BART/BUS COORDINATION: INSTITUTIONAL AND POLITICAL CONSIDERATIONS

An attempt is made to point out the more subtle political and institutional aspects of coordination negotiations which tend to be overlooked by parties involved in the complex process of attempting to provide comprehensive public transit service. The article emphasizes the process of service coordination planning among the Bay Area Rapid Transit District, the San Francisco Municipal Railway, and AC Transit (Alameda-Contra Costa Transit) and later the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, since the early stages of BART development. The Bay Area with its strong political fragmentation and diversity of transit operators and their constituencies, is a unique example of institutional constraints which have hampered the long-term objective of achieving cost-effective and efficient coordination of transit services. A number of policy implications can be deduced from the Bay Area experience of attempting to coordinate the transit services of two existing local public transit operators with a new regional rapid rail transit operator. These implications relate to the organizational structure, the rapid rail system design, the transit service policy coordination, and the role of the regional authority.