Transbay Blog
California
Initial estimates for an ambitious Bay Area GHG target
The “Big Four” among California’s metropolitan planning organizations — SCAG (Los Angeles/Southern California), MTC/ABAG (San Francisco Bay Area), SANDAG (San Diego), and SACOG (Sacramento) — govern regions that feature urban population densities and relatively mature transit networks. Abundant opportunities exist in the urban cores of all four regions to ratchet up the intensity of land … Continue reading
Air Resources Board works to meet June deadline for SB 375 draft GHG targets
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 … Continue reading
New Feature on SB 375
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, … Continue reading
About Face: Governor Signs Gas Tax Swap Legislation, After All
Although Governor Schwarzenegger indicated last week that he planned to veto the the Legislature’s modification of his gas tax swap budget proposal, the Governor did an about face tonight and signed AB X8 6 and AB X8 9 into law. AB X8 6 and AB X8 9 form the pair of budget bills (explained in … Continue reading
Governor Will Veto Gas Tax Swap Legislation
Governor Schwarzenegger has indicated he will veto the legislative measures that would have executed the gas tax swap mechanism, while restoring some of the funding that transit agencies lost when the State zeroed out State Transit Assistance (STA) funds. Agencies throughout California had previously relied on STA to fund transit operations. The Legislature made a … Continue reading
California Legislature Passes Legislation to Restore STA Funding
Actually encouraging news … from Sacramento? Could it be? Dare we hope? The State Legislature, as part of the ongoing state budget effort, has passed a pair of bills, AB X8 6 and AB X8 9, which would establish a tax swap and restore State Transit Assistance (STA) funding, a critical source of money that … 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
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
Trans-Beale Terminal
The California High-Speed Rail Authority’s seemingly favorite question — exactly where should high-speed rail terminate in San Francisco? — has again reared its head. By now, we are accustomed to this agency’s shifting moods — like last year, when then-chairman Quentin Kopp opined that the Transbay Transit Center was not really necessary, and that 4th … Continue reading
“Stranded at the Station”
Transportation for America and the Transportation Equity Network have released a new joint report, Stranded at the Station, that is only a few dozen pages (including colorful pictures) and well worth your time to read. The report, which builds on T4America’s well-circulated maps that compile transit budget crunches from around the nation, clarifies the perverse … Continue reading
Subscribe
Links
If you are interested in California water issues, you may want to check out my other blog on that topic.
Copyright © 2007-2021 Transbay Blog.
Transbay Blog 