Year: 2009

"Talk policy points or trade political gossip with Supervisor Eric Mar on this jolly monthly tradition — catch a rocking Richmond District bike bus and roll downtown with Eric and a merry band of D1 velocitizens. Top up your tires and get on the bike bus!"

President Obama today threw his weight behind significant new transportation spending as part of a broad jobs bill taking shape in Congress, with $50 billion slated for transit, roads, bridges, and ports and the administration endorsing "merit-based infrastructure investment that leverages federal dollars."

Lawmakers on the House transportation committee today greeted details of the Obama administration's transit safety plan with approval, but some sounded skeptical notes about the costs of state compliance with new federal rules even as transit agencies cope with billions of dollars in maintenance and repair backlogs.

The Presidio Trust has finished compiling the traffic data it collected during a three-week trial closure on Presidio Boulevard in October, a closure that brought much scorn for the Trust from drivers and some neighbors of the park. Despite the outcry, the trial provided important information for the Trust as the reconstruction of Doyle Drive approaches, according to Trust officials. Trust staff will present the study findings to its board tonight at its monthly meeting, but no action will be taken [PDF].

President Obama will deliver a speech on job creation this morning in Washington, but one tactic that has won over quite a few Democrats of late -- redirecting unspent money from last year's financial bailout to transportation -- may not be as possible as lawmakers had thought.

Today on the Streetsblog Network, we've got the story of some bicyclists who turned out in the bitter cold last weekend to rally for a bike path to be included in the reconstruction of the I-90 Innerbelt Bridge.

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

It wasn't without grumbling, but commuters this morning made it through the biggest changes to Muni's bus network in over 30 years, and the MTA wasn't sent scrambling to fix any huge problems.

As the Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA) continues its regional public hearings, including one tonight in San Francisco, the various options the agency is proposing for increasing bridge tolls are generating a number of debates and proposals, including the funding of the long-discussed pedestrian/bicycle/maintenance paths over the west span of the Bay Bridge.