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.
Read More
An obsolete ban against suitcases on a SamTrans express line to the San Francisco airport will finally be lifted next month.
The remnant of a legal claim filed in the 1970s, the SamTrans KX has barred passengers from carrying luggage due to its unfair competitive advantage over private shuttle providers. San Francisco Airporter, which operated regular runs to San Francisco International Airport for years, filed the lawsuit, arguing that it couldn’t compete financially with a publicly subsidized service like SamTrans.
Read More
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.
Read More
For revelers and runners in the Bay to Breakers race, the euphoria of finishing the event usually wears off as soon as they realize they are stuck at Ocean Beach.
Read More
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.
Read More
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.
Read More
Catching a glimpse of the new tiger cub or any of the other exotic animals at the San Francisco Zoo could soon be a bit more expensive.
Admission fees are slated to increase $2, with prices for San Francisco residents poised to go from $12 to $14. Fees for nonresidents could be raised from $15 to $17, while rates for seniors are slated to go up from $7.50 to $9.50. And for children 4 to 14 years old, the cost could rise from $5.50 to $7.50.
Read More
Nonprofit institutions and other local organizations will be able to use the new conference center at the renovated Lake Merced Boathouse, but it will come at a cost.
Part of a $2 million rehabilitation project set to begin at the end of this month, the conference center will have room to host 85 people for meetings and 50 people for catered events. Once the site is reopened this fall, the Recreation and Park Department, which owns the property, wants to begin renting out the conference room.
Read More
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.
Read More
The new painted transit-only lane on Church Street — designed to keep private vehicles out of the way of Muni vehicles — appears to be paying dividends for the agency.
Since a layer of red paint was laid down on a three-block stretch of the street, the 22-Fillmore has had a 5 percent reduction in travel time and a 20 percent increase in reliability along that stretch, according to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which manages Muni.
The red paint was put down in March between Duboce Avenue and 16th Street — the most congested stretch of Church Street.
Read More
Seemingly every motorist in San Francisco has a tale of being unfairly ticketed by an overzealous parking control officer.
Fewer drivers though have as much exonerating evidence available as Beth Chen, a Forest Hill resident who was recently hit with a $62 ticket that accuses her of overstaying a two-hour time limit near the Stonestown YMCA.
Read More
Cleaner train cars, fewer transients sleeping in stations and more investment in an overworked maintenance yard are all part of BART’s proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
For the first time, BART is combining its capital budget, which covers long-term improvement projects, with its operating budget, which details day-to-day expenses. The $1.6 billion plan is projected to be balanced for the 2014 fiscal year, which begins July 1.
Read More
Bikes could be allowed on BART trains at all times of the day — minus a few restrictions — as part of an initiative that will be voted on by the agency’s board of directors later this month.
Under the current policy, bikes are banned from certain trains during peak travel times, a measure aimed at easing overcrowding. However, after two recent pilot projects during which those restrictions were relaxed, BART is now considering a permanent change.
Read More
Bayview-Hunters Point residents expressed frustration Tuesday about Muni’s practice of turning around T-Third Street trains before they reach scheduled stops.
Muni officials say rerouting trains and buses prematurely, called switchbacks, is necessary to deal with service shortages and delays in other parts of the system.
Read More
Fixing a batch of broken bolts on the new Bay Bridge could cost up to $10 million, but it’s still unknown if that work will affect the opening date — and it’s likely Gov. Jerry Brown will make the call on when the structure is ready for traffic.
Read More
URL: http://www.sfexaminer.com/people/will-reisman?%3Bquicktabs_1=0&%3Bquicktabs_6=0&%3Bquicktabs_1=0&quicktabs_6=1&quicktabs_1=0
