Today’s Headlines

  • BART Gremlin Identified? (EastBayTimes, SFChron, KQED)
  • Alamo Square Set to Open Next Month (Hoodline)
  • Testing Different Types of Safe Hit Posts (Curbed)
  • More on Using Data for Street Design (Govtech)
  • Motorist Altercation with East Bay Bike Party (EastBayTimes)
  • Teachers Still Priced out of SF (SFChron)
  • Tenderloin Development (Socketsite)
  • Shipping Container Homes (SFChron)
  • Commentary: SFMTA Head Supports Vision Zero (SFExaminer)
  • Commentary: Keep SMART Train Affordable (MarinIJ)
  • Commentary: Richmond Bridge Bike Lane Might Slow my Motoring (MarinIJ)

Get state headlines at Streetsblog CA, national headlines at Streetsblog USA

  • John Murphy

    I rely on Streetsblog for some good snark in the headlines. A key opportunity was missed in the Marin IJ article on SMART – the whole article “Don’t price the public out of public transit” complains about the $2 charge to park at the lots.

  • re: SMART…yet another mode of incomplete transit thrown into the Bay Area mix. How long before the Larkspur extension opens? Even then, trains would have to be timed with the ferries. Otherwise, what’s the point?
    It will be interesting to see the percentage of riders whose destination is downtown SF. Clearly, anyone riding points east or south will continue to drive.

  • Gremlin? No: “Dust in the wind”

  • david vartanoff

    When it opens, I will be able to connect from the East Bay via GGT from ECDelNorte. perhaps not as fast as your car, but time to read or snooze.

  • John Murphy

    I doubt that will be a more than trivial use case

  • John Murphy

    Right now traffic from Petaluma to Sir Francis Drake (the exit for the ferry) is complete gridlock from 5:30 AM until 9:30 AM. A lot of those drivers are headed to the ferry. And the amount of gridlock is highly variable an accident could add an hour.

    The complaint that a train rider going to the ferry will have to transfer to the shuttle runs into this counter argument – someone currently driving from Novato to the ferry is already pricing in 20+ minutes into their schedule – beyond “average” traffic in order to make their connection to the ferry. And anyone getting a ferry at 8 AM or later has to price in a 8 or so minute walk from overflow parking as well. So the shuttle transfer isn’t any more penalty than already exists given that the train has a very specific, reliable schedule that US-101 cannot match.

    That population – ferry riders from Novato and Petaluma might switch from drive to ferry to train to ferry (especially in 2 or so years when the Larkspur station opens – it will have a walk penalty but the same walk penalty that already exists for riders after 7:30).

    My friend says “I’ll save money” because when he just misses the ferry, he goes to Peet’s and buys a latte he doesn’t really need.

    This said, the biggest use cases will be people commuting to Civic Center and Airport Business Park, big employment centers with train stations but not near housing and on the opposite side of rough commutes from a lot of their employees. Once the train is running, the empty or underused office space near San Marin will fill up. SMART will actually have an impact in changing the demographics of the North Bay – from a bedroom community to more of an independent center.