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By Rachel Gordon
San Francisco Chronicle
It’s not too often that the Bush administration points to the San Francisco Bay Area as a role model for the rest of the nation. But the region’s proposed efforts to combat traffic congestion were held up by the president’s transportation chief Tuesday as an example to emulate.
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters was in San Francisco to tout the Bay Area’s congestion-relief plan, which includes a proposal to charge motorists an extra toll as they come off the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco. It also includes the use of high-tech parking meters and traffic signals to combat congestion on city streets.
"We believe that the solution to today’s traffic problems do not have to be just about building new roads and infrastructure. It’s about using technology. San Francisco’s leaders understand that," said Peters, who held a brief sidewalk news conference near San Francisco’s Civic Center.
The initiatives she lauded will be funded, in part, by the federal government. The Transportation Department awarded the Bay Area a $159 million grant in August to use a combination of tolling, public transit and technology to fight gridlock.
"Americans all across this country are looking for these types of transportation solutions that are being implemented here," Peters said. "I believe we will look back at San Francisco’s congestion-relief plan as a turn in the right direction."
The Bay Area was one of five recipients of federal grant money to tackle clogged roadways. The bulk of the region’s funding - $140 million - is aimed at managing congestion on Doyle Drive, the notoriously dangerous elevated arterial that carries more than 90,000 vehicles a day to and from the Golden Gate Bridge.
Drivers would have to pay a toll to use the road, with proceeds used to fund a safer replacement roadway. The total construction cost is expected to approach close to $1 billion, with funding coming from state and federal grants, tolls and local taxes. As now envisioned, the amount of the toll would fluctuate, rising during times of heaviest traffic. Officials are still sorting out the price of the toll and how to collect it, but they hope to start the program as early as next fall.
The idea is not just to generate revenue but to use financial incentives to get people to change their commute habits. It could encourage people to drive when it’s cheaper and as a result reduce traffic during the morning and evening rush hours, or, as an alternative, forego driving altogether and use public transit.
Such demand-driven pricing also is envisioned for parking in San Francisco. The city is looking at using emerging technology to set pricing at meters and city-owned lots based on demand. Spots in the most popular areas and during the busiest times would cost more.
The city is looking at embedding sensors in the street pavement to monitor when the spaces are occupied; the Port of San Francisco wrapped up a similar pilot project earlier this year. Eventually, motorists may be able to locate available spaces via the Internet or on their cell phones. The hope is that people will spend less time driving around, jamming the roads, polluting the air and wasting time.
The era of feeding meters with loose change may end, too. Officials are experimenting with technology that would let people pay by cell phone, credit card, debit card and even FasTrak transponders. Parking meter pilot projects using some of those gadgets are getting started at locations around the city.
In addition, the city is expanding a program in which traffic signals are designed to give buses, streetcars and emergency vehicles priority at certain intersections.
The overall strategy, said Steve Heminger, executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, is to help the Bay Area shed its unenviable distinction as the second-most congested region in the United States. Los Angeles leads the pack of places drivers are most likely to get stuck in traffic, according to recent studies.
"We’ve got a serious problem," said Heminger, whose agency took the lead in securing the federal grant for the Bay Area. "What interested (federal officials) about our approach is that it’s integrated: We’ve got transit, we’ve got tolling, we’ve got technology."
Online resources
For more information on the federal grant:
Get informed
The San Francisco County Transportation Authority will host a workshop tonight on congestion pricing and how it could work in the city.
The forum will be held 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Milton Marks Conference Center, 455 Golden Gate Ave., San Francisco.
More information can be found at www.sfcta.org.
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