Governor

So Gav made it official yesterday that he's running for Guv by tweeting it to his more than 283,000 followers, announcing it on Facebook, and even running a strange pseudo-article with a lot of donate hyperlinks in the Huffington Post, all of which made a splash among bloggers and traditional media icons.  All the hullabaloo aside, I need convincing on Gav's record on the issues important to this blog.

When the State Transit Assistance (STA) fund was zeroed out to pass the budget a couple of months ago, the already dire situation for transit operators in California became much worse.  In the Bay Area, AC Transit raised fares, the MTA has been considering budget cuts and fare hikes, and BART will likely do the same if its board can get to the discussion at the next meeting. 

Mayor Gavin Newsom yesterday announced one of his most ambitious plans for re-shaping San Francisco, telling reporters at a press conference with Caltrans Director Will Kemption and Caltrain Director Michael Scanlan that the city would move forward with plans to tear down sections of I-280 through San Francisco.  

TransForm tells Streetsblog San Francisco that legislators in Sacramento have prepared draft legislation for how the state should spend federal stimulus money on transportation projects and that there is important advocacy that needs to be done to improve it.  AB X3 20 will be introduced imminently and debated this week. 

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.

In response to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's efforts to gut environmental regulations for highway projects in California, Democratic leaders in the Legislature have unveiled their own green economic stimulus plan.

Governor Schwarzenegger sent a letter Tuesday to President-elect Obama encouraging massive expenditure in the federal stimulus package on a host of projects in California.  The letter comes a month after the governor and president-elect discussed the stimulus package in person: