Cities, Counties, and Countries

Three California counties are considering transportation sales tax initiatives for the upcoming November ballot. Los Angeles Metro just announced its proposed expenditure plan today; Contra Costa is working on a draft proposal, and Santa Clara county has developed a scoresheet to help prioritize potential projects according to agreed-upon goals. Sacramento, Stanislaus, and San Francisco have made some noises about possible sales tax measures as well.

At a packed meeting last night, the Berkeley City Council approved a project to bring a long-delayed bike lane to Fulton Street, the site of a recent collision that seriously injured a cyclist.

San Mateo County's City/County Association of Governments (C/CAG) is leaving an expansion of Highway 101 with new carpool lanes on the table, even after the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) concluded they will jam up with traffic the day they open. If constructed--by 2024 at the earliest--a 14-mile section of the highway from San Bruno to Redwood City would be widened from eight to ten lanes at a cost of up to $250 million.

“Caltrans is prioritizing safety,” says Friday's press release announcing that the bike path on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge will be closed, beginning today, for the entire month of March.

"Induced demand" is the idea that building and widening roads doesn't make traffic better--it makes it worse. Late last year Caltrans finally acknowledged that, yeah, it's probably true that all the work they've been doing for the past few decades has been for naught.

Public transportation becomes less accessible for low-income Peninsula residents and workers this year with fare increases for both Caltrain and SamTrans buses. Caltrain tickets go up by fifty cents on February 28 while SamTrans bus tickets were raised by 25 cents on January 10. Unlike Muni, neither agency offers discounted tickets to transfer between buses or between the train and buses, and neither offers a discount for low-income residents or students.

Want to walk or bike to Super Bowl 50 at Levi's Stadium this Sunday? It won't be easy. The big game's organizers have banned the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition (SVBC) from providing free valet bike parking at the stadium. The City of Santa Clara also agreed on a ten-day closure, from Jan. 31 to Feb. 9, of the San Tomas Aquino Trail for the construction of an entertainment area on the surface parking lot next to the stadium.

As the City of Millbrae inches closer to final approval of plans for new construction at the Millbrae BART/Caltrain Station, officials have quietly proposed adding new traffic lanes and traffic signals to intersections near the station. The traffic expansions aim to cram even more auto traffic through the area, worsening already hazardous conditions for people walking or bicycling to and from the station.

While out with friends last night in West Portal, I mentioned that a cyclist was killed in San Francisco that morning. One of my friends corrected me and said "no, it was San Jose."