One of the rare silver linings of the coronavirus outbreak was the disappearance of Bay Area traffic. But as people start returning to workplaces, congestion is coming back, too. Opportunities must be seized to keep vehicle volumes from becoming nightmarish again, says Nick Josefowitz, chief policy officer at Bay Area public-policy non-profit SPUR. Josefowitz, who’s also a Metropolitan Transportation Commission commissioner and former BART director, believes residents, local governments and companies all have roles in creating a future that doesn’t involve millions of people spending hours in cars every day, pumping out pollution and helping roast the planet.

While traffic angst has typically focused on commutes, they make up less than a third of the trips people make, with 70% of our journeys for purposes like taking kids to school, getting groceries and visiting the dentist, Josefowitz says. Solutions must address the range of transportation needs, he says.

Buses and high-occupancy vehicles must be given priority on roads, he says. Transit fares and bridge and express-lane tolls must be based on ability to pay. More housing must go up near jobs, with more “complete communities” built where daily needs can be met with a 15-minute walk or bike or bus trip, he says. “We also have to reduce the amount we drive on a regular basis,” Josefowitz says. “You’ve got to make it easer to take transit, to walk, to bike. And then you’ve got to start pushing back against some of the incentives that we provide for people to drive alone.”

This news organization met with Josefowitz on a video call to hear about a future that could save us from the soul-crushing traffic of the past. His comments have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What are the obstacles to reducing congestion?

A: We set up our governance system in the Bay Area to really privilege the status quo. The most glaring example is how difficult it is to build housing in our most walkable neighborhoods near transit. You often have to overcome the combination of years of process, expensive lawsuits (and) disproportionate fees. It’s really easy to do nothing and let things get worse. We need to radically streamline the processes for making these transportation improvements. BART to Silicon Valley was kicked off in the ’80s — it’s going to take 50 years from when it was starting to be planned. We need to do so much better at delivering transportation improvements quickly and in a way that isn’t watered down.

Q: How much responsibility do the big Silicon Valley technology companies with huge workforces have to deal with roadway congestion?

A: What we need to move toward is a regional system where all larger employers take more responsibility for getting their workers to work and back home in a way that minimizes their impact on the mobility of others, and do it in a way that minimizes their impact on our climate and on our air quality. You’ve got to provide your employees with transportation or discounted transit … have programs in place for your workers to carpool or vanpool… (provide) them with support to walk or bike to work. This is all wrapped up with you as an employer working closely with the local governments and transit agencies in the region to collectively invest in transit services and transit-priority lanes and sidewalks and walking.

Q: What technologies hold promise for the future of getting around in the Bay Area?

A: There’s a huge amount of growth for bicycles and electric bicycles. Electric bicycles in particular make biking acceptable to a much much broader range of the population. A lot of people who get onto electric bikes for the first time are amazed at how much quicker it is to get around their communities than before, and how many more destinations become accessible. Not only can we create infrastructure that makes it safe to bike, we also need to think about should we be incentivizing people to purchase electric bicycles in the same way that we incentivize people to purchase electric cars. We also need to do outreach to help people learn how to bike.

Q: What have you learned about Bay Area traffic during the pandemic and associated lockdowns?

A: We’ve had a dramatic decrease in mobility during the pandemic because transit service has been cut dramatically and people don’t feel safe on transit. It’s made destinations less accessible. You already see traffic on the Bay Bridge back above what it was. The pandemic is forcing us as budgets get tighter to think a little bit differently. Building our way out of this problem with really expensive projects no longer seems like a feasible option. We can make so much progress with hundreds of distributed projects. We can act and should act a lot quicker than we have, especially for smaller interventions, like bike lanes, or bus lanes, or slow streets. We need to deploy the infrastructure fast and then work with the community to assess its success and be open to changing course.

Q: How is parking policy important to traffic reduction?

A: It’s incredibly important. Just a few weeks ago there was a new report that came out that shows that if you live in a building with less parking you’re going to drive less but your access to jobs doesn’t go down. It … shows the direct causal link between over-providing free parking and the incentive that provides for people to drive.

Q: What opportunities need to be seized now to ensure traffic reduction in the future?

A: Before the pandemic, we were in a situation where it was getting more and more difficult to get around the Bay Area every year. Congestion was up. Transit ridership was down. We were seeing increasing traffic fatalities, primarily focused on pedestrians and bicyclists. On top of all that … the greenhouse-gas emissions for transportation were going up. The pandemic has allowed us to think differently about what’s possible, and not … be stuck in the old ways of doing things which have failed us for decades and to think about a new way of doing things. We can meet our goals of increasing mobility and improving equity and fighting climate change all at the same time by making it a lot safer and quicker for people to walk to their daily needs or bike.

NICK JOSEFOWITZ

Title: Chief policy officer at SPUR, Metropolitan Transportation Commission commissioner and former BART director

Age: 37

Education: BA in history, Harvard University

Family: Married with twin boys

Born in: New York

City of residence: San Francisco

FIVE THINGS ABOUT NICK JOSEFOWITZ

1: When school is on, you can find me biking my kids to school every day in our cargo bike.

2: My Greek mother ingrained in me a deep love for eggplant, one of the most amazing vegetables.

3: My family plays lots of board games, especially Ticket To Ride.

4: The London Transport Museum was one of my favorite places growing up.

5: My first live concert was Celine Dion.