Year: 2009

“Gas-Guzzlin” City of San Francisco Spends $25 Million a Year on Fuel (SF Appeal) State Offers Major Tax Breaks to Toyota to Keep the Nummi Fremont Plant Open (SF Gate) MTA’s New Insurance Policy Will Likely Cover Claims in Recent Crashes (SF Gate) Phil Matier in a Huff Over Tickets for Idling Cars in Oakland … Continued

In New York, the standard icon of corporate prestige is a gleaming tower downtown bearing a company's name. Here in the Bay Area, one of the preferred symbols is a sprawling, parking lot-ringed "corporate campus" off US-101 (Google, Yahoo) or I-280 (Apple,) 30 miles or more from the region's densest city. Ironically, though these campuses were designed for convenience, many Silicon Valley employees prefer to reside in San Francisco. As a result, companies have discovered the recruiting value of something transportation planners have long touted: high-quality, car-free transportation.

The Washington lobbying firm of Bonner & Associates is facing protests and a possible wire fraud probe after it was revealed to have forged at least a dozen letters to Congress this summer that claimed to represent local grassroots groups opposed to fighting climate change.

The U.S. DOT is expected to announce today that it has tapped Robert Bertini, a Portland State University professor who headed Oregon's state-wide transport research effort, as the No. 2 at the Research and Innovative Technology Administration -- the government's home for stats on all things transportation.

We talk a lot on this blog about abstractions -- theories of urban development, economic hypotheses, planning paradigms. But in the end, it all has to play out in the real world. And the real world of transportation is about one simple thing: moving your body from one place to another place.

More on Muni COO’s Resignation and Crash Follow-Up from SF Appeal, SF Gate , SF Exam, and ABC7 SF Supes Deny Appeals and Approve Bike Plan EIR (Transbay Blog, KTVU, SF Gate) Caltrain to Accept Translink Cards on August 17th But Some Uncertainties Remain (Oak Trib) BART says Economy to Blame for Drop in Ridership … Continued

MTA Chief Nat Ford sought to assure the MTA Board of Directors today that the agency is taking the appropriate steps to address safety concerns, despite two high-profile crashes in two weeks that he called "disturbing."

The online news outlet Digital City reports that the state of Alabama has banned the sale of Cycles Gladiator wine, produced by California winery Hahn Family Wines because of what it terms an inappropriate label.  Digital City reports:

A $2 billion renewal of "cash for clunkers" is now almost assured, with GOP senators easing up on their threat of a filibuster and one key Democrat remarking that "the statistics [for the program] are much better than everyone thought."