Sacramento Regional Transit received a C, while the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System and Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority both received a C-minus.
Unfortunately their findings for America’s Finest City were not on track with other systems in California.
There are still questions about how Metro Transit will certify households for the program and distribute bus passes for those eligible in the region, but initially the agency is looking to partner with the Metro Housing and Redevelopment Authority (Metro HRA), which serves roughly 7,000 low-income households every month.
Westlake/MacArthur Park received high rankings for the “diversity of destinations, walkability, transit access, and affordability” of the area surrounding the station, but it received a low score for safety because there’s also a fair amount of crime in the neighborhood.
VTA’s Middlefield station was the lowest ranked station in it’s system because its located in a low-density area. Today, all of the state’s largest metropolitan areas - Los Angeles, San Francisco/Oakland, San Diego, San Jose and Sacramento - have well-developed rail transit systems, and expansion projects are either underway or in the works for most of these.
L.A.’s Metro stations just got ranked within our own city and the state. “Most low-performing stations are on the outer edges of rail systems, often situated in low-density, industrial or auto-oriented neighborhoods”. It’s located in a densely developed area with a walk score of 97, where policies encourage transit-oriented development.
Grading California’s Rail Transit Station Areas, issued by the nonprofit nonpartisan group Next 10 (www.next10.org) and prepared by the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) at the UC Berkeley School of Law gives the highest grade statewide to San Francisco Municipal Railway’s (MUNI) Market and Church Street station, which performs the best overall when it comes to connecting riders to key amenities, cutting the environmental impact of transportation and contributing to a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly community.
“We know riders are going to want to take advantage of that service”, said Fichter, “We’re trying to provide commuters to these stations”. “And the more demand, the better the economic performance of the transit system”. The report divided rail transit station areas into three types: residential, employment, and mixed.
“These problems are complex having to do with land use around these different stations”, says Elkind. SF Muni got the highest grade of a B. San Francisco’s MUNI took that grade while the other major light rail system in the bay area, BART, scored a B-.
However, 4 out of the 5 worst-performing Metro stops were on the Blue Line - a 25-year-old light-rail system that runs between Long Beach and downtown Los Angeles. In order for these transportation networks to truly thrive, they must serve ridership an ease of access to the things they do the most.
Encouraging Californians to use the state’s light-rail systems instead of driving is being promoted as one way to combat climate change.
