Newsom Swears In Brinkman to SFMTA Board

The former Board of Directors President for Livable City, a non-profit that promotes mass-transit and bicycle/walking-friendly neighborhoods, was appointed by Newsom to the seven-member Board because she is qualified and capable, Newsom said.

 

San Francisco Breaks Ground
on First US High-Speed Rail Station

The project is estimated to create more than 48,000 jobs in its first phase of construction, which will last seven years. These jobs include the people who will design, build and operate the facility, the manufacturing jobs created by the materials being utilized in the facility and the businesses providing consumer goods and services to workers and the passengers utilizing the Transit Center.

 

Auto Trips Generated:
The Standard that Ate the Bicycle Network

Under ATG, each auto trip would be considered an environmental impact and would be mitigated by a predetermined impact fee. A bike lane project would have zero ATG impact, while a luxury condo building with one-to-one parking would generate some positive number of auto trips based on parking spaces and any other applicable considerations. The calculated impact fees would go to the MTA. As of mid 2010, the ATG standard has yet to be completed. The development of a minimally complicated standard has taken longer than it took to do real rocket science, to conceive and execute the Apollo project in the 1960s.

 

Minding Muni, Part V

All over the country, public transportation systems are cutting back service under the weight of huge budget deficits. Most people think these agencies are casualties of the recession, and to certain extent they are probably right. But to me, these agencies and their ballooning deficits are something else also — they are canaries in the coal mine, indications of problems that go deeper than even the subprime loan fiasco that many are blaming for the current state of the economy. Collapsing transit agencies are signs that the anti-tax mania of the last few decades is a failure. They are also signs that our western lifestyle — dependent as it is on plentiful and cheap natural resources, especially fossil fuels — could be reaching its limits and going into decline as demand now begins to outstrip supply.

 

Newsom Lashes Out at Board,
Transportation Workers Union

“There is no more time for political theatrics,” Newsom wrote in terse statement released to the press. “The moment to step up is now. The Board of Supervisors has said repeatedly said no. TWU has repeatedly said no. But now it’s time for them to say yes. It’s time for the Board of Supervisors and TWU to say yes to restoring service, to say yes to keeping our buses running, and to say yes to reaffirming our commitment to a Transit First city.”

 

William and the Disappearing Magic Muni Bus

The 48 Quintara is a repeat offender in this field. I quickly gave up waiting for it when I used to live on 24th Street. And the former 26 bus that used to (supposedly) run along Valencia was also a bit of a mystery. In all my attempts at waiting for and hoping to ride the 26 bus, I only ever caught one glimpse of it.

 

Infra-Destructure: San Francisco
Breaks the Bank for Developers

After 30 years of Reaganist tax cuts and assaults on the public sector, there is no dispute that public infrastructure has been allowed to deteriorate due to lack of maintenance and investment. From interstate highway bridge collapses to crumbling prisons and deteriorating or non-existent public transit systems, the boomer generation took the gifts bestowed upon them by their industrious parents (who defeated Hitler in 4 ½ years), returned home to pay a 70 percent marginal income tax rate, and then squandered the gains in a bonfire of narcissism and selfishness.