SFMTA

Roberto Hernandez, the "Monarch of the Mission," didn't put down the microphone when his two minutes were up. Heavy set, with his trademark fedora, he had already gone several minutes past the cut-off alarm, shouting about how someone with seven children can't possibly ride the bus, reminiscing about riding a bike before there were bike lanes in San Francisco, and generally cursing SFMTA and the Mission Street transit-only "red lanes" that he connected with the ills of gentrification. At least, that seemed to be what he was saying, in addition to something about lowriders. It was difficult to understand, thanks to all the boos, hisses, and cheers, with roughly half the crowd shouting, "your two minutes are up!" or "cut off his mic" and the other half shouting, "Let him speak!"

This morning from 7 to 10 am BART officials, consultants, and even a legislative aide for Supervisor John Avalos's office answered questions and heard comments from the public about plans to modernize Balboa Park Station, one of the busiest in both BART and Muni's networks.

Last April, businesses on Mission Street started to gain some traction in pushing against SFMTA's "red carpet" bus-only lanes, which they claim—contrary to the available evidence, it should be noted—are hurting their bottom line. The result: Supervisor David Campos asked the SFMTA to "make a radical shift in the program," as he put it in a Facebook post.

As Facebook prepares to expand its West Campus in San Mateo County, it is presenting environmental reports to groups such as the Menlo Park Transportation Commission. Commissioner Adina Levin brought this to Streetsblog's attention from the report: apparently more Facebook employees started driving in the past couple of months to the social media giant's headquarters in Menlo Park. From a post by Levin in the Friends of Caltrain Blog entitled "San Francisco shuttle changes increase car traffic:"

Wednesday afternoon SPUR sponsored a discussion about the previous day's election and what it could mean for the Bay Area. The panel consisted of Alex Clemens of Barbary Coast Consulting and David Latterman of Fall Line Analytics. It was attended by some seventy people, with at least ten more standing in the back.

Election day is a good time for a discussion about a recent Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) study that seems to show that Bay Area residents are using their transit choices to, in effect, vote for rail, ferry, and ride-hailing, but not for more buses. From an East Bay Times look at the study:

Thursday, SFMTA joined several agencies at the Bay Area 2040 open house in Oakland. One of the projects presented was the M-Ocean View improvement plan. As the Examiner reported today, SFMTA is now leaning towards an all-underground option, with a tunnel stretching from West Portal to Parkmerced. This project, at around $3 billion, would re-align the M-Ocean View to the west of 19th Ave. and put it in a tunnel. Ostensibly, the project's objective is to increase capacity and the speed of the trains to better serve SF State and the burgeoning community of Parkmerced.

Who says you can’t have everything?

San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee released his 455-page budget proposal on Tuesday. It includes $9.6 billion in fiscal year 2016-17  for transportation, police officers, and street cleaning, a $700 million increase in funds. The fiscal year runs from July 1 of this year until June 30 of next year.