation. It is these smaller particles that cause the most lung damage. Exposure to particulate matter may cause nose, throat, and eye irritation, in addition to flare-ups of heart and lung diseases. A strong correlation exists between the level of air pollution from particulate matter and the numbers of emergency room and hospital admissions, as well as premature deaths from pulmonary disease.
Toxic air contaminants are linked with cancer and other serious illnesses. Exposure to carbon monoxide may cause headaches, nausea, cardiovascular symptoms, and, in confined, unventilated areas, can even be deadly.
Communication and Outreach
In a move to prevent both asthma attacks and the onset of asthma and other respiratory diseases in both children and adults, the Air District has adopted a wood burning rule to reduce the levels of air pollution produced by people burning wood, manufactured firelogs, or other solid fuels in wood stoves, fireplaces, fireplace inserts, pellet stoves, or other wood-burning devices. Included in the rule is a ban on wood burning on days between November and the end of February when the Air District issues a Winter Spare the Air Alert because forecasts predict high levels of air pollution.
Enforcing the ban on wood burning is a monumental undertaking. The second panel of the December 2 forum discussed ways to increase public awareness and observance of the Winter Spare the Air program. Lisa Fasano, director of communications and outreach for the Air District, described measures now being employed by her agency. To advise the public of Winter Spare the Air Alerts, the Air District posts them on its Website and makes them available on a toll-free phone number. People may also sign up to be directly informed of the alerts by e-mail or phone, and the Air District further promotes them through television, radio, and print media. Air District staff members have also gone door-to-door in certain key neighborhoods to explain the problem and the Winter Spare the Air program.
To enforce the alerts, the Air District patrols neighborhoods, particularly where complaints about wood smoke have been reported or where wood smoke may be expected to hover. Residents can report violations they observe to the Air District. For first violations of the ban, the Air District sends letters to the residents where the offense occurred, explaining the problem and the need to ban wood burning during Winter Spare the Air Alerts. Additional violations may draw fines from several hundred dollars to several thousand dollars, depending upon circumstances.
Other panelists — Jenny Bard of the American Lung Association of the North Bay, David Low of Breathe California, and Jason Kibbey of the City of Berkeley Community Environmental Advisory Committee — all testified to the importance of increasing awareness of the adverse health effects of wood smoke, as well as highlighting public responsibility for reducing wintertime air pollution.
Many of the local jurisdictions in the Bay Area have enacted wood burning ordinances based on a model ordinance prepared by the Air District. Cities and counties, while they can require installation of only clean-burning devices in new construction and remodels, do not have the authority to enforce compliance with Spare the Air Alerts.
Bay Area residents are instructed to call (877) 4NO-BURN [466-2876] to report wood smoke concerns or to check if a Winter Spare the Air Alert is in effect. To sign up for automatic e-mail or phone notification of Winter Spare the Air Alerts, or for more information, visit www.sparetheair.org. Residents can also call (800) 430-1515 to register for phone alert notification.
For Cleaner Burning Besides reducing wintertime air pollution by banning wood burning during Winter Spare the Air Alerts, the new rule also places year-round prohibitions on excessive chimney smoke and the burning of garbage, plastics, or other harmful materials in fireplaces and woodstoves. Under the new rule, only cleaner-burning technology — such as EPA-certified wood stoves, fireplace inserts, pellet stoves, or natural gas devices — can be sold or installed in new construction or remodels in the Bay Area. The Air District recommends converting to a natural gas-fueled device. Firewood suppliers are required to appropriately label their wood as “seasoned” or “unseasoned.” Seasoned wood has a low moisture content and burns more cleanly and efficiently. |
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By Chris Ingraham
In the remarkably clean and timely London Underground, a soothing voice over the loudspeakers advises travelers to “mind the gap.” Travelers on Bay Area trains could use something similar — if only they could hear it.
Most anyone who rides the region’s railways with any regularity will recognize the piercing screech immediately: it starts in the distance, with a rumbling down the tracks, and approaches the platform growing louder and louder, with a shrill discord that’s part screaming teakettle, part nails on a chalkboard. After years of complaints, policymakers in the Bay Area are finally beginning to investigate the awful sound’s cause, and its possible solutions.
While some might assume the noise results from whining brakes, the way a car’s brakes screech when the pads have worn thin, that’s a different, quieter problem. Otherwise, routine maintenance on the trains when they’re not in use could resolve the situation with relative convenience and ease.
The real problem is the rails. Over time, the wear and weight of heavy trains compresses the ballast beneath the tracks and between the ties. This results in bumpy, swerving rides — a related, but different problem. Noise issues begin more microscopically, as the wear of continual travel leaves the tracks nicked and kinked. These imperfections — the slight undulations, the tiny scars and ripples known as corrugation — create more friction with the train’s wheels and prevent their traveling as smoothly, and quietly, along their course.
Well, so how about oiling the tracks? Closer, but still not the solution. The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART), for example, receives calls regularly from well-intentioned if somewhat exasperated customers, suggesting that someone oil the tracks to reduce the noise. These suggestions are right to identify the rails as the culprit, but added lubrication still won’t help for long.
Short of a whole-scale system redesign, the only way to mitigate the awful noise is to grind the rails. Unfortunately, rail grinding is expensive — and inconvenient. For over a decade, BART has been using the same old and inefficient grinder railcar, a truncated 600-horsepower diesel train of sorts that grinds the tracks to a smooth and polished consistency when operated slowly over a given route. This process is terrifically laborious. Of the entire 104-mile BART system, for instance, even the most expert rail grinders are able satisfactorily to grind only about one mile of track per night using the old railcar.
At the start of December, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) implemented a comprehensive rail-grinding project designed to reduce the noise in its rail system. After 16 days of concentrated, nightly work, the agency completed the project, but performed grinding on only 24.4 miles of its 42.2-mile network of rails.
Focusing on one small section of track at a time, operators work in pairs, one minding the controls, the other walking the grimy tracks. Each track has different imperfections requiring a specialized kind of grinding depending on the severity and type of its damage. The person on the tracks inspects the faults and suggests what is needed to the person in the cab, who then customizes a grinding pattern specifically suited to the proper reshaping. A computer linked to 20 grinding stones beneath the railcar develops a pattern of grinding to shave and smooth the top and sides of the rails. Like a barber who can cut off hair but can’t put it back on, rail grinders take care not to grind too much, lest the rails become too thin and need to be replaced entirely. The different imperfections in curved rails and straight rails make the task understandably difficult. Grinders rely on instinct and a trained eye, but sometimes require 20 or more passes and grinding patterns along a single stretch of track to finish the job.
In 2007, BART ordered the construction of a new, state-of-the-art grinder railcar, “a $4 million muffler,” which they hoped would take away some of the guesswork involved in successful rail grinding, while also improving the efficiency and quality of their task. Because the BART system uses tracks that are 9.5 inches wider than the standard American track, however, the new railcar needed to be custom made, and took some time to arrive. Now it’s here.
Even so, there remains the logistical issue of when to operate the grinder car. Because of the task’s slow, painstaking nature, it’s unfeasible to work at all during the day, while passenger trains are still running. VTA’s rail grinding project worked exclusively at night, and BART similarly sends track maintenance crews to work only during the brief nighttime window from 1 to 4 a.m. when the passenger trains have stopped for the day. Those who complain that BART doesn’t operate a full 24-hour schedule, as the New York MTA does, may not realize that track maintenance is the primary reason the system shuts down at all.
The Federal Railroad Administration and California Public Utilities Commission mandate routine maintenance for the safety of all railways. Noise problems, which are regarded as a public nuisance rather than a safety concern, are not as strictly regulated. Maintenance conducted by BART, VTA, and Caltrain (which also has a noise problem, albeit a less severe one) already exceed the standards required by law. Improvements to the noise problem stem largely from public complaints, and from the desire of transit officials to provide a better, more user-friendly service. Each system has a publicly elected or appointed board of directors in charge of maintenance decisions. They conduct regular meetings open to the public.
Currently, BART officials are focusing on fixing particularly noisy areas in the Transbay Tube, and at the entrance to Walnut Creek and Daly City. Although no areas are unsusceptible, some tracks are more damaged than others, perhaps because of heavier, more frequent use. The dinged tracks, however, aren’t the only contributing factor to the noise. Acoustic environment also matters. The Transbay Tube, for instance, creates an echo chamber for the noise to amplify and worsen. Outside, on the other hand, in areas where trains travel elevated through relatively open spaces, the noise has an opportunity to dissipate without being contained and increased by nearby walls or structures. It’s in the more congested, urban areas outside, and in less-than-cavernous underground stations, that the noise is most prone to reach extremes. Ultimately, though, all trains are noisy. It’s the change in pitch, caused by corrugation of the rails, that makes for such an earsplitting noise. Maybe until the new grinders make some progress — they are still relatively new and unused — BART will consider a more British slogan: “Mind your ears.”
By Alec MacDonald
People seeking to traverse the San Francisco Bay now have a sleek new option to consider — one which, in the event of an emergency, could become their only option.
The latest in Bay Area travel debuted to much fanfare on December 12 as the San Francisco Bay Area Water Emergency Transportation Authority (WETA) christened Gemini, the first in a quartet of ferries set to join the agency’s fleet. In 2010, these four vessels will commence routes between South San Francisco and Oakland, and may possibly run between Berkeley and San Francisco as well, with future destinations such as Redwood City, Hercules, Richmond, Antioch, and Martinez being considered.
These ferries will also be pressed into duty in the event that roads, bridges, or the TransBay Tube become unsafe — not an unlikely scenario in the disaster-prone Bay Area. If an earthquake put those structures out of commission, over 300,000 commuters could be eyeing San Francisco’s Ferry Building as an entry point into the city. WETA does not currently have the capability to handle this scenario, but in the agency’s push to eventually get there, the Gemini and her sisters will play a major role.
For the time being in the current year, the Gemini will support service from San Francisco to both Tiburon and Alameda/Oakland, giving passengers who take these trips an experience on the cutting-edge of water transit.
Traveling at a speed of 25 knots, the Gemini holds 149 passengers and has room for 34 bicycles, not to mention two ADA-compliant restrooms, free wireless Internet access, and enhanced safety and security measures.
Given the criticism of ferries that they tend to pollute too much, perhaps the most important aspect of the Gemini is its environmental friendliness. It runs ten times cleaner than existing Bay Area ferries, producing exhaust that boasts an 85 percent improvement over EPA emission standards for Tier II (2007) marine engines. Biodiesel and ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel power the vessel, which also carries a pair of solar panels that will help determine the future viability of drawing on the sun’s energy for propulsion. Moreover, the Gemini features wildlife-friendly design, with sonar to detect and avoid whales, and a catamaran hull that minimizes the disruptive effect of wake on birds, fish, and shorelines.
In March 2009, Gemini should be joined by Pisces, the next of the four new ferries. These first two were constructed with $16 million in bridge toll funding that voters made available by passing Regional Measure 2 in 2004. WETA expects the second pair of vessels to be delivered later this year.
By Gail Schickele
Improved governance, water conservation, emergency preparedness, storage facilities, and a system of dual water conveyance are key strategies to achieve water supply reliability and ecosystem restoration for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, according to the Delta Vision Committee Implementation Report submitted to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on January 2.
The report noted that achievement of goals for the Delta has eluded existing governing entities for decades. The California Bay-Delta Authority, a mix of state and federal agencies and public members created in 2003, has been judged in several independent reviews to have been largely ineffective, its failure attributed to a lack of statutory authority to enforce priorities and an inability to direct policy through a budgetary approval process. In its stead, the report proposed the establishment of an Interim Delta Policy Group composed of the Secretary for Resources; the Secretary for Food and Agriculture; the Secretary for Business, Transportation, and Housing; the Secretary for Environmental Protection; the President of the Public Utilities Commission; the Director of the Department of Water Resources; the Director of the Department of Fish and Game; the Executive Director of the State Water Resources Control Board; an elected official chosen by the five Delta counties; and federal participation at the highest appropriate level. The group would be in place for 12 months and until a long-term governance structure is in place.
The report’s recommended actions with ready authorization include near-term water conveyance improvements to Delta gates and barriers, surface storage feasibility studies and environmental assessments, development of a Delta Economic Plan, aquatic invasive species control, flood protection and emergency response improvement, and federal designation of the Delta as a National Heritage Area.
Completion of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan will benefit exported water quality, increase fish populations, and protect water supplies against earthquakes and floods. To strengthen the Delta levee system, the California Public Utilities Commission and California Department of Transportation will conduct by 2012 a comprehensive analysis of costs and benefits of infrastructure protection strategies, including those identified in the Delta Risk Management Strategy.
The Delta Policy Group will continue to work with the legislature to place a comprehensive water bond package on the next statewide ballot so that critical regional and state infrastructure and ecosystem restoration projects can move forward. Financial incentives and technical assistance through the Integrated Regional Water Management Plans and Local Groundwater Assistance Program will improve surface and groundwater monitoring and data management. Continued funding for the CALFED Ecosystem Restoration Program (ERP) and finalization of the ERP Conservation Strategy assures completion of several ecosystem projects. The Secretary of Business, Transportation and Housing and the Secretary for Food and Agriculture is directed to work with Delta counties and the Delta Projection Commission to develop a Delta Economic Plan by 2011 to support increased investment in agriculture, recreation, tourism, and other resilient land uses.
Actions requiring authorization include large-scale habitat restoration, conservation improvements, expansion of surface and groundwater storage, water rights accountability, water use reporting, planning for appropriate land uses for at-risk areas, and long-term levee planning.
As previously reported in the Monitor (“Solutions for a Delta in Crisis,” October/November 2008), it has been widely recognized that the Delta region is in serious long-term crisis. To address the crisis, Governor Schwarzenegger appointed the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force in 2006 to develop the long-term sustainable vision for the Delta by December 2007, and an implementation plan by December 2008. The Delta Vision Committee evaluated this plan and used it to make recommendations in preparing its own report.