Matthew Roth

A $5.5 billion discretionary fund for transit projects is in danger of being handed over to the highway lobby by Senators James Inhofe, Kit Bond, and Max Baucus.  Inhofe you will recall is the former Chair of the Senate Environmental and Public Works (EPW) Committee who boasted in 2005, "I called the threat of catastrophic global warming the 'greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,' a statement that, to put it mildly, was not viewed kindly by environmental extremists and their elitist organizations."

A spirited debate broke out a few weeks back on the Car-free Living listserv run by Livable City about the merits of car sharing. Does it reduce driving and car ownership or increase the impetus to drive among the car-free? One poster who didn't own his own car called car-sharing a gateway drug that encouraged him to increase the number of times he uses a vehicle for all manner of trips, while others argued that VMT is reduced when fewer people own their own cars and share more.

Lest it appear that Streetsblog doesn’t support bike-sharing in San Francisco, I should say from the outset that I love the successful bike-sharing programs that I’ve used, believe they are one of the more innovative new transit models available, and know that San Francisco is ripe for the roll-out of a large-scale program of its own.  But I am also among the large majority of Americans that Republican Pollster Frank Luntz found support infrastructure improvements and believe getting the job done right is more important than ribbon cutting and shovel readying.

Transportation consultants and planners associated with the San Francisco Transportation Authority's (TA) ATG working group sent excited bursts of email to each other earlier this month about a new development coming from the state Office of Planning and Research (OPR), the body responsible for writing and amending the CEQA guidelines related to transportation and traffic.  The OPR had adopted much of the spirit of the working group's recommendations and proposed an amendment (PDF) to CEQA guidelines that de-emphasized LOS and indicated that it would be much better to use measures for vehicle miles traveled (VMT) reductions such as ATG.

For the C-SPAN junkies out there, watch the live discussion in the House about the merits of the Stimulus Plan.  As Streetsblog NYC reports, New York Rep Nadler and Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio have delivered their testimony for the Nadler amendment (PDF). Rules Chair Louise Slaughter and committee members Matsui, McGovern, and Diaz-Balart responded very favorably. They'll be hearing about a few more amendments before holding any vote.

One of the unintended consequences of San Francisco’s bicycle injunction, which Rob Anderson and fellow NIMBYs will likely rue for some time to come, is the arduous thought and labor that advocates and professional planners have invested in doing away with LOS all together.  

NACTO Action Alert

The idea that the speed and free-flow of cars is the proxy that is being used across the state of California to measure whether a project is [environmentally] impactful is in the long run undermining the very quality of life [we] are working to protect.

Potrero hill merchant Joel Bleskacek came up with a clever solution in 2003 to provide more seating for customers outside of his Ruby Wine Shop and former Scoops ice cream parlor on 18th Street. He built simple wooden benches edging the tree trunks in front of his businesses, allowing his customers to linger and enjoy the public realm.

Though Superior Court Judge Peter J. Busch ruled the MTA will not get an immediate exemption to the bike injunction to remove the eastbound segment of the bike lane at Market and Octavia because he didn’t think an “adequate case has been made that there's a public safety crisis,” when the hold on the bike plan is lifted as early as this spring, the agency will likely try to remove the lane anyway.