In San Francisco, we started in late 2008 and it’s been a six year process to get us where we are now. In Los Angeles we did this in 2000. Los Angeles was well in advance of San Francisco. The program was called the METRO Rapid Program, it was a redesign of the top 25 bus routes to become more effective and efficient. It was very successful. There was a 40% increase in transit ridership and 25% improvement in travel time.

There is a whole new opportunity when you figure out how to connect and feed the main trunk lines especially to and from the stations.

When I moved to San Francisco, it was good to see they are using the same consultants we were using in Los Angeles. Their plan was more detailed than the one in LA because it was focused on the 50 square miles that the system serves. And it was also really well thought out, because they covered everything from the beginning to the end. So it was a natural evolution from where LA Metro (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority) started. And now it’s being used as a model for other agencies throughout the country. Many agencies in the U.S. run bus systems that had the same bus routes for more than 30 and 40 years.

Now that we see the growth of bike and car sharing, and transportation companies that provide on-demand services like Uber and Lyft, there is a whole new opportunity when you figure out how to connect and feed the main trunk lines especially to and from the stations.

Los Angeles vs. San Francisco – which common mobility challenges has San Francisco solved better than Los Angeles and vice versa?

Tim Papandreou: Think of the two in a race and one has a handicap on somethings and the other one has a handicap on other things.

Again, San Francisco is only 47 square miles. It is really easy to see the impact on 47 square miles compared to 469 square miles of Los Angeles. LA is literally 9 times bigger than San Francisco. The level of traffic in San Francisco is no way near as high as it is in central part of Los Angeles.

Let me break it down.

Fare pricing

LA Metro, I think, has done a much better job of unifying the transit network with one brand and one transit pass. Having it all under one agency is really helpful. Even though it works with 47 other operators, it is the countywide agency that effectively governs the region’s transit network. In contrast in the Bay Area we have 27 distinct transit operators, the coordination is more fragmented and way more difficult. Even basic things like fare policy. If I work in downtown San Francisco and I have to go 7 miles West, I pay $2.25, but if I have to go 7 miles East, I pay $5:50 if I transfer with two different operators. That’s not an equitable strategy to have and the region has to figure out how to work through this.

I’d say Los Angeles has been much more successful in trying innovative things with transit, with the fare policy, transit passes, and with the Metro Rapid. It’s been more successful at passing sales taxes so it built a good funding base to build and operate these networks. LA Metro’s brand is very strong. It won many awards for its design. And it’s a very happy and upbeat brand. It never says don’t do this, don’t do that. It says try transit it’s fun, you’re cool, it’s sexy; that’s really the cool thing about it, because it has to break through the wall of the image in Los Angeles about transit. To me, LA Metro looks and feels like the Apple of transit. That’s something the Bay Area can take some lessons from. It’s ironic as it is the home of Apple.

Bicycle network

San Francisco has done a much better job with bicycles than Los Angeles has. San Francisco has a more concentrated street network and it makes a physical impact with bicycle infrastructure due to the short lengths, even though, it was politically more difficult to implement. They got sued for putting the bike program in. There were advocates who didn’t like that the city was taking away space from the cars. They used the California Environmental Quality Act, which is an environmental protection act to make the case that removing space from cars will slow things down, which means it would hurt environment versus protecting lanes for bicycles that make people healthier. It was one of these crazy Californian things that passed, and the city was locked in to creating a new plan that met the guidelines.

Los Angeles has a different set of challenges with the bike projects. They physically need to connect places together and the distances are much longer. Three miles of bike lanes in San Francisco makes a tremendous impact on how people get around, versus three miles in Los Angeles where you could connect to the nearest train station. Distance is a huge challenge. San Francisco is 7 x 7 miles, ideal for cycling. 7 miles in Los Angeles, is from Downtown LA to La Brea Ave in Mid City. There are another 10 miles to Santa Monica beach. But the good thing is, that the Los Angeles city grid, great weather, many centers and the relatively flat streets make it perfect for a bicycle network. LA’s great streets program has been greatly adding bicycle lanes throughout the city network and their new plan has very ambitious but achievable goals.

We’ve noticed that protected bicycle lanes attract people to bike. When you add bike sharing, more people bicycle.

In both cities, the politics around street space is very contentious, and good community engagement and partnerships will be key to increased bicycle share.

Parking

San Francisco has done a very good job on parking through the SF Parking App and developing a demand management approach to parking; it’s been quite successful. Nearly 30% of congestion was due to people looking for a parking spot.

With the sensor based pilot, prices were demand responsive to keep at least 20% of spaces available at any time. The result has been significant, 30% reduction of vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions in the pilot area, and less double parking. Los Angeles has also done a very similar parking program. You get a sense that we are doing similar things.

Transit Coverage

The overall transit network coverage in San Francisco is the best in California. There is only a few places in the city where you are more than a couple of blocks away from transit network and it is also more frequent than in Los Angeles. San Francisco has the network coverage but it’s working to improve reliability and capacity because it is very overcrowded. Los Angeles doesn’t have the network coverage yet.

Just to give you an example. There are 12 downtowns in Los Angeles County. For them to really grow and be successful, you really need to connect them all with fixed guideway transit. Whether express bus, rail or subway, it doesn’t really matter as long as the connections between them are reliable and protected from traffic. Then we need to build transit oriented development with more housing and jobs around the stations.