Mid-Week Links: Freedom

Marin Lesser and Greater

  • Freedom in the city: It's difficult for someone to give up the keys, especially when living in a rural or suburban setting like Sebastapol. Doing it in the city makes everything easier. Walks are shorter, transit is better, taxis are available at all hours, and people keep active longer. (PD, SFGate)
  • A form of justice: Novato has settled out of court with the family of Melody Osheroff, a 9-year-old killed by a drunk motorcyclist in 2009. The Osheroffs sued the city for poor street design but the city settled for $675,000. A memorial will be built for Melody. (Advance)
  • Autism linked to car pollution: Prenatal exposure to highway pollution has been correlated with increased risk of autism. The research underscores how imperative it is for Marin to develop solid regulations on housing near Highway 101. (Streetsblog)
  • One for the money: BART has plans to double capacity in the next 30 years, from longer trains to express service, and it will need it. Now it just needs to find a few billion dollars somewhere. (SFist)
  • Engineered danger: Speed limits set to match how fast most people drive puts the safety of drivers above the safety of pedestrians or bicyclists that also need to use the road, a dangerous metric for cities trying to take back streets for other modes of transportation. (Copenhagenize)
  • Engineered failure: To really get trains and transit to take off in the United States, the next Secretary of Transportation should be as technically savvy as he or she is visionary. The Department of Transportation needs to stop simply distributing money and start reforming how it does business. (Bloomberg)
  • Minimal damage: Adding people to cities is good for the environment as a whole, but part of the point of density is to concentrate the damage rather than spread it all over a region. If we want to maintain our green Marin cities, we need to bring nature into new developments. (Switchboard)
  • And...: Marin's median income is only middle of the pack in the Bay Area, falling even lower than Contra Costa. (IJ) ... Tiny homes from Santa Rosa are making inroads in the District of Columbia. (WaPo) ... San Francisco to be awarded for excellence in affordable housing, confusing urbanists. (SFGate) ... San Rafael considers raising parking rates. (Patch)

The Toll

Two people were injured since Monday.

  • The 53-year-old man who died last week in Tiburon has been named. Kurt Sears, a resident of Washington State in town for work, died when he flipped his car. (IJ)
  • The teenage Novato driver responsible for injuring himself and five others in a crash last week has plead guilty to a DUI and driving beyond the limitations of his provisional license. His sentence has not yet been determined. (IJ)
  • Marin injury: A teen driver injured himself by hitting another car and sliding off the road in Novato. (Advance)
  • Sonoma injury: A pedestrian was injured by a driver in Santa Rosa. (PD)

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