Here are three Streetsblog news nuggets to start your weekend.
San Antonio celebrates advocacy efforts to get a BART station
Some 50 advocates joined the San Antonio Station Alliance (SASA) Thursday evening at a venue on 14th Avenue for beer, pizza, and to plan for the future. "We're still fighting for this project," said Ben Matlaw, one of the founders of the advocacy group. As Streetsblog readers may recall, the alliance wants BART to add a station between Lake Merritt and Fruitvale at 14th Avenue. This would serve the dense neighborhoods of Rancho San Antonio and, with the addition of a bridge over the rail yards and 880, the new Brooklyn Basin development on the estuary, with its 3,000 homes.
The group is also working for safer streets. Representatives of neighborhood groups that installed speed bumps and other measures to calm streets joined the event. Also there: deputies for Councilmember Rowena Brown and Assemblymember Mia Bonta.
Matlaw and Sara Rowley, a school teacher and another volunteer with SASA, both reminded people that getting a BART station is going to take a sustained, multi-year effort, but things are moving forward and the project is getting lots of press. Find out more at https://www.sanantoniostation.net/
Meanwhile, Matlaw reminded people at the meeting that a good antidote to doom-scrolling and stressing out about national events is to get involved in local issues, such as adding the station. "Let's fight for this together," he said.
Super advocate Mike Swire keeps seat on San Mateo committee
The San Mateo County Transportation Authority (SMCTA) board voted Thursday evening 4-2 to re-appoint Mike Swire to the Community Advisory Committee (CAC). Swire has been a force-of-nature in the county for ending pointless freeway widenings. Because of that, car-brained San Bruno Mayor Rico Medina and South San Francisco Councilman Mark Nagales were trying to get him off the CAC. But advocates came out in force to support Swire.
From Swire's thank-you email to advocates:
WE won 4-2 as I was re-appointed for a full three-year term to the SMCTA Community Advisory Committee. There was plenty of drama, but in the end Supervisor Noelia Corzo, Supervisor Jackie Speier, Millbrae Mayor Anders Fung, and East Palo Alto Councilman and Board Chair Carlos Romero supported me. San Bruno Mayor Rico Medina and South City Councilman Mark Nagales opposed me. Belmont Mayor Julia Mates abstained.
"It's great to win," added Swire. "but it's even greater to see the community turn out for me and the larger cause." Read more on KQED's blog.
Caltrain pokes Dodgers. Highlights need for Bay Area network manager
Caltrain decided to throw some shade on the LA Dodgers with a video making fun of that traffic-choked, smoggy city to the south. The video shows two Giant's fans somewhere on the Peninsula who decide to drive to a game instead of taking Caltrain to San Francisco. The San Francisco Caltrain depot, of course, is catty-corner from Oracle Park.
The result of their bad decision: the two baseball fans are magically transformed into Dodgers fans.
It's a fun, silly ad, with an important message reminding people that Caltrain takes riders directly to the stadium, via fast, electric trains (whereas Dodger Stadium in LA is almost 1.5 miles from the nearest train stop, at Chinatown).
However, the ad unintentionally highlights a problem with Bay Area transit management.
Oracle Park also has its own ferry terminal and is well-served by Muni rail too (and it's a seven minute bike ride from the nearest BART station). But the Caltrain ad doesn't show those other transit options. That speaks again to why the Bay Area needs a network manager not just to coordinate schedules and fares, but to unify marketing too. It's kind of silly, after all, to spend public funds on a marketing campaign to only promote one of the four major transit services people take to see the Giants beat the Dodgers.
