Last Year’s SB1 Gas Tax Increase: Yes or No

admin 2018, Regional and Local Governments, Roadways and Traffic

SB1:

SB1 was enacted by the State of California on April 28, 2017. Per
SB1, beginning on November 1, 2017 Californians started paying an
additional twelve cents a gallon for gasoline and an additional twenty cents
a gallon for diesel fuel. SB1 also provides that beginning on July 1, 2020
these taxes will rise with inflation.

Where will the SB1 money go? According to an April 28, 2017 article in
the Sacramento Bee, 70% of the funds raised by SB1 will go to the
Roadway Maintenance and Rehabilitation Program, State highways and
local streets and roads, with the remainder divided up among public transit,
goods movement, traffic-reduction measures, bicycle/ pedestrian
improvements and miscellaneous administrative and other uses.

Continue reading →

Getting Rid of Transportation Czar

admin Uncategorized

Here is an article from East Bay Times editor  Dan Borenstein about the pending retirement of long time MTC Director Steve Heminger.  In it Mr. Borenstein provides an extraordinarily clear and comprehensive rendition of why MTC so badly needs a carefully-selected new Director.  We  simply couldn’t have said it any better than Mr. Borenstein did.

https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/0624bc7b-d3b4-45b1-a311-4c59e7d4d8cf

Comparing Cities

admin 2018, Roadways and Traffic

On June 24, 2018, the SF Chronicle published San Francisco-based journalist Steven Hill’s thoughtful comparison of certain European cities with San Francisco. 

Transportation: Here’s what Mr. Hill had to say about transportation:

“Public transportation in Berlin: It was such a relief to get away from the crowded Uber congestion of San Francisco streets. Berlin’s public transportation system works so well that I never needed a car. A transit stop is a short walk away, and I could get most places within 30 minutes (often far less). A $70 monthly pass (less than SF’s Clipper card) gave me unlimited use of a combination of underground subways, above ground trains, buses and trams. Decent taxi service and car-sharing services like Car2Go are available for those rare times when you need a car. Consequently, congestion and gridlock are far less of a problem.”

Cities.png“Unfortunately San Francisco’s public transportation is underfunded, inefficient and unpopular, but it doesn’t have to be that way. By letting Uber ridesharing flood the streets instead of investing heavily in public transportation, San Francisco is failing environmentally and reducing overall living standards.”

Continue reading →

Bay Area Rail – Status Report

admin 2018, Transit Systems

Background:

OldRailBy the late 1960’s the Bay Area’s interurban passenger rail systems were mostly gone. Since then travelers, encouraged by the State State of California’s long standing practice of widening and expanding its freeways to temporarily ward off gridlock, have turned increasingly to automobiles to get around: to the point where things got completely out of hand. Caltrans’ myopic struggle to build its way out of traffic congestion failed.

Continue reading →

RM3: HJTA Files Suit!

admin 2018

On Thursday July 5, 2018, the Howard Jarvis Tax Association and three individuals filed suit in San Francisco Superior Court against the Bay Bridge Toll Authority (BATA), the California State Legislature and “all persons interested in the matter of Regional Measure 3”

Regional Measure 3 (RM3) was adopted by 53.7% of the Bay Area voters on June 5, 2018. It raises the tolls on Bay Area bridges by $3 plus additional increases in accordance with inflation. The Plaintiff’s suit is based upon the fact that by defining the Bay Bridge toll increases as “fees” (requiring a majority vote) rather than “taxes” (requiring a two-thirds vote), the Defendants violated the California Constitution as updated by the California voters on November 2, 2010.

Continue reading →

Central Subway Problems Persist

admin 2018, Transit Systems

A SF Examiner Op-Ed, January 19, 2018 by Gerald Cauthen. 

Have you ever wondered how the Central Subway project, a 1.7-mile rail extension of Muni’s Third Street line from Fourth and King to Chinatown, managed to get so bollixed up? Here’s a brief history of what happened:

china

At the end of 2017, it was announced the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s Central Subway manager, John Funghi, was leaving his post for the $1.6 billion project to work on Caltrain electrification. His departure came shortly after Tutor-Perini, the station contractor, released a report Nov. 1, 2017, showing that the project is more than two years behind schedule and burdened with more than 1,300 construction contractor claims outstanding — only 73 of which had at that time been addressed by the SFMTA — leaving the remaining 94 percent awaiting “processing.”

Continue reading →