Transbay Blog
Eric
Killing Muni Softly: End of FY10 Budget Scramble
In December 2009, the San Francisco MTA implemented sweeping changes to Muni service that affected more than half of the routes in the system. The changes redrew routes, renumbered routes, eliminated a few routes, eliminated some route segments, and even added some service. While those changes have not been completely successful in all aspects, we … Continue reading
High-Speed Rail Stimulus Grants Announced
After almost a year of anticipation throughout the United States, the recipients of the discretionary high-speed rail stimulus grants have finally been announced, to time with President Obama’s State of the Union address. California has been especially excited by the opportunity to obtain much-needed federal money to add to the portfolio of funds that will … Continue reading
OAC Judgment Day is Postponed, But Draws Near
Groundhog Day came a couple days early this year. Yesterday, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission faced yet another contentious meeting regarding the BART Oakland Airport Connector. And the Commission faced a remarkably similar question to that which it faced almost one year ago. This time, though, the stakes were higher. Last year, BART promised to MTC … Continue reading
FTA Holds Back on BART OAC Funding
After months of disheartening news in 2009 in which agency after agency rubber-stamped BART’s ill-conceived Oakland Airport Connector project, it was welcome news to learn that the Federal Transit Administration decided to withhold $70 million of ARRA stimulus funding, which BART needs to build the OAC. This announcement comes just a few months after Public … Continue reading
An Open Letter to the Green Governor
To Governor Schwarzenegger: It’s quite clearly the case, Green Governor, that we need to fix California’s transit systems, which are broke and breaking. Under-served areas had critical lifeline service put to the chopping block, but climate change demands that we reduce vehicle miles traveled statewide. Killing the gas sales tax and raising the excise tax … Continue reading
Gearing Up for Livermore and Altamont (Part 1)
Residents of Livermore are fond of reminding us every so often that there is an outstanding “debt” to their city. They remind us that they have been paying BART taxes since the district’s beginning, and and that they have been waiting patiently for decades for the construction of their long-promised and past overdue BART extension. … Continue reading
BART Sets Ridership Record During Bay Bridge Closure
A quick remark on the slow posting around here lately: I am now in the middle of a several-week period of time that has been one of the personal busiest and most stressful periods in recent memory. There are several posts and news developments that I have been wanting to write about, but there has … Continue reading
Upcoming Meetings in San Leandro
The exact fate, scope, and timing of AC Transit’s bus rapid transit project is now up in the air, since AC Transit announced it would like to divert some of the project’s funding toward operations. Nonetheless, the planning work that has been underway for BRT still continues — so that the project can be built … Continue reading
Vallejo and Benicia Work Toward Transit Consolidation
Vallejo Transit. Courtesy of munidave. If Bay Area transit is balkanized — and with so many operators serving a single region, one is on safe ground in saying that it is — then Solano County may be its most fragmented quarter. In San Francisco, the SFMTA’s service area includes about 800,000 residents; and in the … Continue reading
Oakland City Council Supports Airport Connector, With Conditions
Last night, the Oakland City Council voted on two meaty, controversial transportation topics back-to-back. First up was the parking meter fee controversy. Parking meter fees were rolled back from 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on a 6-1 vote, and billboard revenue would be used toward filling the budget shortfall that has been reintroduced with the … Continue reading
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If you are interested in California water issues, you may want to check out my other blog on that topic.
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