Interstate 680 through the Sunol Grade. Courtesy of John K.

When last updating the Bay Area’s Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) in Spring 2009, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission reserved a distinguished place in the RTP for its planned regional network of high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes.  The plan envisions freeway motorists paying tolls via FasTrak to beat the traffic jams, by entering specific lanes otherwise designated for high-occupancy vehicles.  Tolls would be priced dynamically throughout the day– increasing as freeways become more congested at peak travel times, and adjusting in order to maintain a relatively free-flowing traffic lane.

At full build, this network would comprise some 800 lane miles of toll lanes on most major freeways throughout the region.  About 500 of those lane miles would be built by converting existing carpool lanes to toll lanes, but the plan also calls for the construction of about 300 new lane miles.  In September 2010, the first segment of the network is expected to debut — a 14-mile southbound HOT lane on Interstate 680 through the Sunol Grade, between Route 84 in Alameda County and Route 237 in Santa Clara County.  It will be followed in Fall 2011 by the second segment — a 12-mile eastbound HOT lane on Interstate 580 in the Tri-Valley, between Hacienda Road and Greenville Road.

Optimistic assumptions paint a rosy view of the HOT network as a major new source of money for transit.  Although it would cost about $7.6 billion to finance, construct, and operate the HOT network over the next 25 years, the network was projected to generate $13.7 billion in the same time period, yielding a net revenue of $6.1 billion.  In other words, a veritable bank account overflowing with gold coins that could be used to deliver an expanded transit network. Already, before lanes are even in place, MTC has planned to use theoretical HOT revenue to close anticipated funding shortfalls, and the tolls will no doubt be regarded as a possible funding source for BART to Livermore and other projects.

There is, of course, a less rosy version.  By insisting on wider freeways, rather than simply converting existing lanes in each corridor, the HOT network as adopted would increase regional freeway capacity by building 300 new lane miles, and thereby induce an increase in driving demand commensurate with that increase in capacity.  To be fair, the Bay Area spends a comparatively small share of its regional transportation funding on roadway expansion, and in this respect is the best among its peers in California.  But given the upcoming task of preparing a Sustainable Communities Strategy to meet an ambitious target for reducing regional transportation emissions, it is fair to question how appropriate it is to leverage HOT revenue as a means of explaining away a plan that seems strategically designed to complete “unfinished” roads.

It is similarly fair to question whether the resulting revenue will cover the HOT network’s capital and operating costs, let alone become a significant source of new funding for public transit.  After all, it’s not like the whole freeway would be tolled — just the one lane.  And if the profitable segments of the HOT lane network, to the extent they exist, merely serve to subsidize other segments that operate at a loss, then at what point would transit see any of that money, and how much?  Not to mention the fact that transit would already suffer from competing with widened freeways.

MTC has not changed its position as to the underlying value of the HOT lane network, freeway widening and all.  Nonetheless, it will be going back to the drawing board because of a combination of circumstances that have emerged since adopting the RTP in Spring 2009.  One issue concerns Assembly Bill 744, introduced by Assemblymember Alberto Torrico (D-Fremont), which has been working its way through the State Legislature.  The objective of AB 744 is to authorize the Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA), which currently administers bridge toll revenue, to issue revenue bonds and to manage and oversee the HOT lane network.  The bill has been at the Senate Appropriations Committee but is collapsing under its own weight, as environmental groups sought amendments removing some segments, while traffic engineers sought more control for Caltrans over project design.

Possible smaller HOT lane network, with corridors color-coded by potential. Courtesy of MTC.

Another issue relates to what we discussed above: How much revenue can we realistically expect to go into Bay Area coffers, taking into account both lane usage and project costs?  The whole HOT lane network is, after all, premised on the assumption that motorists will be willing to pay a toll if it means a faster journey and escaping significant freeway congestion.  But commuting and congestion decrease during recessions, and the HOT revenue projections did not take into account an economic downturn.  Incorporating more realistic employment and commuting assumptions will reveal less single-occupancy vehicle demand for the HOT lanes, and thus less revenue.  Moreover, incorporating realistic cost assumptions further undercut those lower projected revenues.  Extending the construction schedule, as well as adding in right-of-way and other costs not properly accounted for (or not accounted for at all) in prior estimates adds approximately $1.4 billion to the project costs.  This is hardly a surprising development, as MTC has an ostensible penchant for under-reporting project costs.

In light of the lower projected revenue, higher projected costs, and legislative issues, it’s clear the current approach is not working.  MTC is now beginning to formulate an alternative approach to authorize at least an initial core subset of its treasured HOT lane network.  First, the plan will have to be downsized.  One possibility is pictured above — a network of 460 lane miles, priced at a cost of $3 billion.  This smaller network focuses on especially important segments of I-80, U.S. 101, I-580, I-680, and I-880.  Click here to compare it to the full network previously adopted as part of the RTP.

But without AB 744, how would even a more minimal HOT lane network be authorized?  There is an alternative path that could be pursued, by making use of Assembly Bill 798.  AB 798 authorizes the California Transportation Commission to approve applications for up to two HOT facilities in Northern California, provided that those applications are filed before the end of 2011.  And as for the revenue bonds?  The bill also creates a new governmental entity, the California Transportation Financing Authority, which can grant regional agencies like MTC the authority to issue revenue bonds for certain transportation projects, like the HOT network, that are backed by toll revenue.

MTC may ultimately choose to pursue a variant of this approach.  If so, it will need to finalize an application to submit to CTC in 2011.  There is no firm plan yet, but this is something else to keep an eye on.

This morning, the BART Board of Directors unanimously supported Alternative 2B as the preferred alignment and certified the the Program EIR.  Although BART to Livermore has been discussed as a possibility for decades, today’s vote puts the project closer than ever to being a reality.  Still, a great deal of difficult work remains, not the least of which is funding.

Alternative 2B is an 11.3-mile extension, projected to attract (for whatever the number is worth) 31,900 riders.  Not surprisingly, then, it is also identified as the “environmentally superior” alternative in terms of air quality and reducing vehicle miles traveled, particularly in the congested Interstate 580 corridor.  It includes two stations: one in downtown Livermore, and another at Vasco Road.  Here is a map of the alignment (click here for a larger PDF):

BART to Livermore, Alternative 2B. Courtesy of BART.

Under Alternative 2B, tracks would be extended east of BART’s current Dublin/Pleasanton terminus along the median of Interstate 580, and then would go into a trench at the Isabel interchange.  There would be a cut-and-cover subway under Portola Avenue and Junction Avenue, with a new subway station in downtown Livermore, as in Alternative 3.  East of downtown, the tracks would resurface and basically follow the Alternative 2A alignment parallel to the Union Pacific right-of-way, heading toward a surface Vasco Road station to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.  Both the downtown and Vasco Road stations connect to existing ACE stations, and could facilitate an intermodal transfer with upgraded intercity rail in the Altamont corridor.  A yard and shop would also be constructed east of Vasco Road.

This alignment is notable for breaking the historic pattern of confining the BART right-of-way to freeway medians.  Although Alternative 2B does include several miles of running in the freeway median, the decision to turn the tracks south of the freeway towards downtown demonstrates an evolving understanding of the role BART could and should play in the region.  Rather than simply choosing the path of least resistance along the freeway to shorten suburban commutes, Alternative 2B strives to extract more long-term value from an expensive project.  Alternative 2B could more satisfactorily accommodate transit-oriented development — including the 11,550 housing units that would have to be planned near extension station areas — without disturbing Livermore’s urban growth boundary.  Station sitings near downtown and the laboratory are perhaps the most natural choices, in that they give riders easy access to local destinations and convenient transfer points to intercity rail.

Of course, none of that comes cheaply, and Alternative 2B would be the most expensive of the bunch.  Preliminary estimates peg the cost at $3.83 billion.  It is a hefty chunk of change to extend heavy rail to a suburb with less than 100,000 people — although the Altamont connection would also put Central Valley riders within one transfer of many Bay Area destinations.  It will take a lot of time and effort to secure the diverse portfolio of funding needed to construct the extension.  $95 million is available to preserve right-of-way in this corridor, but many other sources will also have to be considered — including federal New Starts, potential revenue from high-occupancy toll lanes on Interstate 580, and future re-authorization of Alameda County’s Measure B sales tax.

The greenhouse gas targets are expressed in terms of percentage per capita reduction from 2005 levels.  Here are the draft targets:

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¹ San Joaquin Valley counties (Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Merced, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and Tulare) were assigned a collective target.

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The first column of numbers represents MPO projections of what might be achieved in each region by 2020, under currently prevailing regional transportation plans.  The second column is ARB’s draft target, expressed for now as a range.  The third column represents a best guess as to the reductions that are possible by 2035.  At this point in time, though, there is an insufficient technical foundation to produce serious 2035 estimates.  It’s a work in progress.

How did ARB arrive at these numbers, and what should we make of them?  Probably not too much at this point, as they are just preliminary.  But they offer, if nothing else, insight into the upcoming challenges posed by SB 375.

The chart clarifies that ARB has analytically divided California into three groups: (1) the “Big Four” urban MPOs, (2) the San Joaquin Valley, and (3) the six smaller MPOs (Butte, Monterey Bay Area, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Shasta, and Tahoe Basin).

Not much is expected of the six smaller MPOs at this point, since they have limited resources and oversee less populated regions.  For these MPOs, ARB did not propose a distinct target range as it did for the Big Four and the San Joaquin Valley.  Instead, the target will based on current greenhouse gas projections, updated to take into account the effects of the economic recession and any other reductions that may be realized.  This is basically a shortcut — and it’s not unexpected, given that these regions collectively only account for about 5% of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) statewide.  They are also expected to grow slowly.

It’s no surprise that ARB has preferred instead to concentrate its energies on the Big Four — MTC, SCAG, SACOG, and SANDAG — the regions that generate about 87% of VMT.  But beyond meeting greenhouse gas targets, SB 375 is about building better cities.  The Big Four include the majority of California’s largest cities, their established transit networks, and countless infill opportunities to house the state’s future population near transit and employment.  The Big Four have worked collaboratively in this process by modeling different future scenarios and studying how they reduce transportation emissions.  ARB’s 5 to 10% draft target for the Big Four reflects this initial analysis.  The 2035 ranges are taken directly from the MPOs as scenario outputs.  In addition to the 2035 ranges listed in the table, SCAG was the only agency to suggest an actual target for 2035 (5 to 6% reduction).  But as mentioned above, these numbers are too rough to be taken at face value.

And what are we to make of the 1 to 7% reduction target for the San Joaquin Valley?  We might as well just come out and say it.  Nobody really knows what to do about the Valley.  There are opportunities to do good land use planning there, particularly in downtown districts that will be served by high-speed rail.  For instance, Fresno — California’s fifth largest city, with about a half-million residents — was able to project some reductions, by analyzing scenarios that included bus rapid transit and increased density on mixed use corridors.  But other parts of the Valley have projected increases in emissions, which we know we don’t want.  And that is, more or less, the sentiment that is captured in the 1 to 7% reduction target.  A reduction of 1% might not be ambitious, but at least it’s not an increase.  Given the unique challenges in the Valley, more analysis is needed to pin down a suitable target.  I would only note that an anti-sprawl campaign in California cannot be deemed truly successful unless it addresses the rapid, unchecked growth of sprawl  in the Valley.

ARB’s draft targets are basically a consolidation of the collaborative work that the agency has done thus far with California’s MPOs.  But that is not the end of the story.  This summer presents a key opportunity for MPOs to refine their technical work before the fall deadline.  As they do so in the coming weeks, these draft target ranges will ideally be honed into more precise ambitious-yet-achievable targets.

VTA seeks a $900 million federal contribution toward the $2.1 billion Berryessa extension.  The ROD qualifies VTA to move forward in the process, and the next step is to execute a Full Funding Grant Agreement (FFGA) in February 2011, which would allow VTA to obtain the federal funding it needs to build the project.  Construction could begin in 2012, and revenue service could commence in 2018.

In a key decision on April 20, the Oakland City Council unanimously approved Oakland’s segment of the LPA, which comprises the great majority of the full BRT route.  Oakland’s LPA includes dedicated median transitways on Telegraph Avenue (south of the Berkeley city limit to 20th Street) and on East 14th Street (south of 14th Avenue to the San Leandro city limit), with some shared and mixed flow lanes in Eastlake and along Broadway in downtown Oakland.

On May 17, the San Leandro City Council also approved its own segment of the project LPA.  The San Leandro LPA  proceeds south of the Oakland city limit, featuring dedicated lanes and station platforms in the median of East 14th Street as far south as Sunnyside Drive, where it transitions to mixed curbside operation for the southernmost segment of the route, then terminating at San Leandro BART station.

Berkeley, naturally, went its own direction.  On April 29, the Berkeley City Council fell short of endorsing the build alternative in Berkeley.  With Councilmember Max Anderson absent from that meeting, the resolution failed as 4 pro-BRT votes were matched by 2 votes against the project and 2 abstentions.  Berkeley’s rejection of full-build was accompanied by adoption of a diluted LPA, which discards the dedicated transit lanes and replaces them with mixed curbside operation and potential queue jump lanes.  The lack of dedicated lanes, when taken in combination with other proposed non-BRT changes (mainly converting one-way streets near the University campus to two-way operation), could transform the Berkeley portion of the route into a slow, unreliable northern appendage — hampering reliability on the rest of the line, despite dedicated facilities in Oakland and San Leandro.

This split of support among the three cities — exacerbated by the revelation that AC Transit might eliminate 1R rapid bus service north of downtown Oakland to close its current budget deficit — created fresh concern about what the next step should be for BRT.  Despite staff including 1R truncation as one potential measure to address the budget, AC Transit prefers to preserve the full 1R route.  Still: would Berkeley’s refusal to accept dedicated lanes accordingly deprive Temescal and North Oakland of the transit, pedestrian, and bicycle improvements that would accompany the full-build BRT?  Would AC Transit instead reduce the scope of the BRT project by cutting it off at MacArthur BART, or even downtown Oakland?

There has been an encouraging and re-energizing development this week.  Berkeley Councilmember Anderson, who was not present at the April 29 meeting, has indicated that he would support full BRT.  Councilmember Arreguín, who abstained on April 29, has also indicated that he would support full BRT.  If so, the 4-4 vote on April 29 would become a 6-3 vote endorsing BRT.  The agenda has not yet been set as of the time of this writing, but the current plan is for Berkeley to revisit BRT at its June 22 meeting.

The AC Transit Board of Directors intended to adopt an LPA for the whole project on June 9, incorporating the local preferences of the three cities.  However, the Board continued the item and delayed its decision on BRT until June 23, just one day after the Berkeley meeting.  This will give the Berkeley City Council an opportunity to reverse its prior decision.  The way forward is not crystal clear if that vote gets delayed, or if Berkeley insists on substantial changes, but the process should be straightforward if Berkeley promptly approves the build alternative on June 22.

BRT will be a stronger, more reliable, and more heavily patronized project if it includes dedicated transit facilities in all three cities.  The Berkeley Councilmembers are encouraged to join their colleagues in Oakland and San Leandro by approving the build alternative.

In light of the connection between Senate Bill 375 and AB 32, a blog reader wrote in with a question, asking whether suspension of AB 32 would also require suspending SB 375.  I believe that even if AB 32 is suspended, it should not be necessary to also suspend SB 375.  Supposing that other readers might be interested in this question, I have added the question and a more detailed answer to the SB 375 page — you can click here to jump straight to discussion of the AB 32 question.

One particular characteristic of the Bay Area is its expensive real estate market.  This creates an imbalance of housing and jobs at the regional scale, thereby generating interregional commutes from Central Valley cities like Tracy and Manteca, where upwards of 70% of residents commute to Bay Area jobs.  Higher relative household incomes in the Bay Area also diminish sensitivity to user fees and other changes in price — though we shouldn’t forget that in the Bay Area, as elsewhere, higher gas prices in 2008 noticeably increased transit ridership.

In order to get a sense of what an ambitious GHG target would be for the Bay Area, MTC has relied primarily on aggressive pricing and land use assumptions.  In light of the region’s comparably higher household income level, MTC modeled a pricing assumption much more ambitious than those employed by its peers in the “Big Four”: a 460% increase in the cost of automobile use.  This translates to an automobile usage cost of over $1.15 (2009 dollars) per mile driven in 2035.  That cost increase incorporates new revenue sources, particularly congestion pricing, increased parking charges, and a carbon tax.  It can be difficult to gather political support for these types of measures, particularly in the current economic downturn — but it also seems clear that we will need to turn to these revenue sources in the future.  Their inclusion in this model is therefore appropriate.

MTC also modeled land use assumptions that are much more aggressive than current projections.  These assumptions decrease the population at the fringe of the Bay Area (particularly in Solano and Contra Costa counties), and they correspondingly increase the population of the urban core — including a 22% increase in San Francisco’s population above existing, already optimistic projections.

These assumptions translate into the following per capita GHG reductions (compared to 2005):

• Implementing the Bay Area’s most recent Regional Transportation Plan yields GHG reductions of 5% by 2020 and 3% by 2035.
• Adding either land use or pricing assumptions to the RTP yields GHG reductions of 7% by 2020 and 10% by 2035.
  
• Adding both land use and pricing assumptions to the RTP yields GHG reductions of 10% by 2020 and 12% by 2035.

Other scenarios were considered as well, but the bottom line is that the 12% figure represents the current ambitious target for Bay Area GHG reduction by the year 2035.  It is questionable whether this target is achievable in light of its aggressive underlying assumptions.  Nonetheless, inputting less aggressive assumptions into more robust models could potentially yield more reduction than anticipated.  This preliminary analysis suggests that there is room for the Bay Area to achieve a more ambitious target that goes beyond business as usual.  An ambitious GHG target presents an excellent opportunity for the Bay Area to develop a Sustainable Communities Strategy that demonstrates the benefits of coupling infrastructure investments with creative land use and pricing strategies.

Cal/EPA and ARB in Sacramento.
Courtesy of Capitol Weekly.

In Senate Bill 375, the Legislature required the State Air Resources Board (ARB) to establish regional targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in California attributable to vehicles and light duty trucks.  ARB will release draft GHG targets by June 30, 2010, and will continue to cooperate with the state’s metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) throughout the summer to refine those targets to meet the final deadline of September 30, 2010.  ARB is authorized to select an appropriate metric, and the agency has so far favored a percent per capita GHG reduction from 2005 levels as its preferred metric for expressing the targets.

SB 375 gives MPOs the opportunity to suggest their own recommended regional targets to ARB.  ARB will certainly consider that input, but it is not bound to adopt those recommendations.  MPOs throughout California have mobilized, analyzing different land use and transportation scenarios that could reduce GHG emissions in their respective regions.  There will be opportunity to carry out this analysis using more robust models in the future.  For now, the goal is simply to get a sense of what scale of emissions reduction we can expect to see from regions throughout the state.  What level of reduction would be ambitious, and what level of reduction would be merely achievable?  What are the ideal targets that are ambitious, yet still achievable?  Should the goal be to have every region in California meet its regional target right away, to help generate broader support for SB 375 — or would that require setting the bar too low, thus undercutting the urgency of addressing climate change?  Would it instead be better to reward regions that are interested in setting ambitious GHG reduction goals for themselves?  To what extent should the economic downturn be taken into account when setting the interim draft target, for the year 2020?  ARB must consider these difficult questions, among others, as it works towards the fast-approaching June 30 deadline.

The Challenge of Regional Differences

The complexity of ARB’s task is compounded by the multitude of on-the-ground conditions present in regions throughout the state.  The area of land governed by California’s MPOs accounts for approximately 98% of the population and 97% of GHG emissions.  These regional governments oversee a tremendously varied terrain, including large cities, mild-mannered suburbs, tiny populated pockets, agricultural land, and scenic open space.  But the premise of SB 375 — that pursuing efficient land use patterns near transit will reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and GHG emissions — is a strategy based on an essentially urban experience.  There is good sense to that: the urban areas generate more VMT.  In 2005, VMT in most of California (excluding a few counties lacking data) was 830 million on a weekday, and almost 87% of that total was attributable to the Southern California, Bay Area, San Diego, and Sacramento regions.

Yet for however much SB 375 may seem to be a directive issued primarily at California’s major cities, the bill’s promise and eventual legacy lies in how it will influence emerging cities whose unsustainable growth patterns helped make the case for SB 375 in the first place.  The Central Valley, a region whose fast growth has been fueled by proliferating sprawl, emphasizes why SB 375 is needed.  Indeed, one plausible approach for setting targets is to place the most ambitious requirements on those regions that are projected to experience the most growth — in order to maximize the amount of new growth around the state that is leveraged to serve SB 375′s goal of VMT reduction.  But if the Central Valley embodies the promise of SB 375, it likewise illustrates the challenge of setting GHG reduction targets that take into account each region’s on-the-ground realities.

An alternative approach is to assign more conservative targets to the San Joaquin Valley and smaller MPOs.  The necessary backbone of VMT reduction is the regional transit network — but these areas of the state currently have weak transit systems and may experience significant difficulty procuring the funding to significantly improve service and infrastructure in the near term.  The requirement that a Sustainable Communities Strategy be consistent with prevailing fiscal constraints prevents regions from making unrealistic assumptions about how much funding for transit will be available.  Limitations on an MPO’s ability to expand its transit network may correspondingly limit the magnitude of achievable GHG reduction.

Interregional trips also pose a challenge.  These are the trips that start and/or end in a different region from the home region, and they often reflect the long commutes made necessary by a regional housing/jobs imbalance — one of the problems that SB 375 seeks to mitigate.  A particular instance of this problem is Kern County, which is situated between Fresno and Los Angeles.  Because of this location, about 30% of Kern travel is actually straight through the county, where trips both begin and end outside of Kern.  These travel patterns create a significant category of GHG emissions beyond Kern’s control.  Those emissions could be omitted from a regional target, or they could potentially could be addressed by pursuing an interregional Sustainable Communities Strategy (a provision in SB 375 that is special to the San Joaquin Valley).  Other categories of interregional travel including trips that begin or end in another state or country, reserved tribal lands, or a military base.  In addition to interregional trips, another obstacle in Kern County is the growth of distinctly rural sources of employment, including prisons, the military, and the Tehachapi Pass wind farm.  These jobs generate long commutes from Kern’s most natural urban infill center in Bakersfield.

The particular on-the-ground challenges that Kern County and other parts of the Central Valley bring to the target-setting process emphasize the importance of California’s high-speed rail project, which, while distinct from SB 375, may nonetheless prove critical in realizing SB 375′s vision.  High-speed rail would finally provide the Central Valley with the much-needed high-quality transit spine that California has lacked, thus capturing some interregional trips and reducing the magnitude of GHG emissions that are beyond the control of counties like Kern.  High-speed rail also presents the best opportunity to transform Valley downtowns into true mixed-use transit hubs that can attract new investment.

The purpose of this post was to illustrate, certainly not exhaustively, a few of the many factors that play into the complex process of setting draft GHG targets.  In the next post, we take a look at what initial work has been done toward setting a draft target for the Bay Area.

Sprawl in Rocklin, CA, outside of Sacramento. Courtesy of Flickr user neighborhoods.org.

I’ve written before about Senate Bill 375, California’s recently enacted anti-sprawl land use planning law, on this blog, but the bill passed back in 2008.  Since it’s been awhile, a refresher seemed in order.  Towards that end, I’ve written a new blog page, which goes into some detail explaining the various provisions and requirements of the bill. This page is purposely designed to address the legislation in the abstract — from the statewide perspective, rather than focusing on the Bay Area or any single region.  My hope is that readers will find this feature to be a useful, approachable, and interesting introduction to the legislation, which will play an important role in regional planning throughout California.

Regional governments have been actively working in recent months with the State Air Resources Board (ARB) on SB 375, and they will continue to do so in the upcoming months.  The legislation requires that ARB release its draft targets for regional greenhouse gas reductions in just about a month, by June 30, 2010.  In order to select suitable targets by the June 30 deadline, ARB has been exchanging technical information with regional governments.  ARB will release final targets later this year, by September 30, 2010.  Over the next few years, regional governments in California will then strive to understand and implement the many new requirements that SB 375 places on the planning of housing and transportation at the regional level, with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and achieving ARB’s regional targets.

In the near future, I hope to include further discussion on this blog of SB 375, including SB 375 planning efforts specific to the Bay Area.  I will soon set up a separate page dedicated to local work on SB 375 and create an entry on the sidebar.  To begin though, a detailed look at the bill’s requirements in the abstract seemed appropriate.  Click here to read the SB 375 page, and a link will soon be added to the sidebar for future reference.

The Car-Free Challenge is also a great way to show support for TransForm.  Although this organization has gained notoriety in the past year by charging forward in the campaign to oppose the Oakland Airport Connector, they have being doing important land use, transportation, and climate change advocacy for years now — certainly at the local and regional level, and more recently at the state level, including legislative efforts and work with the State Air Resources Board.  TransForm puts in a lot of time to make the Bay Area a better place, and they are well worth your support.  Participating in the Car-Free Challenge is a great way to do just that.

To get you in the mood to leave the car at home, TransForm provided this entertaining YouTube video:

Finally — and I do realize the irony of tacking this to the end of a post about going car-free — but just in case you’ve been stuck in a cave the past few months, Muni’s planned service cuts go into effect starting today, May 8, 2010.  There are a separate set of temporary service changes (including bus substitution) associated with the St. Francis Circle rail replacement project, and those changes also start May 8.  If you have not done so already, you can avoid unpleasant surprises by planning ahead.  Please take a moment to study all the service changes.