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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 02211984 - 2.7 THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS OF CONTRA COSTA COUNTYs CALIFORNIA Adopted this Order on February 21 , 1984 by the following vote: AYES: Supervisors Powers , Fanden , Mc Peak , Torlakson NOES: None ABSENT: Supervisor Schroder ABSTAIN: None SUBJECT: Proposed BART Estension into San Mateo County The Board having received a February 3 , 1984 letter from Walter A. Abernathy , Executive Director, Port of Oakland , P . O . Box 2064 , Oakland , California , forwarding a copy of testimony presented before the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) explaining the Port ' s opposition to an MTC staff report recommending a BART extension into San Mateo County to serve San Francisco International Airport; IT IS BY THE BOARD ORDERED that receipt of the aforesaid letter is ACKNOWLEDGED. I hereby certify that this is a true and correct copy of an action taken and entered on the minutes of the Board of Suporvisors on the date shown. ATTESTED: �� dr J.R. OL.SSOX', COUNTY CLERK and ex officio Clerk of the Board By22:�� a..a�J Deputy prig. Dept: Clerk of the Board CC: County Administrator Walter A. Abernathy t , 472 PORT OF OAKLAND �7' �-� 7� BOARD OF PORT COMMISSIONERS a-51 lFy�_ � ����� CITY OF OAKLAND jW wn,: PATRICIA PINEDA President H.WAYNE GOODROE tst Vice President M, " -.•` '%lip ``y" G.WILLIAM HUNTER 2nd Vice President ' DAVID CREOLE Commissioner �P ` HERBERT ENG Commissioner DOUGLAS J.HIGGINS Commissioner NORVEL SMITH Commissioner WALTER A.ABERNATHY Executive Director February 31 1984 RECEIVED Mr. Tom A.Torlakson, Supervisor J. K. OL ON Contra Costa County Offices CLERK BOARRb SUPERVISOR$ P.O. Box 911 r.. sTA CO Martinez, CA 94553 Dear Mr. Torlakson: Attached is a copy of testimony I presented before the Metropolitan Transportation Commission on Thursday, January 26 explaining our opposition to a MTC staff report recommending that a BART extension into San Mateo County to serve San Francisco International Airport be given top priority among the proposed rail extensions for the Bay Area. Now the BART Board of Directors has reversed its original position and has recommended that an 8-mile, $340-million extension, from BART' s terminus in Daly City to a ground level station across Highway 101 from San Francisco Inter- national Airport, be built. This would mark the first time that BART would be extended outside of the three BART counties--San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa--into a county (San Mateo) that voted in 1962 to stay out of the BART system. In the intervening years, the taxpayers of the three BART counties have been paying for the BART system. They were told that the system would be completed within their counties before extensions outside the BART area would be considered. It makes no sense to us to deny needed extensions within the BART district to Pittsburg/Antioch and Dublin/Pleasanton and at the same time propose to build an extension in San Mateo County at a cost of $340-million. 66 Jack London Square • P.O. Box 2064 • Oakland, California 94604 •Phone (415)444-3188 Cable Address PORTOFOAK, Oakland •Telex 336-334 MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF PORT AUTHORITIES,INC.,THE AIRPORT OPERATORS COUNCIL INTERNATIONAL,INC. and THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF PORTS AND HARBORS BART Extension February 3 , 1984 Page 2 It certainly seems more logical, more economical, and more equitable to use the limited federal funds that are being made available to extend the BART system within the district, including services to eastern Contra Costa County and- to Alameda County and to provide a light rail connector to Oakland International Airport. The proposed district service to SFO will attract more than 50% of its resident patrons from Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. According to the MTC' s own master plan, traffic and service at Oakland should be encouraged before any steps are taken to increase the burden at the already over-crowded San Francisco Airport. A better balance of service and traffic among Bay Area airports would make this San Mateo County extension unneces- sary. I hope you share our view that we should not devote limited public resources to building a BART system that ignores existing needs within the district in order to expand into a county that has long been on record in opposition to BART. If you do agree with the argument expressed in this letter and in the attached statement, I trust you will make your views known in your community as well as to the MTC Board of Directors who are now reviewing their staff report. Sincerely, Com', Walter A. Abernathy Executive Director WAA:MW/cl Attachment i. : - 473 l is January 26, 1984 STATEMENT FOR MTC My name is Walter Abernathy. I am Executive Director of the Port of. Oakland, which has responsibility for the Oakland International Airport. I appreciate the opportunity today to speak to the recommendations of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission staff dealing with the proposed extensions of the Bay Area Rapid Transit System and particularly to the recommendation that BART be extended into San Mateo County. The MTC study proposes an 8. 3 mile BART extension from Daly City to a location near San Francisco Airport at a cost ranging from $340 to $654 million. . In deve?.oping our views on this subject we obviously have been guided by the impact of these recommendations on the Oakland International Airport. However, we have also tried to consider the issue from a regional viewpoint looking toward a plan which would recognize the total public investment in rail , highway and airports . A system of BART extensions which optimizes and balances the use of these public investments whether they be in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco or San Mateo county, shovld be preferred. It is our contention, based on the Metropolitan Transportation Commission' s own Regional Airport Plan, which says the Oakland Airport is recommended as the .airport to serve an increasing share of new demand in the region, that priority should be given to extending an AGT light rail system from BART 3.7 miles to the Oakland International Airport, at a cost of $90 million. This would help accomplish the MTC Regional Airport goal of spreading the airport passenger load among the three major airports -- San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland -- rather than funneling all the passengers to San Francisco. Indeed, I must say I was surprised to hear a representative of the MTC say recently on radio that one reason for favoring an extension for San Francisco is because the San Francisco Airport has better scheduled airline service, so this would really benefit East Bay travelers who could take BART to SFO rather than to Oakland International. The fact of the matter is , that Oakland International. is now served by 15 major carriers offering more than 500 flights a week to some 150 cities. The fact of the matter is, also, that in order to get better service at Oakland we need to bring in more passengers and not direct them to San Francisco International . It is a chicken- egg situation -- the question of which comes first. More passengers results in better service. Better service results in more passengers. 474 Statement for MTC Page Two We are reaching a critical mass. Service is improving dramatically at the Oakland Airport. To give you just a few examples, prior to the Aviation Deregulation Act of 1978, Oakland only had two non- stop flights to Seattle. Today we have nine non-stops and eight one-stops to Seattle. We had one flight daily to Denver. Now it 's six a day. In 1978 we had two daily flights to Dallas which we lost in 1980 during the initial shake-down from deregulation, but returned in 1982 with 3 flights daily as Oakland ' s passenger volumes were recording impressive increases. Now we have three daily flights. Westill have some service points where improvement is needed and will, in the future, be forthcoming, because this strong and growing East Bay market can no longer be ignored, or satisfied with airline service via San Francisco Airport. Airline managers are fast coming to that realization. Several years acro, from an airport survey of Bay Area residents, we learned that 61% of the resident travelers selected Oakland for location and convenient access . Only 13% of our travelers rated flight schedules as the main reason for choosing Oakland . Today, more and more passengers are choosing Oakland because of location and convenient flight schedules, but it is important to note that travelers do select airports based on convenient ground access. This year approximately 4 million passengers from Alameda and Contra Costa counties will have to bypass the most conveniently located airport in Oakland in order to fly from Sen Francisco. Each year the percentage of East Bay residents who must endure this inconvenience will decline, but it seems misplaced economics and circuitous thinking., planning and routing to spend $654 million, outside of the BART syEtem, approximately 65 percent of the total budget for MTC recommended BART extensions, to encourage this unnecessary, uneconomical and inefficient travel pattern. It seems particularly unfortunate when you consider the environmental consequences resulting from an over-concentration of traffic at San Francisco Airport . Today SFO has about 80% of the: passenger traffic. Oakland and San Jose handle the balance. Unlike many metropolitan areas, we are fortunate to have three conveniently located airports which permit a better balance of flight schedules so that we can minimize the traffic, air pollution and noise problems caused by super saturation of traffic at a single airport. To develop a regional transportation plan with ground access improvements which favor and encourage traffic at a single airport, when a balance is possible, is a mistake. In our opinion, it is also a mi.ste.ke to exoand the BART syetem, on a top-priority basis, outside the three counties (Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco) that have been paying for BART for the past 2C years, and to move it into San Mateo County, which has not paid a cent towards the BART system and, -indeed in 3.962, voted itself out of BART. 475 Statement for MTC Page Three We cannot control how air carriers distribute their service among Bay Area airports. However, we can influence a better balance by establishing current ground access which minimizes travel time. People will choose an airport because it ' s close and convenient. Airlines will support their customers with increased service. As. a region, our first priority should be to terget our limited financial resources to improve ground access to the Oakland Airport where improved airline service is needed, and will be supported, and to achieve a regional transportation balance of scheduled airline service while minimizing costs and environmental consequences. A recent study by our Planning Department indicates that the diversion of Fast Bay travelers from Oakland, where the Oakland Airport is most convenient, to- the Sar: Francisco Airport in San Mateo County, results in an additional cost for East Bay travelers of $40 million a year, and the shift of some 10, 600 jobs from the: East Bay to the West Bay. It is our belief that this is an unjustified burden on East Bay workers and detrimental to the growth and future prosperity of the East Bay community. The Port of Oakland accounts for some 52, 000 direct and indirect jobs. Mary of our employees use BART to get to work. They are entitled to have the three-county B):RT system completed before consideration is given to expanding in San Mateo county or any- place else outside the present system. We estimate that, of the resident air travelers who would use a BART extension to San Francisco Airport, almost half will be from Alameda and Contra Costa counties. We have exluded non-resident passengers from, this total . These millions of East Bay residents do not want to be forced to travel beyond Oakland Airport. A BART expansion to San Francisco Airport supports, sustains, and promotes the continued imbalance of airline service within the region. MTC has recommended in its staff report to its commission that the Oakland Airport AGT light rail system be constructed when passenger levels at Metropolitan International Airport reach 6 to 7 million annually. The Port of Oakland agrees with MTC that the AGT light rail system will be needed at this passenger level. However, due to the long time period required for financing and construction of this project, the Port strongly recommends that 'the passenger level that triggers initiation of this project be adjusted to 4.5 million passengers in order to guarantee that the system is in place and operational when it is needed. We are talking about implementing those rail extensions over a 10-year period. By then, according to MTC forecasts, SFO will have 28 million passengers, just 3 ,million below the 31 million 47G "Statement for MTC Page Four ` ceiling recommended by .the MTC Regional Plan, and Oakland will have 6 million, the number that now triggers a direct BART extension. Unlike San Francisco, we already have acquired the right of way and we have done the preliminary engineering work and the Environmental Impact Study. Some $1 . 3 million has already been spent on the project. In 10 years, SFO will have a growth limit of 3 million more passengers. Oakland will have a growth potential of 7 million additional passengers, and substantially more than that if we add a second runway. I would also remind you that while San. Francisco' s population has been declining for the past three decades and the forecasts of the State Department of Finance are that it w4.11 continue to decline during the 1960 ' s, the population, of Alameda County will increase by .4 percent a year and that of Contra Costa County will increase. ' by 1.9 percent annually, substantially in excess of the State average, Population will continue to increase in the East Bay and decline in San Francisco. For nearly half the present population of the six largest Bay Area counties, the Oakland Airport is closer and more accessible than San Francisco ' s Airport in San Mateo County . To spend 65 percent of the total MTC program for extending rail transit on that single project seesm wrong from a planning perspective, wrong from a fiscal point of view, and wrong in terms of equity for BART taxpayers. 477