Wahab aims to create merge lane for Bay Area's 27 transit agencies

Wahab bill debuts in committee today; Roger Stone talked about assassinating Rep. Eric Swalwell; IE supporting SD7 candidate adds another $100k

State Sen. Aisha Wahab is taking on the Bay Area’s bloated transit bureaucracy.

STATE NEWS

—TRAFFIC CONGESTION—State Sen. Aisha Wahab’s bill seeking to consolidate the Bay Area’s unwieldy 27 transit agencies come to the State Senate Transportation Committee this afternoon.

—Specifically, Senate Bill 397 asks the California State Transportation Agency to formulate a proposal for streamlining transportation agencies in the nine-county Bay Area.

—Needless to say, the bill is politically explosive.

—Transit agencies across the Bay Area are understandably worried about the bill which could threatened local fiefdoms within each agency and topple elected officials from office.

—The bill comes at a pivotal moment as transit agencies, including BART and AC Transit are struggling to return to pre-Covid ridership and mounting budget shortfalls.

COUNTY NEWS

AC TRANSIT

—SEAMLESS TRANSIT—While transit agencies are not keen about consolidation, some like AC Transit may be interested in signing on to the baseline sentiment in SB397—that transit agencies need to do better about coordinating with each other.

—On Wednesday, the AC Transit Board of Directors will discuss an item to adopt “seamless transit principles.”

—Many of the seven principles deal with coordination without dismantling the entire agency. For example, operating Bay Area transit as “one easy-to-use system,” and aligning “transit prices to be simple, fair, and affordable.”

—The item at AC Transit was requested by Board Director Jovanka Beckles, who is running for the 7th State Senate District this March and ran for the transit agency on a platform calling for free transit.

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