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A Decidedly Dim View of Electric Vehicles
Electric Vehicles (EVs) are all the rage these days and the press seems to treat them as a palliative for all that ails our fossil-fuel-driven, automobile-dependent transportation network. The New York Times has fallen in love with Better Place, an electric-car battery maker that seeks to replace much of the U.S. fleet of vehicles with ones that run on electric batteries, which could be changed at battery stations much the way we currently fill up at gas stations.
February 19, 2009
How Many Bikes Would Make a Proper Bike Share Program in San Francisco?
5328 bikes, to be exact.
February 13, 2009
BRT Comes Out Ahead of Light Rail, Again
The debate among policy makers and community stakeholders over the merits of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) versus Light Rail Transit (LRT) is often heated, and usually centers around whether LRT recoups the substantial capital costs of implementation over time versus BRT, and whether BRT has a more substantial carbon impact. Sometimes it can also boil down to a debate over whether buses are sexy enough to get people out of cars and onto transit.
February 10, 2009
The Impending Failure of San Francisco’s Pilot Bike Share Program
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.
January 29, 2009
Paradise LOSt (Part III): California’s Revolutionary Plan to Overhaul Transportation Analysis
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.
January 28, 2009
Drivers Are Running the Red Light at Fell/Masonic, Imperiling Cyclists
Last September, San Francisco's city attorney asked Judge Peter Busch to allow an exemption to the long-standing bicycle injunction so the MTA could improve the city’s second most dangerous intersection for cyclists, where Fell Street meets Masonic Street. Even after the MTA adjusted signalization and gave cyclists a separate green light, cars are running the red light and hitting cyclists.
January 21, 2009