SFMTA: 1 in 2 trips by car before 2020
62% of all trips in the city are made with cars, a factor that the MTA would like to see shrink to 50% by the end of the decade, reports the Chronicle. This is one of the goals of the agency’s 6 year strategic plan, adopted on Tuesday. The cost of the changes will set the agency back $87m, a gap that is yet to find funding. “To have a world-class transportation system that people want to use, we have to be resourced adequately,” said SFMTA’s Ed Reiskin. This will be a challenging goal for the MTA, with a budget gap of $28 million this fiscal year, $34 million next year and $46 million after that.
Reiskin has a good message. The key phrase here is a system that people “want” to use. Forcing people out of their cars by making driving unattractive may create a need but not a want. A policy of punishing drivers has not worked. Maybe a more positive approach will.
Agreed, a timely, useful, and reasonable system will get used; forcing people to use a service is a recipe for failure.
true, i believe they could come up with a way better idea
Agreed. If their goal is to have a world-class transportation system that people want to use, they should do it positively and not by force.
I agree that it’s a challenging goal for
them but what I like about it is that they really think of the customer
satisfaction. World-class transportation is what we need nowadays because there
hasn’t still any companies that I know that is really the best in
transportation.