Transportation News Items

Yee Fights to Save SF-to-LA High Speed Rail

SACRAMENTO – The Senate Transportation and Housing Committee yesterday approved Assembly Bill 3034 to rewrite the $10 billion bond measure set to go before the voters in November to build the state´s high speed rail system, but not before a critical amendment was forced into the bill to protect the main line of the bullet train.

How global warming challenges the old Bay Area assumptions



Repeat after me the first rule of environmental activism: "Think globally, act locally."

But wait. What do we do when global concerns are at odds with what we hold dear at home?

That question hangs over the Bay Area as surely as last week's smoke obscured our skies. The environmental agenda is being redefined by the very real threat of climate change. In the process, some of our basic articles of faith - such as keeping development away from the bays and the hills - could be called into question.

Oakland gets big chunk to fund transit village at MacArthur BART station



OAKLAND — A development project aimed at revitalizing the neighborhood around the MacArthur BART station won approval for millions of dollars in state funding last week.

The MacArthur Transit Village is a development proposal to create 624 new units of housing, 20 percent of which will be set aside as affordable rental units. It also includes a 400-space parking garage and new commercial space.

BRT Hits A Bumpy Road At Planning Commission



Declaring that Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) “looks to me like a huge development scheme,” Berkeley Planning Commissioner Patti Dacey said she couldn’t cast a vote without more information about its potential impacts.

But for fellow Commissioner David Stoloff, “the first major public improvement of public transportation in 50 years” deserves strong support.

The one thing commissioners could decisively and unanimously agree on Wednesday night was to reject a second joint session with the city’s Transportation Commission so they could focus on the land use implications of the massive AC Transit project.

Stronger emissions plan urged

Air Resources Board considers steps to cut the time Californians spend on the road.



Environmental and land-use groups are urging the state Air Resources Board to bolster its plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions with more aggressive measures to slow the growth in the number of miles Californians drive.

At a public meeting Thursday, the board released the draft of a strategy to cut the state's greenhouse gas emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020.