AC Transit joins regional community and environmental groups in a consent decree that removes the bus system from litigation

Press Releases
02/21/2001

(Oakland, CA) AC Transit and a coalition of environmental and community groups entered into a consent decree Wednesday, February 21, 2001 that, subject to court approval, removes the East Bay’s public bus system from litigation filed against the region’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) under the federal Clean Air Act. The Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund – acting on behalf of Bayview Community Advocates, Communities for a Better Environment, the Latino Issues Forum, the Sierra Club, the Transportation Solutions Defense and Education Fund, and the Urban Habitat Program – and Our Children’s Earth Foundation filed suit against several Bay Area transit systems and the MTC. The suit alleges that these agencies are still required to meet a dictate, dating from 1982, to plan on achieving a 15% increase in transit patronage by 1987. In the consent decree, AC Transit agrees to proceed with developing a plan to increase bus ridership substantially, pursuant to the obligation identified two decades ago. The District is pursuing service improvement programs currently – and planning more for the near future – that are aimed specifically at increasing ridership. AC Transit also is aggressively pursuing clean air objectives, the underlying environmental concern that led to the original mandate. “Our agency agrees that it is obligated to develop a five-year plan for increasing ridership above 1983 levels,” states AC Transit Board President Matt Williams. “But achieving significant increases will require a commitment from MTC that it will allocate federal, state and regional resources to AC so we will be able to implement new service programs to increase ridership. The commitment will require a change of direction by MTC, which has for years focused on shrinking AC Transit.” On behalf of their clients, Earthjustice and Our Children’s Earth Foundation acknowledge that AC Transit’s ability to attract substantial numbers of additional riders could be limited if greater resources are not forthcoming. “Not surprisingly, AC Transit is constrained by the limited monetary resources available to our agency,” Williams notes. He said AC Transit did not meet the obligation in the 1980s and 1990s because needed supplemental resources were not then available – but under current federal legislation such resources should be available now from MTC. H. E. Christian Peeples, the transit Board’s Vice President, said that with more financial support from MTC, AC Transit will be able – in a cost-effective manner – to carry many more passengers. “People in the East Bay should be able to get around without using cars and polluting the air,” he said. In addition, Peeples said, better AC Transit bus service is in line with the principles of MTC’s “Livable Communities” program and will help correct the current inequity in funding which disadvantages the East Bay’s low-income and minority communities. Newly-elected Director Greg Harper, a former chair of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, stated: “I have been concerned about the quality of the Bay Area’s air for some time. While I agree with my colleagues’ comments, I am impressed with AC Transit’s effort to deal with air quality issues, even apart from this litigation. As an active member of the California Fuel Cell Partnership (a public/private sector consortium), AC Transit has developed the specifications for, and will negotiate the purchase of, futuristic zero-emission hydrogen fuel-cell buses for California. By 2003, AC Transit plans on having enough of these buses to begin the nation’s first fleet-sized application of this technology.” While working to introduce this space-age zero-emission technology to the bus fleet, AC Transit continues to require that all new buses have low-emission diesels and is replacing engines in older coaches with new, low-emission powerplants. By the middle of this decade, AC Transit’s entire bus fleet should be “low-emission” coaches or the even-better zero-emission variety. Service improvement programs underway or in development include the Fremont/Newark Transit Development Plan which introduced, in December 2000, an entirely new network of 15 local routes with much-improved service schedules, and the San Pablo Avenue Corridor Project, now developing streetcar-like transit performance for the heavily-traveled corridor. Major studies also are underway to improve transit in the Berkeley-Oakland-San Leandro corridor and in the central Alameda County communities of Castro Valley, Hayward and San Leandro.