A major regulation to King County Metro Transit bus service to Northeast Seattle and Capitol Hill drew hundreds of people to the Mountaineer Club in Magnuson Park Tuesday night.
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CLEE researchers analyzed 489 neighborhoods within a half-mile radius of stations in six California rail transit systems.
San Diego’s transit stations got a poor review in a statewide survey measuring how well the stations encourage ridership.
San Diego’s trolley system and the rail in Santa Clara Valley tied for last. The report urges policy makers to build more walk-able neighborhoods that transit can eventually serve.
“We know riders are going to want to take advantage of that service”, said Fichter, “We’re trying to provide commuters to these stations”.
A new scorecard grading California transit rail stations on how well they encourage rider-ship gives Sacramento a “C”. The Best grade went to San Francisco’s MUNI system which received a B.
Long Beach’s Wardlow Station ranked last in the study, with an F. “You don’t really see a lot of residents or employees in the area and if there are, they’re not riding the transit line by any great margins”, Elkind told KPCC. The park-and-ride station in the Wrigley neighborhood has an island platform, 25 parking spaces and 10 bike lockers. Other A-grade stations included the Hollywood/Western and Wilshire/Western stops.
Specifically, the Wardlow Station scored low across all measures used in the study, excluding safety, as only two criminal incidents occurred during December 2014, which the study attributed to a lack of station activity in general. The best overall grade went to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which received a B. Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART, received a B-minus.
The lowest-scoring BART stations are SFO, South San Francisco, and North Concord/Martinez.
There’s a feel that the results of the study aren’t completely fair.
Cal Hollis, managing executive officer for countywide planning at Metro, told that the grading factors favored more densely populated areas like San Francisco.
According to the study, about 58.8% of residents and 18.8% of workers in the area use public transit.
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With California’s population expected to rise from 38 million to 49.7 million in 2050, getting more people on mass transit is key to reducing traffic and cutting greenhouse gases which contribute to global warming, the authors said. Now under construction are the Crenshaw light-rail line, a light-rail, regional connector in downtown Los Angeles and extensions of the Expo and Gold light-rail lines, as well as the subway to the Westside.
