Metro Rail stations: Not so great for local neighborhoods

The highest local grade among the region’s 57 stations was a B. The average grade for the region was C minus.

More than half of Santa Clara’s stations received Ds, while San Diego scored the most failing grades with eight and had the worst-performing stop in California: the Gillespie Field Station. However, its overall B grade is much lower than the best-performing stations in the five other transit systems graded.

The report by the UC Berkeley School of Law’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment studied the stations and neighborhoods within a half-mile radius of 489 stops in the six rail transit systems in California.

San Francisco Municipal Railway received the highest marks statewide, while the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority ranked last. The lowest-ranked stations were often on the fringes of rail systems in low-density, industrial or car-oriented communities. Development favorable to transit use has not happened in that many instances.

The changes, which impact 31 routes and eliminate 6 of them, are scheduled to take effect in March when two Sound Transit light rail stations at the University of Washington and on Capitol Hill go online. “These stations provide access to housing, shopping, places of work and other amenities”, said Next 10 founder F. Noel Perry.

The Wardlow Station on the Metro Blue Line was deemed the worst in the Metro system, scoring poorly in almost all areas. He says the study is not a critique of Sacramento Regional Transit.

“Those stations along the Green Line did not score well because you will not have a lot of development when the station is in the middle of a freeway”, he said.

A few feel that the results of the study aren’t completely fair. The area draws nearly no transit use among residents and workers and is situated in a heavily “car dependent” area not conducive to transit-oriented development. Cal Hollis, Metro’s managing executive officer for countywide planning, told the Times that the criteria for the analysis favor densely populated cities like San Francisco.

The lowest-scoring BART stations are SFO, South San Francisco, and North Concord/Martinez. The park-and-ride station in the Wrigley neighborhood has an island platform, 25 parking spaces and 10 bike lockers.

Others expressed concerns about walking distances from new bus routes to the light rail stations.

With California’s population expected to rise from 38 million to 49.7 million in 2050, getting more people on mass transit is key to reducing traffic and cutting greenhouse gases which contribute to global warming, the authors said. Studies show that the most effective rail lines serve job centers, retail and service areas and residential neighborhoods. Los Angeles is sprawling in comparison.