Casey Miner's blog

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The US Department of Transportation announced the winners of its big transportation grants yesterday, and two of them are coming to the Bay Area: $10 million to help the East Bay Regional Parks District close gaps in its 200-mile system of paved trails, and another $2 million to facilitate redevelopment planning for the Oakland Army Base.

This week in the roundup: is more public transportation always better? People are already spending less of their money on it, especially if they live in cities where they can ditch their cars.

Caltrain stop. Photo by Casey Miner

As Caltrain gets ready to approve fare hikes and service reductions later this week, some riders are actually happy: the agency can't avoid making the cuts, but it's letting the riders guide how they do it. John Murphy, who talked to me for my recent piece on Caltrain, just wrote me to say that agency staff are recommending a three-month minimum trial of bullet train service on the weekend.

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This week in the transpo roundup it’s time for some perspective shifts…

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A huge inspiration for new transportation projects – and the Bay Area has a lot of big ones in the works right now – is efficiency. How much more efficient is the Oakland Airport Connector, the BRT or High Speed Rail going to be than what we have now? As it turns out, the answer to that question isn’t as straightforward as you might think. When calculating travel times, planners don’t just calculate how long it actually takes to get from point A to point B. They calculate how long people think it takes.

Sue Mark and Bruce Douglas of Oakland take their "community bulletin board" for a ride. Photo by Casey Miner

California is banking on high-speed rail to replace commuter flights in the state, but construction is years away. In the meantime, will buses fill the gap?

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Have a bumpy ride to work this morning? You’re not alone. A new report by TRIP, a national transportation research group, finds that the country’s road infrastructure is in terrible shape – and California’s is particularly bad.

Of the top 20 worst areas identified in the report, eight are in California, and three of those are in the Bay Area, including San Francisco/Oakland (counted together), San Jose and Concord.

Public art by Rebar in Visitacion Valley. Photo courtesy San Francisco Arts Commission

This week in transpo innovation (my favorite kind!) people are taking to the freeway to map California roadkill patterns, using paint to save pedestrians, imagining thinking traffic lights, and

Connecting the dots: top news stories for Monday, September 13, 2010

By Mitzi Mock on September 13, 2010 - 7:58pm

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Attention smartphone developers, government watchdogs and policy think tanks: Mayor Newsom wants you to know ... well, everything...

Transparency could have helped to prevent last week’s explosion in San Bruno. Apparently, PG&E officials knew in 2007 that the pipe’s risk failure was  'unacceptably high'...