S.F.’s temporary tech shuttle rules get good report

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is considering whether to make an experimental program allowing private commuter shuttles to share public bus stops. The program sparked colorful protests when it started in 2014. less The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is considering whether to make an experimental program allowing private commuter shuttles to share public bus stops. The program sparked colorful protests when ... more Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 13 Caption Close S.F.’s temporary tech shuttle rules get good report 1 / 13 Back to Gallery

The battle over the Google bus, slowed to a simmer over the past year, is about to heat up.

After more than a year of attempting to wrangle and restrict the growing platoons of corporate shuttle buses, it’s time for the Municipal Transportation Agency to start deciding if the experiment should be made permanent. An analysis, to be released by the agency on Monday, calls it a success. Critics, including those who blame the shuttles for the city’s rising rents and economic disparity, say all the impacts of the buses need to be studied.

The 36-page MTA report concludes that the commuter shuttle pilot program has succeeded in reducing the number of Muni buses blocked, in reducing traffic on city streets, and in helping the MTA get a better handle on the number of shuttles and passengers.

“The report makes it clear that the status quo before we started the program was not working, and the pilot program is working,” said Tom Maguire, MTA’s director of sustainable streets. “There are fewer conflicts with Muni and pedestrian and vehicular traffic. The regulation has worked the way it was designed.”

Imposing order

The 18-month program, started in August 2014, aims to regulate privately owned and operated shuttles, most of them carrying workers between their San Francisco homes and their Silicon Valley workplaces. Before the program, the shuttles, many with tinted windows and no identification, loaded and unloaded passengers at Muni stops, at white zones or in the middle of streets. Often they blocked Muni buses, driveways and streets, creating gridlock and grumbling.

Critics called for the shuttles to be cited for illegally using public bus stops and blocking traffic. The MTA decided instead to create a voluntary program allowing participants that registered and paid a fee to use a limited network of stops as long as they adhered to rules giving Muni buses priority, and restricting their routes.

The MTA report does not recommend whether or not the commuter shuttle program should become permanent or be changed in any way. But it does suggest that if the program continues, the agency should step up enforcement to keep shuttles from blocking streets and bike lanes, make sure participants are providing timely data, and address the perception that commuter shuttle vehicles do not belong on certain streets, a common complaint from residents.

The report does not address the complaints of a coalition of protesters who contend that the shuttles are a leading cause of the city’s gentrification, that the private shuttles pay too little for the use of public bus stops and streets, and that the environmental damage they’re causing has not been properly studied.

Other impacts

“We’ve been pretty upset that the SFMTA, in evaluating the program, has not looked at the impacts on housing that the stops are having,” said Erin McElroy, of the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project. “We’ve found that rents have risen dramatically in the areas where stops are located, and so have evictions.”

Cynthia Crews, a self-described “transit geek,” is part of a group that has sued the city, seeking an environmental impact report on the shuttle program. But she doesn’t want to stop there. The city should also investigate the wear and tear shuttles are inflicting on the city’s roads and Muni’s bus stops as well as the effects on housing, she said.

“All of these things should be studied, then from that, they could legally assess a fee,” she said. “We just feel they’re not paying their fair share.”

Corporate shuttles are assessed a fee of about $3 per stop to load or unload passengers. MTA officials say state law prohibits it from charging more than the cost of administering and enforcing the program.

But representatives of the business community say the MTA shouldn’t delay making the program permanent.

“You can study these things to death; you can always raise questions,” said Rufus Jeffris, a spokesman for the Bay Area Council, a regional business group that counts tech companies among its members. “We are gathering data, and we may need to make some tweaks to the program, but creating delays to do more studies is not appropriate.”

Affecting behavior

Among the findings of the analysis are that about 17,000 trips a day begin or end in San Francisco, meaning an average of 8,500 passengers a day make round trips on the shuttles. A survey of passengers found that 47 percent would drive to their destinations if the shuttles stopped running. Only 5 percent said they would move closer to their jobs.

Maguire said the report “tees up the question of what form should a future program take.” That will ultimately be up to the MTA Board of Directors, which will receive the report Monday. Public hearings have not yet been scheduled, but the current program ends on Feb. 1.

Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan

Bus pilot program

3,000

Shuttle stops per day

29%

Increase in stops since June 2014

124

Shared bus stops

8,500

Daily passenger round trips

47

Average one-way shuttle ride, in miles

48%

Shuttle riders who own cars

47%

Riders who would drive if no shuttle