A new transportation task force being convened by Mayor Ed Lee will focus on fixing Muni’s woes while also seeking to address larger transit issues facing the Bay Area, according to the mayor and people expected to serve on the panel.
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An Oregon man aboard a motorboat that collided with a ferry on San Francisco Bay over the weekend died as a result of the accident, which is currently under investigation, the U.S. Coast Guard said Monday.
Harry Holzhauer, a 68-year-old from Tigard, Ore., was one of two men traveling in a 22-foot motorboat that struck the MS San Francisco, a Golden Gate Transit ferry carrying 500 people Saturday.
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BART’s station agents and train operators have a troubling history of not showing up for work — and it’s costing the agency significantly in a tough financial time.
On any given day, the rate of unscheduled absences for BART train operators is 11.86 percent, and 12.77 percent for the agency’s station agents, according to information obtained through a public records request. The absences translate to roughly one in eight workers missing their scheduled shifts each day.
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San Francisco plans to shift its traffic-calming strategies this year to focus on larger thoroughfares.
Traditionally, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency spends $2.5 million a year of The City’s transportation tax funds on measures to slow down traffic and make walking safer for pedestrians. Last year, nearly all of those funds — $2.2 million — were dedicated for projects on smaller, residential streets.
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For the second time, BART will experiment with easing bike restrictions on trains during rush hours.
From March 18 – 22, the agency will allow bikes on board during the morning and evening commutes, times that are normally off-limits to cyclists due to overcrowding.
The test in March follows a similar initiative from last August, when bikes were allowed on board at all times during each Friday of the month. Unlike last time, however, bikes will be banned from the first three train cars.
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A $7 million initiative to outfit San Francisco with an electric vehicle network and add 61 new clean-energy taxis has collapsed, forcing The City’s transportation agency to reconsider whether to pursue the ambitious plan.
But for the company set to receive the 61 new cabs, the development comes as no surprise.
“We were never really overhyped about this, we just wanted to show our public support for the plan,” said Jim Gillespie, a manager at Yellow Cab.
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A deal has been reached to bring up Muni’s Central Subway machinery at an abandoned theater in North Beach.
The transit agency, along with Board of Supervisors President David Chiu and the Mayor’s Office, had been locked in talks to lease out the Pagoda Palace as a way to store equipment and extract tunnel-boring machines needed for the 1.7-mile transit extension project.
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BART officials will discuss a plan today to increase fares regularly through 2020 and make parking more expensive at station lots.
Since 2003, the regional rail operator has used an inflation-based formula to increase its transit fares every two years. The last scheduled fare increase was in 2012, but the agency wants to extend the program, with rate hikes proposed for 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020.
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Repeated construction delays, shifting visions and the departure of the plan’s manager have many advocates wary about the future of San Francisco’s Better Market Street project.
The undertaking, a multiagency project headed by the Department of Public Works, was established in 2009 to reinvent San Francisco’s central artery, with construction initially scheduled to begin this year.
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Painted transit-only lanes, more travel-prediction signs and changes to traffic signals to prioritize trains are part of a series of improvements planned for Muni’s N-Judah line.
With 12.8 million passengers annually, the N-Judah is the transit agency’s busiest light-rail line, but it frequently gets bogged down in automobile traffic while making the long journey between downtown and Ocean Beach in the Sunset district.
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Approval of Muni’s plans to bring up its Central Subway boring equipment at an abandoned theater in North Beach was pushed back at least a week.
The transit agency is in talks with the owner of the Pagoda Palace to lease out the site of the theater for two years. The two sides have been involved in talks for months, but so far they have yet to agree on terms.
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San Francisco’s powerful cycling lobby is not pleased with a new proposal to shift biking off Market Street and onto Mission Street.
Since 2010, a group of city agencies has been involved in crafting the Better Market Street project — a comprehensive set of improvement plans for San Francisco’s central artery. This week, the consortium announced plans to study an alternative in which cyclists would be steered onto nearby Mission Street instead of riding on Market Street. Buses would subsequently be removed from Mission Street.
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A confluence of events — including bad weather and tricky utility relocation plans — has increased the costs and pushed back the completion date of Caltrain’s grade-separation project in San Bruno.
The project was originally scheduled to be finished by last summer, but Caltrain is now revising the completion date to the end of this year. Today, the agency also will ask its board of directors to approve a change-order contract to increase the construction costs of the plan from $77 million to $91 million.
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With a crucial vote on the project scheduled for Thursday, Muni has yet to reach a deal with a North Beach property owner about bringing up its Central Subway boring equipment at an abandoned
theater.
The agency wants to purchase a two-year lease of the Pagoda Palace on Powell Street so it can remove equipment for the $1.6 billion subway project. Originally, Muni planned on using Columbus Avenue, but changed course to
alleviate neighborhood concerns.
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Once again, San Francisco ranks as one of the most congested metropolitan areas in the nation, with local commuters losing 61 hours each year stuck in traffic.
At 67 hours of lost productivity, commuters in the Washington, D.C., metro area were the only motorists in the country who suffered more than San Francisco drivers last year, according to the Texas Transportation Institute, which produces annual congestion reports.
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