Transportation Policy

NACTO Action Alert

The plan proposes reducing carbon dioxide emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels, and relieving freeway congestion by 20 percent below 2006 levels. It outlines a carbon or vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) tax, parking surcharges, congestion tolls, encouraging new residential projects to be built close to jobs, transit, shopping and services; and various bicycle, pedestrian and transit projects.

Amber Hasselbring is the instigator of a lovely effort in San Francisco’s Mission District, aptly named the Mission Greenbelt Project.

The Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, the Independent Living Resource Center and the Senior Action Network launched a new campaign with Supervisor Carmen Chu today to draw attention to illegal sidewalk parking, which is rampant in District 4.  Sidewalks are for Everyone (SAFE) kicked it off with a walking tour of the Sunset, pointing out the numerous dangers not necessarily obvious to able pedestrians, let alone vehicle owners.

In response to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's efforts to gut environmental regulations for highway projects in California, Democratic leaders in the Legislature have unveiled their own green economic stimulus plan.

The Board of Supervisors, in one the first tests of the new progressive bloc, failed to muster a supermajority vote to support an appeal that would have overturned the Planning Commission's approval of a conditional use (CU) permit, which allowed seven more parking spaces than the ratio set in the Market/Octavia Plan for a proposed condominium and commercial development at 299 Valencia Street.

Governor Schwarzenegger sent a letter Tuesday to President-elect Obama encouraging massive expenditure in the federal stimulus package on a host of projects in California.  The letter comes a month after the governor and president-elect discussed the stimulus package in person:

The Municipal Transportation Agency's federally-funded parking experiment, SFPark, is shaping up to be the most powerful tool remaining in the city's traffic-busting toolbox considering the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce's criticism of congestion pricing and Mayor Newsom's recent tempered support for the plan.

Thanks all for reading and commenting on our non-motorized honeymoon travel series (see parts 1, 2, 3 and 4). Below is a table Susan put together to briefly summarize some of our observations on the cities we visited.