Public Comment

Alan Tobey’s strange Nov. 6 rant, “Measure KK Aftermath: Perish by the Sword,” prompted me to reflect on Measure KK and the discussion it generated about Bus Rapid Transit. The Measure KK campaign brought to light some interesting information about our community. Here are some of the most memorable things I learned. 

A 1R bus with four riders gets about half the passenger-miles-per-gallon as a driver-only Toyota Prius. Driving big empty buses up and down Telegraph may inflate the ego of AC Transit managers, but its not helping the environment. Driving big empty buses up and down Telegraph in their own lanes may further inflate the ego of AC Transit managers, but it won’t help the environment either. 

Twenty-three percent of Berkeley voters don’t trust the City Council to make decisions about bus lanes. For politicians, that may be acceptible, but for the thousands of Berkeley citizens who feel they are being ignored by the City Council, it is a vote of “no confidence” in our local government. 

The campaign against Measure KK was paid for almost entirely by the companies that sell new buses to AC Transit. What more can I say about that? 

AC Transit could fit one bus lane into Telegraph without removing any of the existing traffic lanes. With some rearrangement of parking spaces, Telegraph could have a dedicated bus lane down the center, along with two car/truck lanes in each direction. One bus lane, with traffic lights to control the direction of bus travel, could easily handle all the bus traffic AC Transit is proposing. BRT would work just as well (or badly) with one lane as with two. But for some reason, AC Transit is demanding two bus lanes, both of which will sit empty and unused more than 90 percent of the time. 

People who live in Oakland and San Leandro are not very impressed with the idea of two expensive, unsightly, and poorly utilized bus lanes down the middle of their cities. For BRT to be fully implemented, both those cities will have to approve it, and that is doubtful. So even if the Berkeley City Council votes for BRT, it still might not get built. 

Four hundred million dollars is a lot of money. Our society could invest that money in a lot of useful things, like solar power, better education, and better health care. There is only so much money to spend, especially these days, and if we waste it on a useless bus lane, some other valuable projects will suffer. 

So was the defeat of Measure KK a victory for anyone? The Van Hool company must feel like it is, or their US distributor wouldn’t have spent all that money on the campaign. Same for Cummins West, the makers of the diesel engines in the Van Hool buses, who also contributed heavily. They seem to expect AC Transit to continue buying the polluting diesel buses, rather than switching over to clean technologies. So it doesn’t look like it’s a victory for the environment. It’s certainly not a victory for the people who live in my neighborhood, and its not clear that BRT will bring any real improvement for the riders of AC Transit either. In fact, there is a good chance that Oakland or San Leandro won’t approve BRT, in which case Van Hool and Cummins West will have wasted all that campaign money. 

As for me, I’m going to wait and see whether BRT ever gets built. I’m hoping it won’t. 

Russ Tilleman is a Berkeley resident and a Measure KK supporter.