In the past 3 months the number of people with interest in coastside commute options tripled; therefore, I’ve moved management of email to MailChimp.
Coast – Foster City Commute – Chariot Status
Chariot has 2 models in the SF Bay Area, (1) Public – SF Only and (2) Private – contract with your employer 1 shuttle – 1 company.
The current working proposal to Chariot was to consider a hybrid Public/Private approach where multiple companies would contract for a number of individuals (e.g., 7 employees) instead of committing to an upfront contract for 1 or 2 buses. This might provide for better economy of scale (60,000 people on the coast and 25,000 employees across all companies in Foster City) and better pricing. Employers would kick in (get tax advantage) and employees would pay a share.
Result was that Chariot requested that one company sponsor and partner with other employers. This was a non-starter for my company, because there was no evident interest from other companies. Cost was about $550 a day for 2 morning and 2 afternoon routes. This translated to about $27 per person per day round trip. That was a lot higher than the SF “Public’ model – maximum $10/day round trip. Maybe we should look for alternates to Chariot.
So… I asked my Visa, Inc transit reps, if ‘some guy’ approached them from outside Visa with the idea of identifying their coastside employees, would they be interested. The answer was NO. They would be interested only if there was interest from their own employees within their own company. That’s where it is. It is nearly impossible to start a grassroots effort from outside a company – if anyone has ideas let me know. Another thought is that Visa has an office in San Francisco and perhaps there are more employers in San Francisco whose employees might be interested in this hybrid model where a shuttle goes from Half Moon Bay all the way to the new Transit Terminal in downtown San Francisco. Thoughts?
Carpooling 511.org Activity
Since May the ‘511.org’ has been targeting Pacifica to communicate carpooling awareness. They have placed people at the Pacifica Farmers market in Rockaway Beach to discuss carpooling and demonstrate how to use the Scoop and Waze carpool Apps.
511.org also sponsored a digital billboard on HWY 280 targeted to Pacifica residents, such that as they passed they would also get ads targeted to their phones for Scoop.
Dog Surfing Contest – Aug 4 – Pacifica
Traffic will be stopped on CA Route 1 to Linda Mar Beach in Pacifica on Saturday Aug 4. Every year I try to blast an email to the local TV Stations asking that they tell people how to take SamTrans 110 from Daly City or 112 from Colma to Pacifica instead of driving. They never announce. This is the list I send to. Any other ideas to get the word out?
uReport@kgo-tv.com
4listens@kron4.com
community.affairs@foxtv.com
newstips@foxtv.com
rosemary.orozco@foxtv.com
bill.martin@foxtv.com
mark.tamayo@foxtv.com
steve.paulson@foxtv.com
Introducing taking public transit to Pacifica to hike and enjoy beer.