Casey Miner

(Kate Hinds, Transportation Nation; San Francisco–Casey Miner, KALW News) Bicycling in San Francisco can be glorious - paths by the beach, hills with sweeping views of the bay, the ability to cycle in the middle of January without having to come up with creative ways to keep your hands warm.

But it's also rife with "anger, misunderstanding, and mistrust between motorists and cyclists," according to a report issued last year by a San Francisco Civil Grand Jury, which investigated the implementation of the city's bike plan. (Report here; pdf.) This sentiment is a huge issue and perhaps contributes to this jarring statistic: in San Francisco, bike crashes have grown 8% in the past two years--outpacing the growth in ridership, which was 3%. (By comparison, New York City, which has also seen a growth in cyclists -- saw bike crashes decline by 46% from 1996 to 2003.)

That San Francisco data is courtesy of a new comprehensive interactive map by the nonprofit news organization the Bay Citizen, which just released a data app called the "Bicycle Accident Tracker."  We asked Bay Citizen staff writer Zusha Elinson and web producer Tasneem Raja how they got the data - and what they've learned from crunching hundreds of accident reports. (They also began encouraging people to report accidents directly to the Bay Citizen.)

"The bikers, for the most part, think the cars are crazy. And the cars all think the bikers are crazy," said Elinson. They set about mapping every bike accident the San Francisco Police Department wrote a report for in the last two years.  But what constitutes a report-worthy bike accident throws a bit of a monkey wrench into the data crunching.

(San Francisco–Casey Miner, KALW News) We reported a few months back on the grassroots effort by riders to try and save Caltrain, the Bay Area’s commuter train system. It’s the only one of the Bay’s 28 (!) different transit agencies that doesn’t have a dedicated funding source; it’s facing a $30 million deficit and considering cutting train service by nearly half.

Luckily for Caltrain, it’s also the only Bay Area transit agency whose riders care so much that they’re willing to dedicate their weekends to figuring out how to save it. Last Saturday, citizen group Friends of Caltrain organized an all-day brainstorming summit whose attendees included everyone from workaday commuters to elected officials. Panels and breakout groups explored funding strategies—levying a gas tax, charging more for parking, adding onboard WiFi, and improving connectivity to other transit were among the suggestions. And they also talked about messaging: how to sell the idea of Caltrain to people who don’t ride it, and how to convince policymakers that the rail is worth saving.

SF Streetsblog has more.

A Bolt Bus boards on New York's 33rd Street (Alex Goldmark)

(San Francisco–Casey Miner, KALW News) While the nation's attention is focused on high-speed rail, another mode of travel has been quietly expanding – and expanding, and expanding, and expanding. Intercity, curbside bus services like Megabus, Bolt Bus, and the ubiquitous Chinatown buses have grown dramatically over the past several years, according to a study by researchers at DePaul University. Right now, write co-authors Joseph Schweiterman and Lauren Fischer, they are America's fastest-growing mode of transport.

Schweiterman describes these buses as "feisty, low-cost services," easy investments for anyone with the capital to buy some buses and increasingly attractive to travelers weary of long airport delays and TSA pat-downs. What's more, they allow those travelers to bring their lifestyles with them: even the cheapest services offer free on-board WiFi, still a rarity on most airlines and an impossibility while driving.

This isn't a trivial detail: Schweiterman estimates that 40 percent of travelers on any given bus are using a portable electronic device of some kind. "This means sitting on a bus for five hours is not a death sentence," he says. And that means more people are getting in on the action, including business travelers who normally might scorn a cheap ride.

What does this mean for high-speed rail? Schweiterman, who also heads up the Midwest High Speed Rail Association, says the two forms of transport could potentially complement each other, especially in big states like California where traveling between big cities by road – no matter how luxurious the ride – still takes six to eight hours. But the fact that buses are so cheap, and that they require virtually no investment in new infrastructure, is a huge mark in their favor. "The curbside operators are getting really good at getting you to spend  an extra hour or two traveling in exchange for a low-stress environment," he says.

Read the full-study here.

Communications specialist Berta Villalva is one of the voices behind BART announcements (photo by Casey Miner)

(San Francisco–Casey Miner, KALW News) A few months back, the New York Times profiled Carolyn Hopkins, aka the subway announcement lady. It got me thinking: who's the voice of BART? Turns out, there's a few of them. And yes, they're talking to you. Hear what they have to say over at KALW News.

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Photo from the Facebook group, "Make BART Trains Run 24 Hours”

(San Francisco–Casey Miner, KALW News) We've got a new weekly segment on the show looking at what's going on with transportation around the Bay. Have a listen over at KALW News.

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(San Francisco–Casey Miner, KALW News) Governor Jerry Brown’s budget proposal is devastating to many services across the state. But it would bring funding for transportation back to about what it was last year – and on balance, transportation advocates say that’s all they could ask for.

“We don’t love it, but it sets a baseline,” said Randy Rentschler, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. “Bringing stability to transportation is a very good thing.”

If enacted, the budget would reinstate a complex fuel tax swap that allocated about 75% of fuel excise tax revenues to public transportation funding. Last fall’s passage of Proposition 22 prevents the state from raiding that money to reimburse the General Fund, and Governor Brown’s budget proposes to use truck weight fees to fill the resulting budget gap – rather than making additional transportation cuts. So while the new budget doesn’t exactly shower the transportation sector with cash, it would restore enough funding for local agencies to maintain current service.

“If the budget stands, AC Transit, BART and other agencies will actually do a bit better,” said Rentschler. “Is it going to save them? No. But is it helpful? Yes.”

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(San Francisco–Casey Miner, KALW News) Governor Jerry Brown announced his budget proposal this morning, and it's a doozy: $12.5 billion in cuts to everything from MediCal to local redevelopment agencies. The press release is below, and you can peruse the whole thing at your leisure over at the budget website, and take a stab at balancing the budget yourself over at the LA Times. We'll have more on this as things progress.

(San Francisco––Casey Miner, KALW News) It’s only been a few days since Jerry Brown retook the California Governor’s office, but all signs suggest that he’s planning to put the state on a serious fiscal diet. Rumored to be among the casualties are local redevelopment agencies -- groups that undertake projects like revitalizing downtowns and building affordable housing. California’s perennial budget deficit is projected to be more than $25 billion this year, and slashing redevelopment could cut a quarter of that.

The Governor’s office isn’t commenting on specifics right now, so we’ll have to wait to know for sure. But losing redevelopment has big implications for the state as a whole – and perhaps for its biggest infrastructure project, high-speed rail.

The San Francisco Planning + Urban Research Association (SPUR) just released a report arguing that for high-speed rail to reach its full potential, it will have to be accompanied by good planning and smart growth around stations. One of their recommendations is that cities be allowed to use a tool called tax-increment financing – essentially, a bond paid back by increased property tax revenues – to support transit-oriented development around high-speed rail stations. Egon Terplan, SPUR’s regional planning director, said while axing redevelopment agencies wouldn’t eliminate that possibility, it might make it a lot harder – especially in cities like Fresno and Bakersfield where future high-speed rail stations are in redevelopment zones. “Taking away their ability to get funding takes away their ability to implement projects,” he said.

Regardless of what happens to the redevelopment agencies, said Terplan, high-speed rail needs a way to fund itself over the long term – and that might include certain financing tools that redevelopment agencies currently use. “Redevelopment has been a model,” he said. “We now need a model that aligns itself with the goals of high-speed rail.”

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(San Francisco–Casey Miner, KALW News) It's a controversial plan, but the city of San Francisco is pushing ahead anyway: this morning, the board of supervisors voted to continue studying several options for congestion pricing cordons in the northeast corner of the city. The options include a $3 toll to enter and leave the cordoned area during especially busy times; alternatively, commuters who parked downtown all day would pay a $6 toll upon leaving. A third option, which would have charged drivers to enter the city from the south, was scrapped after politicians from Peninsula city councilmen to a state Assemblyman threatened a counter-toll. Don't hold your breath, though – the earliest anyone will pay to drive into the Financial District is 2015.

I interviewed Matthew Roth of Streetsblog SF about why it's so controversial to price driving; hear our conversation over at KALW News.

(San Francisco–-Casey Miner, KALW News) Earlier today we reported that the Department of Transportation re-allocated $1.2 billion in high-speed rail money rejected by Ohio and Wisconsin. The largest share of the liberated funding is headed to California. Now officials at the DOT have given us a few more details on how that $654 million in new high-speed rail funds is meant to be spent.

The bulk, $616 million, will go towards extending the first segment of the rail system all the way to Bakersfield, instead of terminating it in Corcoran as was originally planned. The rest of the money will go to Caltrans to improve existing rail transit.

The feds are also asking California to match the $616 million with its own bond funds; rail Authority spokeswoman Rachel Wall said that outlay will still have to be approved by the Authority board. We'll have more on this as the situation develops.

Carl Monismith, Director of the UC Pavement Research Center, and Jim Signore, the center's Assistant Director. Photo by Casey Miner.

(San Francisco–Casey Miner, KALW News) If you’re driving right now, or riding a bus, trolley, taxicab or your bike after a long day at work, your mind might be on the traffic, or what to cook for dinner (or why won’t that guy turn off his blinker already?). But have you ever thought about what’s underneath your wheels? The actual road?

It’s the kind of thing we only really notice when it’s not working (ahem, potholes), but pavement is everywhere. The U.S. has four million miles of paved roads, and close to ten percent of them are in California. And as KALW learned, "Pavements are complicated. They’re not the easiest thing in the world to build...It may look simple, but (it) really is an engineered structure."

KALW visited the U.C. Pavement Research Center to get some answers about just what goes into making what’s beneath our feet.  For instance: How do you know if you've made a good batch of pavement? "When you mix asphalt and aggregate together and come out of mixer, it looks like maggots in the garbage can. It’s an indication that the mix is pretty good."

Hear the story at KALW News.

(San Francisco–Casey Miner, KALW News) Have a car, but don't drive it that often? Starting in February, that means you could pay less for your car insurance in California. Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner announced that two insurance companies, State Farm and the Automobile Club of Southern California, would offer plans that allowed drivers to report their own mileage and pay significantly lower premiums for driving less.

Approaching car insurance this way has obvious benefits--among them fewer accidents and reducing greenhouse gases. But it also gives insurers some leverage with infrequent drivers, who might be on the fence about continuing to own a car. Especially in cities like San Francisco, where car-sharing is increasingly popular (and personal car-sharing is starting up), an option like this could keep people from ditching their wheels.

(San Francisco–Casey Miner, KALW News) The California High-Speed Rail Authority voted today to select a route from Madera to Corcoran as the first segment of the planned statewide system.

From the press release:

The California High-Speed Rail Authority Board voted today to begin construction of the system connecting Los Angeles to the Bay Area in the heart of the state’s Central Valley, choosing an option that makes the best use of available funding and lays the foundation for expanding the track both north and south.

“We are building a statewide system. We’re in the business of connecting major metropolitan centers across our state, and we won’t have a true high-speed rail system until we tie every part of this state together,” said Authority Vice Chair Tom Umberg. “It’s not one town or one region versus another; it’s about connecting one region to another. ‘’

This route selection is controversial –- it's a hybrid of the two Central Valley sections previously under consideration, Merced-Fresno and Fresno-Bakersfield. You can hear me discuss some of the politics and roadblocks confronting the project over at KALW News.

(San Francisco–Casey Miner, KALW News) One of the biggest challenges facing California’s high-speed rail effort is the question of funding: Is there going to be enough of it, available over a long enough period of time, to actually see the project through?

When you’re in that kind of  tenuous situation, it always helps to get an unexpected bonus--and that’s what Golden State politicians are banking on. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, as well as outgoing governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, have all written letters to the Department of  Transportation, urging them to reallocate money rejected by the newly-elected leadership of Ohio and Wisconsin, plus anyone else who might want off the high-speed rail… uh… train.  Money quote:

“It is with a certain sense of astonishment that we note recent announcements from some of our gubernatorial colleagues that they are uninterested in federal contributions to their high-speed rail systems. You are more than welcome to redirect that money to California –- where we know how to use it to generate hundreds of thousands of jobs and provide a clean, fast and low-cost way to travel.”

Protestors mourn the "death" of AC Transit. Photo by Casey Miner.

(San Francisco – Casey Miner, KALW News) A little more than a week ago, beleaguered East Bay bus company AC Transit cut more than seven percent of its service. The cuts came on Halloween: boo. And they came on top of the 7.5 percent the agency already cut back in March. Boo, again. There is some good news: more cuts had been planned for December, but officials announced late yesterday that they wouldn’t have to make them, thanks to a new agreement with their drivers union. But don’t breathe that sigh of relief just yet – even more cuts might be on the way next year.

A situation this bad makes room for animosity ­– riders feel like they’re being ignored, while officials say they have no choice but to make these cuts. KALW’S Casey Miner tries to bridge the communication gap in this report.

(San Francisco – Casey Miner, KALW News) Clipper, the Bay Area's new one-size-fits-all transit card, is having, um, kind of a bad week: The San Francisco Examiner points out that a chip in the card stores data on each customer's daily itinerary, which state senator Joe Simitian called "literally a road map to your personal life."

But all that technology can't keep people from gaming the system: Matthew Roth at StreetsblogSF reports that customers can use cards purchased at Clipper vending machines to ride BART all over the Bay for the bargain price of $2. A BART spokesman called the scam Clipper's "dirty little secret. Of course, it's not so secret now.

(San Francisco – Casey Miner, KALW News) If Republicans sweep Congress as expected next week, it could put the brakes on nascent high-speed rail projects around the country. But what about in California, where planning for the project is already underway?

Neither candidate for governor has said much about high-speed rail, but what they have said falls along party lines: Republican Meg Whitman thinks the project is too expensive for the state to take on right now, while Democrat Jerry Brown sees the expense as an investment that will pay off in jobs and improved transportation infrastructure.

Whitman’s website suggests that she would rather focus on providing tax incentives for companies to pursue their own energy-efficiency and electrification projects—including for rail—rather than providing state funding for them. Given that the voters already passed Prop 1A, authorizing state bond money for the high-speed rail project, it seems unlikely that Whitman could stop it, though some rail supporters are convinced she’ll find a way.

Neither the Whitman nor Brown campaigns returned requests for comment, but we’ll keep you posted if we learn more. In the meantime, Streetsblog has a rundown of where the candidates stand on other transportation issues in the state.

Muni bus in San Francisco, California. Photo by BrokenSphere.

(San Francisco–Casey Miner, KALW News) San Francisco’s MUNI is facing a good news/bad news situation. The good news is its buses and trains are boarded more than 590,000 times a day. The bad news is that represents a 4.4% drop in ridership–or 10 million fewer rides than the year before.

So why are fewer people riding the city’s buses, rail and trolleys?

First, imagine this: You’re standing at a MUNI stop in San Francisco, transfer in hand, ready to get on a bus. A bus drives right on by. Packed full. Okay, no big deal – you wait for another one, but then that one goes by too. Sound familiar? Backers of November ballot measure Proposition G say they feel your pain. Their solution is to change the way MUNI operators are paid. Right now, the city charter guarantees them a set salary: MUNI drivers must be the second-highest paid in the country. (Right now, they’re behind Boston.) Prop G would change that, so they’d have to do collective bargaining like other city unions. Is this really the way to make those buses stop where they’re supposed to? Listen to the story at KALW News.

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/agentakit/4707248838/)

(San Francisco – Casey Miner, KALW News) If you use public transportation to get around the Bay Area, the Clipper card can seem like a pretty great thing: load it up with money and it will keep track of how much you've spent on any of the Bay's many transit agencies. You still might have to take three kinds of transit to get to work, but instead of hunting around in your pockets for change or riffling through all your receipts to find a transfer, you just tag your card and go. It’s supposed to simplify things, and for a lot of people it has. Eventually, transportation officials want the Clipper to be the main way that regular riders pay their fares. That means no more paper passes. You might not think that’s such a big deal – why waste the trees? But it’s not so easy for everyone to get around without them.  Hear why over at KALW News.

(San Francisco–Casey Miner, KALW News) It’s been said that transportation planning in San Francisco is a contact sport. People around here have very, very strong opinions about their transit, and they’re not shy about sharing them. A lot of the time, things can get nasty.

But there’s one place where things are a little different. Call it a throwback. Caltrain started in the 19th century, and in some ways the railroad still has an old kind of feel. The locomotive cars run on diesel, and you can still hear that satisfying rumble of the wheels on the tracks when you ride.

For all of its historic charm, Caltrain has very modern budget problems. Facing a $2.3 million deficit, the agency is considering raising fares, cutting service, or both. There’s a worst case scenario where everything but weekday peak trains could disappear. That won’t happen for a while though: not if the passengers have anything to say about it.

Head over to KALW News to hear the full story of this emerging rider community of tech savvy, DIY professional types trying to save their train service through bike access and old-fashioned organizing.