Transit

A broad coalition of community groups, youth leaders, transit advocates and elected officials called on the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency today to initiate a three-year pilot program to give young people ages 5 to 17 free Muni passes. The program would cost an estimated $7 million a year and result in a 4.6 percent increase in Muni ridership.

In a couple of hours, the House will vote on the transportation extension bill – under unanimous consent rules. That means a single vote in opposition could delay passage.

How much extra would you be willing to pay to live near rail transit?

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is meeting tomorrow to discuss a four-month extension to the current transportation bill, SAFETEA-LU. The map above is from a short but powerful document the Federal Transit Administration put out this week explaining "The Impacts of Failing to Extend Surface Transportation Funding" [PDF]. How much transit work would grind to a halt in your state without an extension?

Tomorrow night, President Obama will unveil his jobs plan before a skeptical Congress. It’s unclear how much of the $300 billion proposal will go to infrastructure, but the president has said that will be a centerpiece of the proposal. An infrastructure bank and a new version of the expired Build America Bonds program could also be on the agenda.

Editor's note: The following op-ed was written by Assemblymember Bob Blumenfield (D-SFV), chair of the Assembly Budget Committee in support of AB 650. Blumenfield's legislation has already passed the Assembly and passed the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday. It needs to pass the full Senate and go back to the Assembly for a concurrence vote before heading to the governor's desk. This piece first appeared in the California Progress Report and is republished here with consent from Blumenfield's office.

There are almost of them 38,000 in Atlanta. Another 65,000 between Dallas and Houston. Nearly 18,000 in Phoenix.

“This is the civil rights dilemma: Our laws purport to level the playing field, but our transportation choices have effectively barred millions of people from accessing it.”

As Deron Lovaas said this morning on NRDC’s Switchboard blog, “If recent events are any indicator, it might take Congress a while to agree on a policy that will put our underfunded, inefficient, oil-dependent transportation program on the right track.”