Today’s Headlines

  • Delay in Money from State Leaves Muni Scrambling (CBS, BCN via Appeal)
  • Supes Move to Block Muni Bus Ads (Examiner, BCN via Appeal)
  • SFMTA Looking to Raise Taxes to Pay for Muni (KCBS)
  • Muni Streetcar and Bus Collide, Injuring Many (Examiner, Sac Bee, SF Gate, KCBS, CBS)
  • Muni Crash Video Shows Distracted Operator, Some Cameras Fail (Examiner, SF Appeal)
  • Police Make Arrest for Assault of Elderly Woman on Muni Tracks (Examiner)
  • Translink Card Soon to Be Re-Branded as Clipper Cards (Examiner)
  • Newsom Compares Fare-Evasion Enforcement to Whack-a-Mole (Examiner)
  • Muni Diaries Introduces the Urban iPad Camouflage Case
  • Is BART Fare-Cut Proposal Merely Election Year Politics (SF
    Gate    )
  • BART Bathrooms Still Closed as Security Precaution, Says BART (SF
    Weekly    )
  • Caltrain’s Future is Grim (SF Weekly)
  • Caltrain Spokesperson Justifies Taser Incident (ABC)
  • Thieves Hold Up Pedestrians in Berkeley (ABC)
  • Palo Alto to Upgrade to LED Streetlights (Merc)
  • Marin County Gets $6 Million for Bike Paths (Marin IJ)
  • Great Essay on 1930s SF "Blister Butt Bicycle Boys (Bike Davis)
  • Driving While Distracted Penalties Could Go Way Up (NBC, NBC, Merc)

  • So what can we do about Caltrain. If I read Eric’s write-up correctly over at Transbay blog, then the Joint Powers Board doesn’t have the authority to set up a dedicated funding stream.

    Side note on Caltrain, the bike cars are filling up so be prepared. Maybe if we just replaced a couple more cars per train with bike cars, the ridership would keep going up.

  • Mark Simon’s buying the next round — Taser’s all around! Who wants a dart in their arm? Step right up and onto the train!

  • Joseph

    The Caltrain cuts would dramatically affect me and I want to raise awareness of the issue with elected and appointed officials. Who can I write?

    Unless Caltrain riders become noisy, a new funding scheme for Caltrain is much less likely to emerge and become successful.

  • It’ll kill me too. Look up the BayRail Alliance.

    http://bayrailalliance.org/

    They have a list of officials I believe.

  • Joseph

    Thanks Mike. I’m thinking it would be most constructive to focus efforts on state and congressional representation here (for me: Leno, Ma, Pelosi) since I’m assuming state or federal intervention may be necessary (?) to change the funding structure for Caltrain.

    Also, I don’t see the MTC or Association of Bay Area Governments listed on the Bayrail alliance website. Might it be constructive to harass them as well? This is a regional issue.

  • MTC should be involved for sure. They might still be trying to get the OAC up and going though. And ABAG would also be a good one.

    Losing Caltrain would devastate me. I’m going to start looking at jobs up in the city in the next couple days, but my skill set really isn’t in high demand with gov’t budgets shrinking.

    Matthew, side note: The time stamps still seem to be pre-day light savings.

  • Joseph

    Ok, since streetsblog has not yet written an article about the caltrain cuts and how the public can help, here’s a list of email addresses for eastside SF people if you feel so inclined. Emailing your supe and the mayor (gavin.newsom@sfgov.org) probably wouldn’t hurt either:

    Tom Ammiano
    Assemblymember.Ammiano@assembly.ca.gov (CA District 13 assembly member)

    Mark Leno
    senator.leno@senate.ca.gov (CA District 3 senator)

    Mark Green
    markg@unioncity.org (ABAG president/regional planning committee chair)

    Steve Heminger
    sheminger@mtc.ca.gov (MTC executive director)

    Nancy Pelosi
    nancy@mail.house.gov

  • Thanks Joseph. I’ll draft a letter up tomorrow.

  • Mike

    I’ll get a letter together as well. I’m in Leno, Ammiano, and Pelosi territory.

    I’ll have to buy a car if this really happens. My commute time would go from about 2 hours door to door to nearly 3 hours if I had to take light rail to VTA to Fremont BART to home. The last non-local out of MV leaves at 7 pm.

    Do they really think we can all dump onto 101 and 280 without having devastating effects to the traffic levels?