Downtown San Francisco will be mired in gridlock unless changes are made soon to alleviate automobile traffic — and the most effective method could be a long-discussed and controversial congestion-pricing scheme.
Unless private automobile traffic is reduced by 27 percent over the next three decades, congestion levels in The City will be unmanageable, with vehicles stuck at a standstill and pedestrians and cyclists prone to increasingly dangerous conditions, according to a new report by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, a local planning agency.
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Under a new proposal backed by city leaders, motorists with disabled placards would have to pay for parking and be subject to time limits at meters.
Drivers with a blue placard can park for free at any space in The City and they are not subject to any time limits. But since 2001 there has been a 100 percent increase of the placards in the Bay Area, leading some disabled advocates to question whether the permits are being abused. Every year, about 1,800 placards are confiscated in The City for fraudulent use, but permits continue to be issued out.
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Hundreds of on-street parking spaces will be set aside for car-sharing vehicles this fall as part of a city-led effort to reduce private-car ownership in San Francisco.
Companies like Zipcar and City CarShare will be allowed to reserve up to 150 spaces apiece, with another 150 potentially available next year. Wheelz, which specializes in peer-to-peer transactions involving personal vehicles, and Car2Go, a startup that features one-way car trips, could be included later.
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Four years after agreeing to a wage freeze and reduced contributions to their health and retirement plans, BART workers are back at the table for contract talks that appear as though they could be more toxic than in 2009, when there were repeated threats of work stoppages and strikes.
The biggest issues in the contract talks are wages and compensation, including health care and pension contributions.
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Yet another salvo has been launched in the ongoing, polarizing and divisive Israel-Palestine debate — and it’s on Muni.
Several San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency buses bearing a pro-Palestine, anti-Israel advertisement are currently ferrying The City’s commuters.
The ads, paid for by American Muslims for Palestine, feature a quote from Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu comparing the situation in the Holy Land to apartheid in South Africa, along with a reminder that Israel receives about $3 billion in foreign aid from the U.S.
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The new $6.3 billion eastern portion of the Bay Bridge still “has a fighting chance” to open this year, despite concerns over structural issues, officials overseeing its construction said Tuesday.
Citing myriad problems that have dogged the span’s construction, state lawmakers grilled the officials overseeing the project about the decision to use a specific type of seismic safety rods, 32 of which broke after being tightened in March.
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By:
Rachel Swan
05/14/13 7:10 PM
San Francisco rideshare companies Uber and Lyft have been asked by an administrative law judge to produce sealed copies of both their umbrella and excess liability insurance policies, along with proof that they are providing workers’ compensation for employees.
Judge Robert Mason’s order comes as part of an ongoing rule-making process that will ultimately decide whether Uber and Lyft—along with similar companies SideCar, Tickengo, TransForm and InstantCab—have to abide by the same rules that govern traditional taxis.
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Bike rentals in city parks got off to a rough start when one location was overrun by an Occupy San Francisco encampment, city officials said. But now with an expansion planned for Ocean Beach and an additional Golden Gate Park location, the Recreation and Park Department hopes to improve the experience in The City.
In March 2011, a five-year lease was approved by the Board of Supervisors between Rec and Park and Parkwide Activities LLC to operate bike rental locations in public parks.
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The Federal Highway Administration on Monday said it is investigating California’s response to broken steel seismic safety rods on the new span of the Bay Bridge.
Spokesman Doug Hecox said the agency has launched its review after it received a request by state bridge officials, but it did not have an idea of how long the probe would take. The agency will examine Caltrans’ conclusion about the cause of the rod failure and the state’s recommended fix.
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More than 100 feet below the roiling waters of the Bay lies BART’s Transbay Tube, one of the region’s most impressive engineering feats — a path that acts as a portal for nearly 200,000 passengers travelling each day between the East Bay and San Francisco.
Tucked neatly into a protective trench on the floor of the Bay, the tube is nonetheless exposed to the elements of corrosive saltwater, and, more troubling, an occasional misplaced ship anchor.
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