Year: 2009

Former Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, who served for eight years in George W. Bush's DOT, sat down with Streetsblog Capitol Hill this week to urge that Congress add a dedicated funding stream of $1 billion each year for transportation technology to the next long-term infrastructure bill.

Anyone who regularly uses a bicycle for transportation in the United States knows the feeling -- the nagging anxiety about what will happen when you arrive at your destination, especially if it's a place you've never been on your bike before. Will there be a place to lock up? Will security guards be helpful or will they hassle you? Will your bike be there when you get back? Or will it be gone -- not stolen by a common thief, but clipped by the building management or by the police?

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Stephen O'Brien has been coaxing an oasis out of a most unlikely environment for a long time: the small green patches at either end of the ground level Mission Street frontage of the Transbay Terminal. He started back in 1958, when the old Key System train tracks that used to bring East Bay electric streetcars to the Transbay Terminal were being torn out. The Transbay Terminal in those days was a crucial commuter hub, bringing passengers from all over the East Bay. If you've ever ridden the F bus from Berkeley to San Francisco, you've ridden on the descendant of the same-lettered streetcar that once transported you from downtown Berkeley to downtown San Francisco just a minute longer than BART does today!

Since Washington's economic recovery debate first began last fall, advocates for greater infrastructure investment have invoked one phrase more often than almost any other: "Every $1 billion spent on transportation creates 47,500 jobs."

This week has brought news of a brewing compromise on the Senate climate change bill, introduced last month amid signals that the upper chamber would give only a bit more to clean transportation than the House's meager 1 percent set-aside of revenue from cap-and-trade carbon regulations.

Tomorrow is the early-registration deadline for Walk San Francisco's fifth annual Peak to Peak Walk, a 12-mile challenge designed give even avid walkers a workout. The fully guided walking tour features some of the city's finest vistas, covering 15 peaks in total, and will help the organization raise money for its pedestrian safety and advocacy work. The walk will begin at West Portal station, starting first with Mt. Davidson and wending its way across the city towards Coit Tower.

A few exciting technology-related items have come over the transom in the past couple of days.