Growing up in San Jose, public transportation was not as widespread and commonly used as other cities. While many use and rely on the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), this system is not as efficient or as popular as it should be.
The main choice of transportation for people in the Bay Area is driving, which has caused a severe traffic issue here. Back when I was in high school, I was not able to drive which placed a serious block on my ability to travel around San Jose.
Eventually I did learn to drive, and while it is an important skill to know, there are many factors that play a role in hindering people’s ability to drive or even own a car. Owning a car is a costly endeavor, which many people cannot afford to allocate in this time of inflation and high costs of living, especially in the Bay Area.
Once moving up to San Francisco and learning about the Muni system, I witnessed that public transportation can be just as fast as a car and a reliable source of transportation.
As a young person in the U.S., the increasingly worrying situation with our climate is on the forefront of my mind. Over the past five years, this issue has been increasingly more known and talked about. The increase of more intense and dramatic weather patterns has also caused many of my peers and I to look for more ways to reduce the reliance we have on fossil fuels and live in a more sustainable way.
While it is important to acknowledge that the cause of the problem is not on us as individuals, the first and most simple thing for me to do was to take BART or Caltrain more often. However, I found myself struggling to rely on transit here and found myself mainly driving when I was in the South Bay, until San Jose implemented its transit-first policy.
As the South Bay grows in population, the streets are more congested than they were a decade ago and there are simply more people that now rely on public transport, and the need for efficient public transportation is growing. With the increase of speed with trains and buses, there will be a decrease in the number of trains and buses needed.
The speed and frequency in which buses and trains operate are integral factors to whether or not people choose to use these services. This allocation of funds from a high volume of trains and buses also allows for later hours of operation and newer train routes that span farther throughout Gilroy, Morgan Hill and San Martin.
Since San Jose implemented a transit-first policy, there has been an uptick in ridership as VTA reported a 22% increase in 2023. That equates to 21.8 million riders, which is significantly above the national average of 18 percent.
I believe that each person living in the Bay Area is entitled to transportation that can effectively get them to where they need to go, and providing accessible, reliable public transportation is critical to building safer and more united communities, as well as contributing to the growth of our community.
We know that cities can help improve transit in their community by adopting policies that control the factors that determine the quality and quantity of transit service: street space allocation, signal timing, and signal priority. Giving priority to public transit—in the form of transit lanes or preferential signal timing— speeds up transit and makes it more desirable for potential riders and helps cities meet their climate change goals.
Maintaining the status quo endorses the current outcomes. Making no changes to transportation or land use policies will likely result in slower transit as congestion increases on city streets.
Soraya Alavi is a junior at University of San Francisco majoring in psychology and minoring in both legal studies and philosophy, a member of women in pre law and Khandan (USF’s South Asian student association), and interning with Gilroy City Councilmember Zach Hilton.
