Blog: Red Flags at the SamTrans Meetings

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Whenever advocates get overly enthusiastic and optimistic about a good, solid project, they often end up disappointed by our esteemed leaders around here. So while I’m still positive about the SamTrans Bus Stop Improvement Project (BSIP), little doubts are always creeping along. For example, the theatrical part of the project, which included several presentations to the board, began in 2022 and concluded in 2024. But what progress has been made since then?

How many bus shelters has the three-year, $53M BISP produced so far?

The famous Bus Stop Improvement Project has achieved exactly:

Nil. Nix. NUL. Null.
Nullity. Blank. Void.
None. Nothing. Nada.
Aught. Naught. Nought.
0. O. Oh. Double Oh.
L’oeuf. Love. Scratch.
Cipher. Diddly Squat. Not one Iota.
Zero. Zip. Zippo. Zilch.

In fact, there might be fewer bus shelters now than there were before the project started. Bus shelters seem to be disappearing. The board hasn’t asked for a progress meeting on this, it looks, and the information hasn’t been published on their website. We are still waiting for the promised dashboard. I needed to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to get that number, though I would imagine it shouldn’t be too hard to count to ZERO .

But when a project team or the PR people don’t want to brag about their achievement to the board or the public, that already looks like the first major red flag.

But wait, there is more …

Red Flag: The Project

I did mention that I try to stay positive about SamTrans’ BSIP project, but I had a hard time from the start. My BS-spider-senses have been tingling way too much throughout this whole process riddled with red flags. One red flag would be purely about the existence of this project itself. A typical bus-oriented public transit system anywhere on this planet is expected to provide buses and bus stops, where people can get on and off. It should be part of the core expertise for a public transit agency focusing on buses; it really seems like the most basic part of the process is to Know Thy Shelters.

It would also imply that SamTrans does not have an ongoing project team that constantly assesses, repairs, maintains, cleans, and adds more bus shelters. They have a huge number of employees, but apparently, such a basic yet existential expertise did not exist within this organization and required a dedicated project. Very concerning, to say the least.

Red Flag: The Timeline

During one of the meetings, the Director of Planning was introducing the project, after working 1.5 years on a plan to make things happen. She goes on to say: “This is really the first time – to our knowledge – that a full assessment of the network and our customer experience waiting for the bus has been undertaken.“

This certainly seems to confirm that SamTrans has neglected one of its core competencies for the last 50 years. Since I promised more positivity, we should probably thank her for finally taking charge of the customer experience after 50 years of being a customer-facing Public Transit Agency. But still, my critical self wants to point out here that 1.5 years is quite a long time for gathering information that must have existed somewhere at the agency already.

Red Flag: The Outreach

Somehow, it seems weird that a professional public transit agency does not have the institutional knowledge on what a simple bus shelter should look like. With a large number of salaried employees, sufficient funding to hire additional consultants, access to peer agencies and the internet, SamTrans somehow requires 6 weeks of survey data and 31 listening sessions to achieve 684 responses in 4 different languages. Has absolutely no one at SamTrans ever travelled outside this county or this country? Transit agencies all around the world have expertise about simple bus shelters – just not the transit experts at SamTrans? Customers expect to have a roof, a bench, a schedule, nighttime lighting, and a garbage bin. Customers want something that protects them from the wind and sun, making wait time bearable and comfortable. The fact that SamTrans needs to do a project, surveys, outreach, input from residents, customers, the citizen advisory committee and a board of directors, including a transit expert to do what is standard anywhere else in the world, certainly awoke my curiosity.

Red Flag: Missing Trash Receptacles

The project team analyzed the outreach and survey results, deducing that residents and customers don’t want garbage bins at their bus stops.

I’m fairly certain that Leave No Trace or Pack It In, Pack It Out doesn’t work as well in urban settings, especially when it struggles to be effective on trails, which makes it hard to believe that surveyed residents made a point that trash receptacles are not important. Sure, they might be less important than the shelter, the seat, or safety features, but have people seen how dirty these bus stops, these buses, our cities can get if you start letting up? My BS-spider senses tell me that someone was adjusting the survey results to the agency’s preferred outcome.

Red Flag: The Price Tag

Our Bay Area public transit agencies keep warning us about an upcoming Fiscal Cliff. But not so SamTrans, Measure W and RM3 set San Mateo County up nicely. SamTrans is projecting a $341M budget surplus over the next 10 years. If they can keep costs in check and increase ridership, they are golden. Only mismanagement at our San Mateo Transportation District or the county jurisdictions (C/CAG, SMCTA) could mess this up. Which brings us to the price tag and the cost.

BSIP is currently the only program at SamTrans expected to increase ridership – and therefore revenue and income. Bus shelters have a good ROI so spending $53M towards that goal isn’t the worst way to invest your surplus. The initial recommendation suggested 330 new shelters, 650 shade structures, 580 benches, and service maps and/or real-time information signs at approximately 1,200 stops. However, if I understand their final project scope correctly, the $50M would only cover 170 shelters and 195 real-time information signs. Is each shelter supposed to cost $250,000?

Red Flag: The Dashboard

The project team promised accountability and transparency by providing a dashboard where the board, advocacy groups, the media and the public can check progress. Maybe it exists, maybe it doesn’t – but it’s no use to us if we can’t find it.

Red Flag: Accountability

The Board of Directors consists of nine members from various leadership positions in the community with the following composition:

Two members from the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors [David Canepa, Ray Mueller recently replaced by Jackie Speier]
One transportation expert appointed by the Board of Supervisors [Peter Ratto]
Three city councilmembers, appointed by the City Selection Committee. Each council member represents a judicial district in San Mateo County. [Rico E. Medina, Jeff Gee, Marie Chuang]
Three public members, one of whom must reside on the Coast

The next red flag must address accountability here. The project was started in 2022, was embraced by staff, signed off by the CEO, was run by the public, celebrated by advocacy groups, vetted by the Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC), approved and endorsed by the complete Board of Directors including its Transportation Expert and three Members of the Public. Those are a lot of eyes on the ball.

It’s three years later and basically zero bus shelters have been installed. This would mean a lot of people must have taken their eyes off the ball way too quickly.

Is something like this even possible? Is this done with purpose? Is this accidental?

Conclusion

We are just scratching the surface, as there were a few more issues with this project. But frankly, since the project is technically still running until the end of this year, it can wait a little.

Perhaps the most egregious aspect was that school routes were seemingly excluded from this project very early. That’s right, children in this county won’t get bus shelters in a $53M project. These are SamTrans users of the future. These and their parents are the ones the marketing people in private companies would try to cater to, not so SamTrans’ politicians. Safe, convenient, equitable and accessible routes to schools are just not a thing with San Mateo Democrats and especially our YIMBY-endorsed politicians. So far no one could tell me why that is.
… and ADA wasn’t a point of focus either.