Transportation Funding

Members of a broad coalition hailing from throughout California are headed to Sacramento next week to push policymakers to save transit funding and enact sustainable transportation planning reforms.

[Editor's note: This article is re-published with permission from the transit-themed March issue of The Urbanist, the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association's (SPUR) monthly member magazine. The article, written by SPUR Regional Planning Director Egon Terplan, is based on a discussion paper developed by the SPUR Transportation Policy Board. Read the full paper at spur.org/tsp.]

A picture is forming of how the SFMTA might address its budget shortfalls over the next two years. The SFMTA Board of Directors and an advisory panel of community leaders seem to oppose any further fare hikes or service cuts for Muni riders while mostly favoring extending parking meter hours to nights and Sundays -- a politically challenging yet long-overdue measure.

Reliable transit and safer streets in San Francisco and the Bay Area could be crippled by what U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has called "the worst transportation bill [he's] ever seen" making its way through the U.S. House of Representatives.

San Francisco agencies are developing a wide-ranging program to streamline the funding and construction of improvements for walking, bicycling, and transit.

As the SFMTA struggles to provide reliable Muni service, little headway has been made in curbing the amount it spends on staff overtime and work orders issued to other departments.

UPDATED with comments from Sen. Tom Coburn's staff.

A series of amendments proposed by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) to SB 791 would lower the threshold of voter approval for new taxes to fund transportation improvements from 67 percent to 50 percent.

This week, the Safe Routes to School National Conference convenes in Minneapolis, a progressive city determined to become the most bicycle friendly in the nation. But even here, far from the nation’s capital, in a region celebrated for its massive greenway system, drama inside the Beltway has instilled an air of urgency to the event.