Year: 2009

Today on the Streetsblog Network, we've got a powerful demand for safer streets in Florida. Transit Miami has posted an open letter to Florida Governor Charlie Crist and the state's DOT, calling them to account for the lamentable showing the Sunshine State makes in Transportation for America's recent report on pedestrian fatalities, "Dangerous by Design." Here's a taste of what they had to say:

More headlines over at Streetsblog Capitol Hill.

The moment San Francisco bicyclists and advocates have been waiting for for more than three years is expected any day now: a ruling on whether to lift the bike injunction. Despite indications the ordeal could drag on through spring, there is some optimism Judge Peter J. Busch will unlock the legal handcuffs and allow the MTA to go ahead and implement some of the 45 projects before a hearing to determine the adequacy of the EIR.

The San Francisco County Transportation Authority (TA), the city's congestion management agency responsible for modeling transportation and development patterns, has released its new bicycle route data application, Cycle Tracks, for iPhones and GPS-enabled iTunes players at the iTunes store. Like similar applications that give information such as speed and distance traveled, users of the TA app can map their bicycle ride, but the data they collect will be aggregated anonymously in the TA's server so that it can be applied to their SF-CHAMP modeling and travel forecasting tool.

At last month's Rail-Volution conference in Boston, Streetfilms was able to grab a few moments with William Lind, a politically conservative transit advocate. Lind aims to provide "liberal transit advocates" the language to build support for public transportation (okay, just rail) in terms that conservatives can relate to. Some of Lind's arguments don't reflect our views here at Streetfilms, especially his disdain for buses (which we don't cover in this video), but he makes a thought-provoking case for transit investment. Streetsblog readers won't want to miss his critique of highway spending as a massive government intervention.

The climate change bills being considered by Congress treat electric utilities very well, giving more than a third of the revenue generated by CO2 regulation away -- for free -- to power providers. This move pleased coal country Democrats while seeking to lock down benefits for consumers by averting electricity rate hikes.

With the publication of a NextMuni real-time vehicle prediction feed on its website earlier this week, the MTA took an important step from having a policy of open data to actually making data publicly available and usable. It's the latest development in a five-month struggle over who owns Muni arrival time data, and should come as a relief to software developers who have had consistent reassurances from the MTA that they're free to use the data, but haven't had an official means to do so until now.

Chrome Bags has undertaken a new initiative to further root themselves in the local bicycle community that affords them much of their customer base: using bicycle couriers to deliver bags in San Francisco. Starting November 20th, anyone buying a bag in San Francisco by 3 pm will get that bag same-day, delivered by a hot and sweaty Godspeed Courier, at no extra charge. 

In the wake of the 2007 collapse of Minnesota's I-35 bridge, Washington policymakers vowed a renewed focus on repairing the nation's aging infrastructure. But weeks after the fatal collapse, Congress approved a transportation spending bill with 704 earmarked projects, at a total cost topping $570 million -- and just 11 percent of those earmarks went towards bridge repair, according to a new report released today.