Transit

In a report released this morning, Transportation for America (T4A) expands on its months-long effort to map transit cutbacks across the nation and concludes that 10 of the largest 25 local agencies are being forced to hike fares by more than 13 percent.

BART management and the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 have reached a tentative deal, averting a strike that was scheduled to start at midnight tonight.

BART management and the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 plan to resume talks this afternoon in an effort to avert a Monday strike. 

On Sunday BART workers might strike, throwing Bay Area transportation into chaos. It's a tiny echo of the kind of warfare that used to erupt regularly a century ago on the streetcar lines of San Francisco. 1,500 streetcar men voted to strike for an 8-hour day, leading to "Bloody Tuesday," May 7, 1907, when gunfights exploded between armed guards and men shooting from nearby vacant lots, while strikebreakers housed in United Railroads carbarns opened fire on protesting crowds, killing two and injuring 20. By the time the strike was lost in March 1908, six had been killed in the violence, 250 more hurt, and over two dozen had died in accidents on the system while it was run by scab labor.

As Senator Barbara Boxer works on her upcoming climate change bill, the Senate environment committee chairman is "definitely looking at" a plan to give green transport 10 percent of the revenue generated from carbon emissions caps, according to a new report from BNA's Transportation Watch.

BART riders braced themselves today as word got out that train service will shut down Monday due to a strike. At Montgomery Station in San Francisco, riders expressed mixed feelings about the politics of the strike, but they were unanimous on one thing: the commute is going to be a pain.

For the first time in more than a decade, BART operators and station agents will walk off the job Monday morning in a strike called this afternoon by the president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 155.

The BART Board of Directors voted unanimously today to unilaterally impose terms and conditions of employment on members of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555, which represents up to 900 train operators, station agents and other workers, setting the stage for a potential strike as soon as tomorrow.

It doesn't take much for a car illegally driving in Market Street's transit-only lanes to set Muni vehicles back by an entire stoplight cycle. In fact, it happens all the time, and despite the delay and frustration it causes transit riders and operators, motorists face little risk of getting a ticket.