Emery-Go-Round at a Crisis Point

Is Emeryville Finally Going to Grow Up?

Opinion
Emeryville's free bus service,  Emery-Go-Round has been in the news a lot recently.  It was featured on National Public Radio today after a crisis point was reached last week when Watergate neighbors erupted as the buses stopped servicing their area.  A nadir seems to have been reached at EGR and as the NPR piece illustrated, everyone seems to think change is inevitable for the popular bus service.  We agree, change is coming to Emery-Go-Round but we want to make sure the looming change is to the benefit of the residents.
To make sure there's this kind of beneficial change, first we need to dispense with a popular meme, uniformly forwarded by business elites and so pervasive in our culture that it seems to be simple common sense. We're talking about the idea that the private sector is more efficient than government and somehow better at delivering public services.  Without getting bogged down with a civics discourse at this point, suffice it to say some things are best taken care of by government, perhaps not widget manufactory but certainly public mass transit delivery.  The breakdown at Watergate last week should be seen as a persuasive buttress of this non-radical idea.  We think more of this kind of service disruption is coming even as the EGR Board of Directors has agreed to a temporary fix at Watergate.  As this bus service has grown over the years, EGR now can't seem to provide the service Emeryville residents need and are expecting.

A Little Emery-Go-Round History
Against a backdrop of ever increasing traffic jams brought on by Emeryville's incessant development, the free buses were started in 1995 by Emeryville businesses looking to speed transit and convenience for their workers, their clients and customers.  A transit authority with taxing authority was set up, run by the businesses and paid for primarily by them (City Hall and the School District also pays some).   But like a newly widened freeway drawing more cars by easing the commute to far-flung suburbs, EGR's popularity became an engine in itself for more growth in our town. The City Council members started seeing EGR as a green light for more intensively developed residential projects.  Traffic studies for proposed residential mega-projects could tap into the Emery-Go-Round to show a lighter impact on our streets, giving the Council all the cover they needed to approve more and more development.
And develop Emeryville has.  At this point, like it or not, we're totally dependent on the Emery-Go-Round; without it our streets would be hopelessly clogged and business here would take a big hit.  Where neighboring cities can ameliorate their traffic problems with reliance on traditional buses (and BART), Emeryville's massive growth makes AC Transit insufficient.

The problem is that the City Council bought into the line that Emeryville's business sector could take care of the traffic problem. Now that it's been shown that they can't, we're going to have to fund EGR the old fashioned way; by government.

Why Did EGR Falter?
For years this bus service has worked fine.  So why is it not working now?
As more and more people started using the service, costs started going up.  This has recently been a source of irritation among the business property owners that pay for the buses.  An EGR Board of Directors shakeup finally resulted in a revolt of a sort.  The Tattler recently reported how the new Board drew a line in the sand: the EGR buses are for payers, not the general public they said.  Watergate residences, being non-payers were cut out.  But the Board of Directors, wishing to stave off a public relations disaster, tried to blame City Hall for the disruption in service because of recent sidewalk improvements.  They tried to forward the canard that due to this City Hall "negligence", the buses could no longer turn around at Watergate. The Tattler revealed the sidewalk argument was nothing but a red herring, meant to draw attention away from the Board's own draconian decision to ace Watergate residents out of the bus service.

Emery-Go-Round at Wareham Development's
Emery Station East 
Wareham CEO Rich Robbins wants Emeryville
taxpayers to pay but he wants to continue to control the bus service.  
If City Hall takes over, he might have to pay more.

Businesses Aren't Charities
Some of the more forthright Emery-Go-Round Board members will publicly state the obvious: the businesses that fund EGR aren't operating a charity; they're trying to look after their bottom line all the City sidewalk work obfuscation notwithstanding.  The EGR service has been morphing into a bus service primarily for non-payers, they'll remind us.  We agree with this sentiment; it's foolish to assume the business community will volunteer their resources for the greater public good.  We should always assume they're looking out for their own bottom lines.  That's why it was a fools errand to allow the business community to run the Emery-Go-Round to begin with.  The City Council massively developed our town and they're responsible for any negative impacts, not the business community.  City Hall must now take over this vital service and fund it the old fashioned way: with taxes.

Who Should Pay?
Back before the advent of supply side economics and phony rational market mania took over Washington, glazing the eyes even of Democrats, there used to be an axiom when it came time for government to raise revenue; the notion of 'the ability to pay'.  The idea was that those with the greatest ability should pay the most, those with less ability should pay less.  This is a philosophy that got us out of the Great Depression and helped built our great American middle class.
With regard to the Emery-Go-Round, those with the greatest ability to pay are the business community.  We must remember, they're here at our pleasure (insofar as the Constitution allows us to craft our city to our liking), not because we like them but because we want them here to pay for stuff we want.
Businesses don't count in this equation.  They literally don't count:  they can't vote.  Only residents can vote.  It's the residents who drive what our town will become and it's the residents for whom the town is built. We need to remember this as we turn a page with the Emery-Go-Round.
The private business sector can't be trusted with this public service, but they're the ones that should pay for it.  It should be seen as the cost of doing business in our town. We need to start selling our town for what it's worth instead of constantly selling it short.  We've had it with the hand wringing "win-win" phony declarations from this Council when it comes time to make business pay their share.  Win-win usually comes to mean win for the business community and lose for the residents.
Regarding the Emery-Go-Round, we say it's time for Emeryville to put away this childish argument about businesses being responsible for the public infrastructure.  It's time for Emeryville to finally grow up.  We the public are the responsible party for public transit here.

National Public Radio Highlights Emery-Go-Round

From NPR:

How A Free Bus Shuttle Helped Make A Small Town Take Off

by RICHARD GONZALES

November 13, 2013 3:22 AM

Listen to the Story

Morning Edition

4 min 48 sec

• Playlist
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• Transcript

Cindy Carpien/NPR

This story is part of an ongoing project on commuting in America.

What's known as the "last mile" of a commute can be the Holy Grail for many city transportation planners. How do you get people from their major mode of transportation – like a train station – to their final destination?

Perhaps your last mile is a drive home from a subway or train station — but these days, many cities and towns are trying to eliminate cars as much as possible. Some are planning for streetcars to take commuters on that last leg. Others rely on buses. In Emeryville, Calif., 10 miles east of San Francisco, the local businesses helped reinvent the city by providing a free shuttle service as a solution to this last mile problem.

The Emery Go Round Story

Emeryville is now the headquarters of Pixar Animation Studios, Leap Frog, Jamba Juice, Peet's Coffee and numerous biotech companies. But in the 1960s, it was a small industrial town known for paint factories, scrap metal yards and tanneries. By the late 1980s, though, post-industrial Emeryville was in pitiful shape, and John Flores was hired as the new city manager.

"They tasked me with redeveloping the city," he says. "Forty percent of the land was vacant, and there was a lot of opportunity there."

Emeryville was ideally situated to attract new business, but looking down the road, Flores could anticipate all of the traffic that would come with it. So he offered to help consolidate the few private shuttles that were already operating in town. Some city and federal dollars would pay half, the businesses would pay the rest.

Rich Robbins was and still is a commercial property owner in town.

"It was a no brainer," Robbins says. "The only way we were going to solve the problems of the day was to get people out of cars."

But not everyone thought it was a no-brainer. Robbins had to convince some of the old guard business owners to go along with the plan. One was Pierce Lathrop, who was required by the city to run a shuttle for his office complex.

"He was this crusty critter, "Robbins says. "We persuaded old man Lathrop on a trial basis that if we brought reliability [and] kept complaints to a minimum, he would stay on long term. He gave us one year."

It didn't take nearly that long for the Emery Go Round shuttle — which began running in 1995 — to exceed expectations.

"Initially, the shuttle was carrying 300 people a day," Flores says. "Within approximately six months, that amount went up to 3,000 people a day."

But what made the Emery Go Round really succeed was the decision by the business property owners to form what's known as an improvement district. They essentially taxed themselves to support the shuttle.

"Emeryville was absolutely an early adopter of using business improvement districts to support transportation," says David Downey, president of the International Downtown Association, which provides support for these districts across the country. They're more common around the country for augmenting city services like sidewalk sweeping and park maintenance.

The business improvement districts, Downey predicts, are going to continue to become "increasingly important through these austere times."

Karen Hemphill, assistant to Emeryville's city manager, says the city couldn't have grown without the Emery Go Round. "We have major corporations here and without the shuttle, I don't think that development would have come," she says.

An Eye On Ridership

In the morning, Emery Go Round buses are full of rush hour commuters like Sarah Wildfang. Wildfang is graphic designer for Title Nine, a women's sporting apparel store, also headquartered in Emeryville. She begins her commute on a city bus in San Francisco, where she lives, and then a Bay Area Rapid Transit train to Oakland. Once there, an Emery Go Round takes her right by her office. If she didn't have this bus?

"Oh, gosh," she says. "I'd just have to do some research and figure it out. I'm really dependent on this, and I rely on it, and I'm very thankful for it."

Robbins says he's always seen the shuttle as a great investment.

"I do believe it's a template particularly in smaller towns where you have limited parking and your downtowns are dying, and [you] move people seamlessly around the area," Robbins says.

And it's not just commuters who benefit. The shuttle was expanded to run on weekends and to shopping areas. Last year, there were 1.5 million boardings on the Emery Go Round. But Hemphill is concerned.

"The buses are full, the buses are at capacity," Hemphill says. "If you don't keep growing, then you start having the same kind of downward spiraling circle that many mass transit operators have — demand goes up, costs go up, you can't cover those costs, you start cutting back service, you start losing ridership."

Hemphill says discussions are just starting on whether the city might have to eventually supplement the shuttle's funding.

At the end of the workday, passengers jump off the Emery Go Round and rush through the BART station turnstiles. Many face another last mile to get back home. Commuter Tim Means says he wishes there was a service like the Emery Go Round on the home leg of his trip to a suburb of San Francisco.

"My last mile going home is in a car. If there was an Emery Go Round-like service then I wouldn't have to call and get picked up at the BART station. I'd be able to hop on that and head straight home," Means says.

One city that's looking right now to Emeryville for inspiration is the Silicon Valley city of Mountain View, home to Google and Intuit. It's announced plans for a free shuttle service similar to the Emery Go Round. But what works in Emeryville may not work everywhere. And questions like who rides and who pays are ultimately local decisions.

Breaking: Emery-Go-Round Resumes Bus Service at Watergate Community

Emeryville City Manager Sabrina Landreth announces Emery-Go-Round bus service has resumes at the Watergate neighborhood.  The community had been shut off for weeks in a controversial move by the Board of Directors of the EGR.

Here is the City Manager's notice to residents:

FROM: Sabrina Landreth, City Manager 

SUBJECT: Emery Go Round Shuttle Stop by Watergate Condominiums 

The Emeryville Transportation Management Association (TMA) has temporarily restored the Emery Go-Round (EGR) shuttle bus stops located near the Watergate Condominiums, effective today Tuesday, November 5, 2013. The EGR bus operator has crafted notices that will be placed on the shuttle’s website and on the buses to notify riders of that the stops have been temporarily reinstated. The notices also indicate that there may be some delays on the Watergate Express and Shellmound-Powell routes as the buses will be travelling further west on Powell to the Marina south parking lot in order to turn around. 

The EGR is still scheduled to be discussed at the December 3rd City Council Meeting. Both short-term and long-range funding strategies will be part of this discussion. 

Watergate Neighborhood Explodes as Emery-Go-Round Scales Back Bus Service

Bus Service at Watergate Cancelled

Watergate residents have been flooding Emeryville City Council members with angry calls and e-mails after the Emery-Go-Round bus service has been terminated along Powell Street adjacent to the resident condominiums recently.  The popular free bus service, paid for primarily by commercial businesses in town, is used by many Watergate residents and service has been disrupted ever since the Emeryville Public Works Department started a sidewalk restoration project there a few weeks ago.  Emery-Go-Round officials informed residents that the City didn't confer with them before they began the sidewalk project and now as a result,  there's no room to turn the buses around, a requirement because the street dead-ends.
The charge of non-cooperation with the City is being denied by Public Works.
Meanwhile, the President of the Board of Directors at Emery-Go-Round announced at a meeting that the problem is not the new sidewalk but instead that Watergate residents aren't payers into the bus system and that is why service has been curtailed there.

Watergate residents are incorrectly assigning blame with the City says Maurice Kaufman, the City Engineer and head of Public Works.  He flatly denies the charges made against the Department, "Emery-Go-Round has known of the sidewalk work proposed there for years, We've been discussing it with them for a long time" he told the Tattler.  "They've changed their minds about their acceptable method of turn around" he added, indicating that EGR officials now don't want to make 'K' turns at Watergate condos since the street in the area isn't wide enough for a U-turn for buses both before and after the sidewalk work.   Mr Kaufman conjectured that perhaps prior EGR managers didn't communicate with new managers as to the source of the miscommunication.

If there is a miscommunication.

Geoff Sears, President of the EGR Board of Directors, hinted to Board meeting attendees that sidewalk

EGR President Geoff Sears
We have a fiduciary responsibility to accommodate
the payers into the bus service, not the non-payers.

work by the City has nothing to do with the cancelled bus service.  He says they are attempting to curtail rising costs and that they are responsible to the payers into the bus system to do so.  "Watergate residents don't pay into Emery-Go-Round" he said at the last meeting adding, "We need to optimize the route for payers into the system."
Board member and Emeryville commercial property owner Francis Collins agreed, "The turn around controversy isn't a big deal as far as I'm concerned.  The real deal is this bus system is dead unless we can figure a way to legally fund it" he said, in a nod to the payers/non-payers calculation.  Mr Collins indicated that the way the service is being paid for now is illegal and unfair to the payers into the system, the commercial property owners.

Former Council member Ken Bukowski, a long time supporter of the Emery-Go-Round said the service should be paid for by an Emeryville sales tax.  He noted "Alameda County is going to have an additional 1/2 cent sales tax before voters in 2014.  Emeryville should get enough to fund the EGR.  Perhaps we should have a 1/2 cent sales tax of our own to help pay."

Council members have indicated they are going to work to resolve the issue, "Elderly Watergate residents [and others] need the Emery-Go-Round" Jac Asher told the Tattler, "Some have gotten rid of their cars and use the service for all their transportation needs".  "EGR is extremely popular" the Councilwoman said.

Emery-Go-Round to West Oakland BART?

The E'Ville Eye, an Emeryville centric blog, is promoting a plan to include the West Oakland BART station in the list of Emery-Go-Round bus destinations.  The route would head south from Emeryville on Mandela Parkway to 7th Street, the location of the popular BART station.
The blog is hosting a poll of readers about Emery-Go-Round use and the idea of including this new destination for their buses.  Emeryville resident Rob Arias, the editor of the E'Ville Eye, plans on presenting the results of the poll to the Transportation Committee at City Hall and the Emery-Go-Round Board of Directors.

The Emery-Go-Round is a free bus service that connects riders to shopping and work destinations mostly in Emeryville.  The bus line is paid for by Emeryville businesses and taxpayers.  As of now, only the MacArthur BART station is served by the Emery-Go-Round.  A new route to West Oakland BART might be added to MacArthur and might supplant it, depending on ridership numbers.

Mr Arias indicated the more people that take part in the poll, the more persuasive the results will be.  Tattler readers are encouraged to weigh in and make their opinions be heard by taking the E'Ville Eye poll.

The E'Ville Eye Emery-Go-Round poll is HERE.

Emery-Go-Round Back Peddles On Funding Sources

Funding: Emery-Go-Round Is Dragged, 

Kicking & Screaming

Opinion
The free bus service in Emeryville, Emery Go Round, has acquiesced over charges made recently by the Tattler that the company has been disingenuous with regard to its funding sources.  The transportation company changed its website today to reflect the fact, publicly revealed by the Tattler last week, that the City of Emeryville helps fund the bus service and that Emery Go Round's previous proclamations that it is solely a function of business in Emeryville is in error.  It appears that the bus company is starting to correct the formerly inaccurate information with its website.  
From the 'about' section on the website:

"The Emery Go-Round shuttle is a free, private transportation service, open to all Emeryville residents, shoppers, visitors and employees of Emeryville businesses. The the (sic) vast majority of funding for the Emery Go-Round shuttle is provided by commercial property owners in the citywide transportation business improvement district."

The top masthead of the website still proclaims that the service is provided by Emeryville's businesses.  The buses themselves also still proclaim the service is provided by Emeryville's businesses.  A complete list of contributors, including the City of Emeryville and the Emery Unified School District can be found at the Emeryville Property Owners Association website HERE.

We find it perplexing and (darkly) humorous that Emery Go Round is being brought to this public acknowledgment of the facts, kicking and screaming.  The new text on the website tells it all; the reticence for this company to give any credit to the people of Emeryville is obvious in the selection of the words, "vast majority of funding" coming from commercial property owners.  The publicly funded Emery Go Round could have instead said a more congenial and truthful, "funded by businesses and the City of Emeryville".  
We wonder why the company is so loath to give the people of Emeryville credit for their contributions. We're left with our suspicions: Emery Go Round is wont to forward their meme about the sacrosanct nature of private enterprise and the fallacy that government can be a source for solutions. 

The Chairman of the Board of Directors for Emery Go Round, Peter Oswald told the Tattler  the Board would "look into" changing the signage on the buses to include listing the City of Emeryville among the funding sources.

We look forward to the government funded Emery Go Round fully crediting everyone who makes the service possible.  We'll be watching to see if the bus signage is changed to reflect the horrible, uncomfortable truth they can't seem to fully acknowledge. 

Emery-Go-Round Eligible To Receive $4 Million Grant

Emeryville's TMA Stands To Benefit

Emeryville's business/resident funded free bus shuttle, Emery-Go-Round is poised to pick up a nice financial boost if it partners with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to try to reduce vehicle use.
Re-printed from the Daily Californian:

Air quality district offers $4 million to promote decreased vehicle use

By J.D. Morris | Senior Staff

jmorris@dailycal.org
Monday, August 29, 2011 at 9:34 pm


The Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the regional government agency that regulates sources of air pollution, is offering $4 million for ride sharing or shuttle services that promote decreased vehicle use.
As part of its efforts to diminish local air pollution, the air district will review applications and distribute the money on a first-come-first-serve basis beginning Thursday. Only public agencies are eligible.
“These are ride sharing projects that are meant to fill in existing needs … to make it more convenient so you can get on other buses, ferries and make it to a route station,” said air district spokesperson Ralph Borrmann.

Funding is made available through the district’s Transportation Fund for Clean Air, a grant program sustained by a $4 surcharge on vehicles in the Bay Area. The program generates about $22 million in revenue each year.
Berkeley does not have any projects that would be eligible for the funds, according to Farid Javandel, the city’s transportation manager.

The same goes for BART, which does not have the resources to manage shuttle services, according to BART spokesperson Luna Salaver.
“Instead, we are working with other entities to encourage them to apply for these grants,” Salaver said. “Once a grant is established, then we help promote the connections.”
One program that may be eligible for a portion of the $4 million offered by the district is the Emery Go Round, a free shuttle that connects Emeryville passengers to the MacArthur BART station in Oakland.
But Roni Hattrup, executive assistant for the Emeryville Transit Management Association, which manages the shuttle, said the association has yet to identify what projects it would seek to fund through the program.
“We have some ideas of what we want, but we have to determine if we’re asking for money for new buses or if we’re asking for money for bus shelters or something like that,” Hattrup said.

Even if Emery Go Round does decide to apply for the funds, it may not pan out because the association is a nonprofit, not a public agency. Still, Hattrup said the program may try to contract with the city of Emeryville, which she said would likely act as a “pastor agency” in order to gain eligibility.
Last year, when the district provided similar grants, it funded about 11 projects in another attempt to cut down on vehicle use — which accounts for over half of the Bay Area’s air pollution, according to Borrmann.
“The overall goal is to reduce air pollution and to encourage people to take transit by filling in the needs where they exist so people can make it to major buses, trains and ferries,” Borrmann said. “It makes it easier for residents to shift to transit and ride share and reduces the number of vehicles on the road.”


J.D. Morris is the lead environment reporter.