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Will Reisman

Fare increases, parking hikes up for discussion at BART board meeting today

bart, san francisco
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. Read More

Better Market Street project faces more uncertainties

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. Read More

Muni’s N-Judah line to get much-needed improvements

N-judah
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. Read More

Muni’s plans for Pagoda Palace pushed back a week following stalled lease talks

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. Read More

Bicyclists voice concern over proposal to move bikes off Market Street

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. Read More

San Bruno grade separation obstacles lead to price increase for Caltrain project

caltrain
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. Read More

Central Subway extraction deal in North Beach still up in air as decision looms

MUNI
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. Read More

San Francisco continues to score low marks for traffic congestion

Bay Area Traffic
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. Read More

SFO sets passenger traffic record in 2012

San Francisco International Airport, SFO
The passengers keep arriving and the records keep falling at San Francisco International Airport. Last year was the busiest in SFO’s history, with 44.5 million fliers passing through the hub. That marked an 8.5 percent increase from 2011, which had a then-record of 41 million passengers. Read More

New turnaround poised for Mission Bay could boost Muni’s Central Subway plans

Muni
Muni could increase the number of trains it can run on the future Central Subway line by adding turnaround loops in the Dogpatch neighborhood that would also benefit passengers in The City’s southeastern neighborhoods, according to the agency. Muni’s Central Subway project is a $1.6 billion extension of the T-Third Street line that will eventually connect passengers from Hunters Point to Chinatown. Read More

Old meters set to expire as San Francisco looks to upgrade parking its systems

parking meters, san francisco
Drivers in San Francisco soon may not need a cache of coins in their cars to feed the meters as a part of a proposal to replace The City’s entire network of parking meters — some 30,000 devices — with newer technology by this fall. San Francisco has about 23,000 older parking meters that accept only coins and payment cards issued by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which is in charge of parking in The City. There are an additional 6,000 or so meters that feature the agency’s new SFpark technology, which accept multiple payment forms and offer differing hourly rates. Another 1,000 meters are located on property the Port of San Francisco manages. Read More

SF to remove Muni vehicles from Market Street for Super Bowl Sunday

Would-be rioters setting their sites on buses to burn after the Super Bowl on Sunday won’t have much luck pursuing their incendiary ways on Market Street. Following the unrest that broke out after the Giants won the World Series in October — which included a Muni bus being set ablaze downtown on Market Street — city officials have elected to detour all transit vehicles off San Francisco’s main artery Sunday night. Read More

New loading zone proposed on Van Ness Avenue to ease issues with private shuttles and Muni

A new loading zone set to be carved out for private shuttles on Van Ness Avenue could be a sign of things to come, as The City prepares to deal with the ever-growing number of unregulated buses. Van Ness Avenue has become the center of conflicts between Muni vehicles and private shuttles, which scoop up workers in San Francisco and carry them to jobs on the Peninsula and in Silicon Valley. The shuttles often pick up workers at stops designated for Muni vehicles, leading to public transit delays. Read More

One day after Lyft agreement, state regulators reach similar deal with Uber

Uber, san francisco
One day after state regulators lifted a ban against the ride-sharing company Lyft, a similar courtesy was extended to another local operator. Uber, the oldest ride-sharing company in San Francisco, had been issued a cease-and-desist order from the California Public Utilities Commission in October, although the business continued to operate. Read More

Lyft works out operations issues with state regulators

Lyft san francisco
Vehicles sporting pink mustaches could proliferate on the streets of San Francisco in coming months after a cease-and-desist order against a popular ride-sharing company was lifted. Lyft, a startup that combines new media functions with taxi-like services, had been threatened with fines of $20,000 and ordered to halt its operations while the California Public Utilities Commission investigated the company’s practices. Lyft is known for outfitting members’ vehicles with bright-pink mustaches on the front. Read More
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