Post by ferryfast admin on Feb 6, 2006 0:28:32 GMT -5
Ferries -- missing piece of Bay Area disaster preparedness
-Jim Wunderman
San Francisco Chronicle
www.sfgate.com/
Sunday, February 5, 2006
The biggest stories of 2005 were disasters, from the Indian Ocean tsunami, to the Gulf Coast hurricanes, to Pakistan's earthquake. These tragedies force us to ask: "What do we need to do to prepare for the Bay Area's next big disaster?"
Is the danger real? Washington, D.C., New York City, San Francisco and Chicago are the areas most likely to attract terrorist attacks, according to the national Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002. Regarding earthquakes, an authoritative analysis by the U.S. Geological Survey found that there is a 2 in 3 chance of a magnitude 6.7 earthquake or worse in the Bay Area in the next 30 years. Actually, in 2001, a FEMA report ranked hurricane damage to New Orleans, a terrorist attack on New York City and an earthquake in the Bay Area as the three most likely catastrophes facing the country.
With two down, we better prepare urgently for the one to go. The Bay Area Council is working in Sacramento with the governor and legislative leaders on major infrastructure bond proposals, which may well set the agenda for decades to come. If we are to learn anything from New Orleans and the Sept. 11 attacks, disaster response must play a fundamental role in all infrastructure investment decisions.
The first days and weeks following a catastrophic natural disaster will be filled with confusion, disarray, suffering and need. In the Bay Area, the challenge of disaster-response transportation is much more difficult because the region is divided by the bay, crossed primarily by vulnerable bridges and the BART tube. Eight years ago, in legislation authored by Sen. Don Perata, D-Oakland, and signed into law by the governor, the Bay Area Council conceived a comprehensive high-speed water transit system that -- in addition to significantly improving daily traffic -- would provide a highly flexible disaster recovery transportation system. This new system recognized that the waters of the bay could be transformed from a transportation obstacle into a transportation asset, with high-speed ferries running to all communities with waterfront access.
In addition to improving daily mobility for tens of thousands of residents, in a disaster these ferries would shuttle supplies, responders and victims around the region, even while roads, bridges and trains would still be closed for inspection and repairs. By necessity, the system would have terminals ringing the bay -- from Alviso and Moffett Field near San Jose to Port Sonoma and Benicia in the North Bay, in addition to existing facilities in Oakland, San Francisco, Marin and Vallejo.
Yet the system has never received the funding it needs to build more than a modest three new routes, the first scheduled to start in 2009.
Full funding to build this ferry system must be included in the current infrastructure bond package. The Bay Area Council believes a blue-ribbon panel of water-transit experts should immediately be convened to address: what infrastructure is needed (ships, terminals, routes); what legislative changes are needed to make it happen; and what capital outlay and operating funding are needed.
Previous discussions with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the U.S. Coast Guard and others have made it clear that ferries would play a decisive role in regional emergency response. Indeed, since 1979, a number of events (including the 1979 BART Transbay Tube fire, mudslides in Marin in 1982 that blocked access to the Golden Gate Bridge, the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake that blocked access to and damaged the Bay Bridge and the 1997 BART strike) have disrupted travel in our region, resulting in significant use of ferries. These past events underscore the critical role of ferries following disasters, primarily because they are less likely to be disrupted.
On Sept. 11, 2001, New York's ferry service responded to the destruction of the World Trade Center towers within 15 minutes of the attack. Ferries helped evacuate more than 160,000 people from Manhattan that day, including more than 2,000 injured persons within the first hour.
Both cost effective and environmentally friendly, no other transportation investment can match ferries in the Bay Area to both relieve day-to-day traffic and prepare us for the next nearly inevitable disaster. While water transit is not the only answer, it is the most glaringly missing element of our infrastructure in a region defined by such a magnificent body of water. Funding for ferries must be included in the final infrastructure package that emerges from Sacramento.
Jim Wunderman is president and CEO of the Bay Area Council (www.bayareacouncil.org).
-Jim Wunderman
San Francisco Chronicle
www.sfgate.com/
Sunday, February 5, 2006
The biggest stories of 2005 were disasters, from the Indian Ocean tsunami, to the Gulf Coast hurricanes, to Pakistan's earthquake. These tragedies force us to ask: "What do we need to do to prepare for the Bay Area's next big disaster?"
Is the danger real? Washington, D.C., New York City, San Francisco and Chicago are the areas most likely to attract terrorist attacks, according to the national Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002. Regarding earthquakes, an authoritative analysis by the U.S. Geological Survey found that there is a 2 in 3 chance of a magnitude 6.7 earthquake or worse in the Bay Area in the next 30 years. Actually, in 2001, a FEMA report ranked hurricane damage to New Orleans, a terrorist attack on New York City and an earthquake in the Bay Area as the three most likely catastrophes facing the country.
With two down, we better prepare urgently for the one to go. The Bay Area Council is working in Sacramento with the governor and legislative leaders on major infrastructure bond proposals, which may well set the agenda for decades to come. If we are to learn anything from New Orleans and the Sept. 11 attacks, disaster response must play a fundamental role in all infrastructure investment decisions.
The first days and weeks following a catastrophic natural disaster will be filled with confusion, disarray, suffering and need. In the Bay Area, the challenge of disaster-response transportation is much more difficult because the region is divided by the bay, crossed primarily by vulnerable bridges and the BART tube. Eight years ago, in legislation authored by Sen. Don Perata, D-Oakland, and signed into law by the governor, the Bay Area Council conceived a comprehensive high-speed water transit system that -- in addition to significantly improving daily traffic -- would provide a highly flexible disaster recovery transportation system. This new system recognized that the waters of the bay could be transformed from a transportation obstacle into a transportation asset, with high-speed ferries running to all communities with waterfront access.
In addition to improving daily mobility for tens of thousands of residents, in a disaster these ferries would shuttle supplies, responders and victims around the region, even while roads, bridges and trains would still be closed for inspection and repairs. By necessity, the system would have terminals ringing the bay -- from Alviso and Moffett Field near San Jose to Port Sonoma and Benicia in the North Bay, in addition to existing facilities in Oakland, San Francisco, Marin and Vallejo.
Yet the system has never received the funding it needs to build more than a modest three new routes, the first scheduled to start in 2009.
Full funding to build this ferry system must be included in the current infrastructure bond package. The Bay Area Council believes a blue-ribbon panel of water-transit experts should immediately be convened to address: what infrastructure is needed (ships, terminals, routes); what legislative changes are needed to make it happen; and what capital outlay and operating funding are needed.
Previous discussions with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the U.S. Coast Guard and others have made it clear that ferries would play a decisive role in regional emergency response. Indeed, since 1979, a number of events (including the 1979 BART Transbay Tube fire, mudslides in Marin in 1982 that blocked access to the Golden Gate Bridge, the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake that blocked access to and damaged the Bay Bridge and the 1997 BART strike) have disrupted travel in our region, resulting in significant use of ferries. These past events underscore the critical role of ferries following disasters, primarily because they are less likely to be disrupted.
On Sept. 11, 2001, New York's ferry service responded to the destruction of the World Trade Center towers within 15 minutes of the attack. Ferries helped evacuate more than 160,000 people from Manhattan that day, including more than 2,000 injured persons within the first hour.
Both cost effective and environmentally friendly, no other transportation investment can match ferries in the Bay Area to both relieve day-to-day traffic and prepare us for the next nearly inevitable disaster. While water transit is not the only answer, it is the most glaringly missing element of our infrastructure in a region defined by such a magnificent body of water. Funding for ferries must be included in the final infrastructure package that emerges from Sacramento.
Jim Wunderman is president and CEO of the Bay Area Council (www.bayareacouncil.org).