That happened before I got to the Legislature so I don’t understand the rationale that was behind that decision. Maybe congestion pricing is not a good idea, but to not think it through, to not have an open and exhausting debate is wrong. We need to think of everything. There tends to be a knee-jerk response with some people that any congestion pricing or HOV lanes – the so-called "Lexus lanes" – will hurt poor people. But the fact of the matter is that a lot of individuals who are on these roads everyday are working people who would not mind paying an extra dollar or two when they needed to in order to expedite their business. I don’t believe we should be making socio-economic judgments on behalf of people. Instead, we should give options and let people choose.

Yes. They’re dying down there. The South Bay has a hopelessly bad traffic problem. The proposed new Cisco campus would add 20,000 jobs. There’s no place for people to live, no way to move around. I think it was an act of desperation. I’m not quite sure that it is going to be the solution that everyone thinks it will be. There are many problems associated with the plan. But moving in that direction is something that I applaud. BART is something that has worked but the problem is that we are going to soon see BART max out its capacity. It’s a finite system; you can only run so many trains so closely together. People don’t realize how close it is to being maxed out. What I hope the people in the South Bay begin to accept and work on is that just because they don’t see a ferry system having immediate viability for San Jose or Milpitas, it is not say that it doesn’t have a role within the context of an overall transportation plan. If we could ever coordinate the system so that BART, and all our bus systems worked in concert with the ferry system, then 4we’d have everything going everywhere serving everyone.

Well, the public has spoken. Somewhere along the line the public decided that they would rather pay for public transportation with a sales tax, which people feel is more broadly distributed, than a gas tax, which they know they’re going to pay at the pump. It’s kind of hard for me to argue with the people that hire Don Perata. Any tax fixed to what people feel is their entitlement –and people think gas is an entitlement – simply isn’t going to work. Now, I think it is more rational to tax gas, just like raising parking fees are a good way to discourage people from driving into San Francisco. But people aren’t prepared to do it. My own belief is that if we could make a better case for getting people out of their cars – via a better ferry system or other public transportation options – then you’d have a better chance at getting the public to agree to things like increased gas taxes. But we haven’t done that yet. The public transportation system is so fragmented. It’s based on sovereignty, not convenience. Every agency and city considers itself sovereign unto itself. The hard political negotiations to make a sensible system simply haven’t happened yet.

I think if we had a coherent argument for making that case we might. The school bonds case was pretty obvious to people. They can see the school age population has increased while the stock of school buildings has deteriorated. It was therefore possible to make the case that we should lower the barrier to making the needed investments in schools. In the case of transportation, it’s too Balkanized. For example, how do I get ferry advocates to understand the importance of the ACE train coming from the Central Valley into the South Bay? The way we do it is to integrate the system. We’re many steps away from that. I’d support it now and forever just to advance the idea because I think it makes sense. But the real problem is making the case for the public. And to do that we need to rationalize the system. And second, we need to assure people every dollar spent is going to be put to the very best use. Right now we have no way of rating transportation expenditures. We don’t know if a dollar put in to open up a new bore to the Caldecott is better spent than a dollar adding more ferries to Marin. We just don’t know that. And until we do, people won’t allow their taxes to be raised.

Well, I favor that and have done for years. I believe that the Port of Oakland should be part of a regional authority. Many of the smaller ports would do better as part of an efficient regional system. I’ll probably advance that in the next term of the Legislature.

The airport issue is contentious because Oakland, San Jose and San Francisco view themselves as competitors. There are certain kinds of air traffic that are more profitable than others. If it’s going to be air cargo that makes a lot of money then San Francisco is not going to be willing to let go of its international air cargo business. Oakland has now almost 11 million passengers going through its airport. It’s doubled in the last eight years. I understand that’s really profitable but that the real profit is in parking. Once again, the congestion issue comes up. The way to look at the issue is a comprehensive study and I can’t figure out how to get the jurisdictions to agree to have such a study.