Mid-Week Links: Novato Moving

Things are starting to move in Novato, six weeks after the tragic crash that killed Hailey Ratliff. A memorial walk two weeks ago saw hundreds turn out, with city officials and residents expressing support for safer streets. Elisabeth Thomas-Matej joined my call for protected bike lanes in the city while a neighborhood group is investigating ways to lobby for safer streets. And, now that the driver who killed Hailey was cleared of wrongdoing, the Ratliff family has decided to sue Novato for negligence. The suit argues that poor road design, high speeds, and untrimmed vegetation all contributed to the tragedy.

Only time will tell if this movement is permanent. For the sake of the city and its people, I hope it is.

Marin Greater and Lesser

• Marin County has the second-lowest number of people commuting alone to work in the Bay Area, bested only by San Francisco itself. Though it's still somewhat high at 65.2 percent, fully 19 percent don't drive, take transit, or carpool at all, and that probably means a lot of walking and bicycling. (CoCo Times)
• Santa Rosa faces a tough decision with its Coddingtown SMART rail crossing. It can spend $1.7 million for a pedestrian overpass, or close one at-grade crossing so state regulators would allow the city to open a new at-grade crossing here. (PD)
• Parklets could come to Fairfax, that is if the concept passes through all the governmental hoops alterations to parking usually have to jump through. (Patch)
• The Italian Street Painting Festival is back! After a hiatus and concerns it wouldn't return, organizers received enough seed money to revive San Rafael's biggest street festival of the year for next summer. (Patch)
• Sprawl in Tiburon is being subsidized by Marin and the costs are skyrocketing. A court ordered the county to pay half the cost of a housing development's EIR, and the cost has now reached $468,000. (IJ)
• Larkspur has the worst roads in the Bay Area. While not much of a problem for drivers, bicyclists have a tough time navigating the cracked and buckled pavement. (Bay Citizen)
• Marin's mountain biking history and culture is on display at the SFO gallery, so stop by next time you pass through. If you really want your fix, don't forget that we have an express bus; for a $40 round-trip, it's actually not much more than a high-class theater. (Pacific Sun)
• A fighter pilot is trained to keep watch for any movement and to use his or her eyes to maximum effect. Drivers and cyclists, who aren't trained in the fine art of attention, should be. An RAF pilot has some tips for how to detect cyclists if you're a driver, and how to avoid getting missed if you're a cyclist. (London Cyclist)
• And...: Caltrans hit with record fine for breaking water quality rules in 101 construction. (PD) ... A new Boston rail station is being funded by New Balance. (Archpaper) Could Fireman's Fund do the same for SMART in Novato? ... Fare hikes and service cuts are coming to Santa Rosa's CityBus. (PD) ... Marin Transit's Muir Woods Shuttle awarded for excellence. (NBBJ) ... Corte Madera's long-awaited park cafe has finally opened. (IJ)

The Toll

One person died and two others were injured this week.

• Richard Giacomini drowned after crashing his truck into a West Marin reservoir this week. The well-known rancher was 71. (IJ)
• Joe Kwai Lee, the driver accused of killing Alvine Heese with his car last week, has plead not guilty in Santa Rosa court. He was driving to a doctor's appointment on a suspended license. (PD)
• A woman was injured by a driver backing out of their driveway in Santa Rosa. (PD) ... A motorcyclist injured himself by crashing his bike in Sonoma County. He suffered only minor injuries. (PD)

Mid-Week Links: Area Plans

Marin County

• The Larkspur SMART station should be moved, at least according to attendees of a Station Area Plan workshop. While the town can't do much to change the station's location, the delay in that leg of the system means it could be moved to be near the ferry terminal. (Twin Cities)
• Up the tracks, there is concern brewing that the Civic Center Station Area Plan would bring too much traffic and detract from the iconic Civic Center itself. (Patch)
• Test results at a number of Bay Area bridges were falsified, according to an internal Caltrans investigation. The Bay Bridge and the Richmond Bridge both were the subject of false testing, though Caltrans is sure the two spans are safe. The Golden Gate Bridge is administered by a separate agency and was not part of the testing. (IJ)
• Fairfax passed a balanced budget for coming fiscal year. The $7 million plan is bolstered by surging sales tax revenue, thanks to the new Good Earth store, and savings from empty posts, including that of Town Manager. (IJ)
• Robert Eyler argues for a more reasoned approach to approving new development, one that separates fact from opinion and the interests of a neighborhood from the county at large. (NBBJ)
• And...: One person thinks former RVSD GM Brett Richards deserves some praise; another thinks the San Rafael Airport rec center absolutely doesn't. (IJ) ... Mill Valley Lumber could be saved. (Pacific Sun) ... Highway signs are in the offing for The Village shopping center. (Twin Cities)

The Greater Marin

• The Richmond refinery fire disrupted a major transportation hub, not to mention a city of over 100,000 people, and residents are pissed. Unfortunately, while other agencies announced service disruptions, GGT was, once again, silent. (SFist)
• San Franciscans will likely vote on luxury development 8 Washington in November, 2013. Opponents dislike the size, amount of parking, and the fact that it's for rich people. (SFGate)
• Preliminary reports on Muni's all-door boarding experiment show marked increases in speed on some major routes. Before GGT copies its maligned cousin, though, it may want to adopt all-door exiting like every other major transit agency. (Streetsblog)
• Healdsburg unanimously approved a sprawl project of 28 homes far from the city center. Though the homes aren't terribly far out, they will be far from the city center and transit. (Press Democrat)
• If you think you know everything there is to know about Marin's old streetcars, you might want to find out about Contra Costa's. The Museum of the San Ramon Valley is putting a number of artifacts on display detailing the history of mass transit in CoCo. The exhibit runs through August 19. (CoCo Times)

The Toll

• This week: one pedestrian with severe injuries, six drivers or passengers with unspecified or minor injuries, and two crashes with no injuries.
• The man who died riding a bike in Santa Rosa last week was a PE teacher in town for an educational conference and leaves behind a young family. The intersection where Ruben Hernandez was killed will soon get a stoplight as part of a new development, though it's unclear if the city council would have done anything otherwise. (Press Democrat)
• Two drivers hit one other on Highway 101 last Thursday morning. No injuries were reported. (IJ)
• A driver had a seizure and crashed his SUV into a ravine off Shoreline Highway. The driver was transporting kids to a surfing day camp, but thankfully nobody was injured. (IJ)
• The driver of an armored vehicle lost control and crashed after nearly being struck by the driver of a horse trailer on Lucas Valley Road. The armored vehicle's driver was hospitalized, and his passenger was treated at the scene. (IJ)
• A semi was struck from behind on northbound Highway 101 and its driver lost control, sending the truck into the southbound lanes near Tiburon. The driver suffered minor injuries, though no word on who hit the truck. (IJ)
• A Porsche (it's unclear if anyone was driving it or not) hit a woman in Greenbrae after literally going under an SUV. The woman has been hospitalized with serious injuries. (IJ)
• A drunk driver pulled in front of someone driving a Jeep in Larkfield, causing an accident. One of the drunk driver's passengers was injured, and the other - a 4 year old girl - was unharmed. No word on the condition of either driver. (Press Democrat)
• A motorcyclist was injured on Highway 101 in San Rafael last week, though it's unclear how he was injured or the extent of his injuries. (Patch)

Mid-Week Links: Reclamation

Marin County

• Fairfax is hashing out how to implement Streets for People, its own version of San Francisco's incredibly successful Sunday Streets program. The town would close Bolinas for part of the day, opening it up to anyone on foot, bike, or other human-powered conveyance. (Patch)
• New blood on the Ross Valley Sanitary District board promises a management and policy shift. New member Mary Sylla is opposed to new bonds and rate hikes intended to speed the district's century-long pipe replacement cycle. Marcia Johnson, who lost her re-election bid, was a supporter. (IJ)
• Tonight, chat with Blithedale Terrace developer Phil Richardson about his proposed 20-unit condo development in lower Mill Valley - 7pm, The Forest Room of the Mill Valley Community Center. (Patch)
• A new sidewalk is under construction in Homestead Valley's Evergreen Avenue under the county's Safe Routes to School program. People still don't like the plan, saying it undermines the community's semi-rural character. There may be an injunction filed to stop the project, which is designed make the route to school safer. (IJ, @mikesonn, Mill Valley Herald)
• A new Santa Venetia subdivision will not go forward as planned, at least not yet. County Supervisors rejected the 14-unit sprawl project pending a few more months of study. Unfortunately, the area is zoned for 15 units on one-acre plots, so it's unlikely the project can be stopped entirely. (IJ)
• Ever wondered how much your town's Director of Public Works was paid? Bay Area News Group has created a searchable database of all public employee salaries in the Bay Area, so you can know at last. (IJ)
• Ross faces dramatic cuts now that the town declined to pass the $642,000 public safety tax. Two police officers, a firefighter, and a firefighting apprenticeship program are all on the chopping block. The town will cut other areas to keep the damage minimal. (Ross Valley Reporter)
• The draft Civic Center Station Area Plan has been released to the public and to the Board of Supervisors, who are reviewing the draft now. The plan creates more housing, rezones parts of the auto-oriented neighborhood, and creates a better pedestrian circulation pattern through the area. (Pacific Sun)
• And...: A yard that has encroached on open space for more than 20 years will finally be returned to San Rafael, though the owners have a history of ignoring officialdom on the subject, so who knows? (IJ) ... In a picture of sweetness and light, a Corte Madera father and daughter spent the whole school year biking in tandem to kindergarten. (Twin Cities Times) ... Brad Breithaupt goes deeper into the voting numbers from last Tuesday's election. (IJ)

The Greater Marin

• A comprehensive report on San Francisco's multifaceted and crowded transit system has been released. The 103-year-old report details the pre-Muni world of streetcars and rails in the aftermath of the earthquake and fire. Among the recommendations? Getting rid of horse-drawn cars. (Muni Diaries)
• Apple will stop using Google Maps on its iPhones, and it won't include transit directions. You may have to go back to using that 511.org app... (Streetsblog)
• It turns out Muni has been neglecting maintenance for years as the agency has sacrificed long-term financial stability for short-term savings. Be glad you have GGT managing your fleet, Marin. (SF Weekly)
• A bill to create a statewide ceiling on parking requirements around transit has shown signs of life in the state Senate. AB 904 would force localities to require no more than one parking space per housing unit, 1,000 square feet of retail, or other measures. (Around the Capitol via @MarketUrbanism and @mottsmith)
• If you want to encourage transit ridership, the best way is to price driving. While expanding a rail network by 10% nets a 3% gain in ridership, effective car regulations (like congestion pricing) nets a 10-20% increase in ridership and a commensurate decrease in driving. (Atlantic Cities)
• And...: Santa Rosa mulls electing its councilmembers by district rather than at-large. (Press-Democrat) ... The small-government aspects of smart growth appeal to at least some conservatives. (Next American City) ... Frank Lloyd Wright hated cities. (Atlantic Cities)

Got a tip? Tweet @theGreaterMarin, email thegreatermarin [at] gmail.com, or post something on Facebook.

Mid-Week Links: Halls of Power

Elections

It was a crazy night on Tuesday, if by crazy you mean "everyone stayed home." Whether or not people had a say, the elections happened anyway and Marin's incumbents did rather well.

• Nationally, assemblyman and Woolsey-endorsed successor Jared Huffman ran away with first place in the 2nd District's first round election. Still undecided is whether the centrist will run against liberal Norm Solomon or conservative Dan Roberts which could decide whether the race is quite difficult or quite easy for the former state assemblyman. (IJ, Press-Democrat)
• In California, Assemblyman Michael Allen and San Rafael Councilmember Marc Levine beat the rest of the pack to  first and second place in the open primary for the 10th Assembly seat. The Democrat-on-Democrat battle promises to be bruising as both fight over who is more of a Sacramento outsider and genuine local of the North Bay. (Press-Democrat)
• Marin County Supervisors Katie Rice and Steve Kinsey walked away with clear victories against their opponents, reflecting the prevailing feelings of contentment with the Board, if not the regional agencies it deals with. (IJ)
• Locally...: Ross rejected the Measure C public safety tax while seeming to settle on three new councilmembers. (IJ) ... Belvedere got three new councilmembers and renewed its public safety tax. (IJ) ... Voters firmly rejected incumbent Ross Valley Sanitary District board member Marcia Johnson, who supported doubling rates in order for the district to fix its lines faster than once per century. (IJ) ... The Ross Valley School District will get its parcel tax hike, which it said it needed to offset state budget cuts. (IJ) ... Sausalito will join the Southern Marin Fire Protection District. (Marinscope)

Marin County

• Hopes are running high that fans of the San Rafael Pacifics will become patrons of downtown businesses given Albert Field's location only three blocks from Fourth Street. (NBBJ)
• GGT fares are growing faster than tolls at the Golden Gate Bridge, creating a perverse incentive for people to drive rather than take the bus. Though politically easy, it's the opposite of what the Bridge District should do. (Streetsblog)
• Meanwhile, MT is wringing its hands over a 3.6% increase in operating costs, driven mostly by increases in its $16 million contract with GGT to provide local service. They want to renegotiate the contract, but it's unclear whether GGT will budge. (IJ)
• San Rafael's Street Crimes Unit is up for disbandment as the council grapples with ongoing budget deficits. The three-member unit has two retirements this year and the council may not allow the police department to hire replacements. Given the high-profile crime push at the transit center earlier this year, ongoing gang activity in Terra Linda, the Canal, Novato, and the criminal problems downtown, I think this is an instance of eating your seed corn. (Patch)
• All your transit needs will now be satisfied at the new GGT/MT customer service center at the Bettini Transit Center. GGT will move its customer service center to the center so it can be close to the people who actually use transit. (IJ)
• Marin's local agencies and districts should consolidate to avoid duplication of services and save money, according to a Grand Jury report on the subject. The overwhelming approval of fire consolidation in Sausalito this past week is a good start. One former councilmember wants us to go even further. (Patch, Marinscope)
• A Corte Madera manufacturing company, EO Products, is moving to the Canal after an exhaustive search of the region. The site is near existing transit and within walking distance of much of the immigrant neighborhood. (IJ)
• A year after Corte Madera Mayor Bob Ravasio and San Rafael Councilmember Damon Connolly got a tour of The Netherlands' bike infrastructure, sponsored by the Bikes Belong Foundation, there seems to still be some behind-the-scenes movement towards bicycling. (Planetizen, Bikes Belong)
• And...: The San Rafael Airport sports complex moves on to the council. (IJ) ... Mill Valley approved some condos downtown over the objection of Streamkeepers. (IJ) ... Who does the North San Rafael Coalition of Residents really represent? (IJ letter)

The Greater Marin

• At least one West Sonoman wants the county to sell its western half to Marin. At least we maintain our rural roads, he says, while Sonoma is determined to turn its roads into gravel. In light of a massive road repair deficit and deadlock over taxes, though, who could blame them? (Press-Democrat)
• The East Bay is working to promote transit-oriented living around its BART stations, something long lacking in the sprawl of the East. Not mentioned are updates to Richmond's General Plan which attempt to make walkable the notoriously unwalkable city. (New Colonist, City of Richmond)

Errata of Corte Madera

While I was working on last week's post, I gathered rather more information than I needed for something focused on mall redevelopment though most of it is really really wonky.  Be forewarned.

• While working through Corte Madera's zoning code (Title 18 of the Corte Madera Municipal Code), I found that the densest type of zoning is R-3, which allows 17.7 units per acre at most but still requires buildings occupy at most 35% of a given lot, meaning an effective floor-area ratio of about 1.  In these zones, even studio apartments need 1 parking space each, and one parking space is needed for every 10 housing units to accommodate visitors.
• As far as I could tell, there aren't any parcels zoned for R-3 in Corte Madera. R-2 is rather more restrictive. It allows only 10.8 units per acre.
• The minimum amount of land needed for a parking space in Corte Madera is 204 square feet. The minimum size of a studio apartment in the state of California is 160 square feet.
• Corte Madera precisely prescribes the types of uses allowed in any given type of commercial space.  One can't, say, open a bookstore in the along Tamal Vista (zoned C-3), sell electronics parts downtown (C-1), or sharpen tools in a store at Town Center (C-2).
• The number of units per acre in downtown San Anselmo, including the Flats, is about 15.5.  If you want to live downtown, nine stores (zoned San Anselmo's version of C-2) can have at least one apartment above. One of them, the shingled building on San Anselmo Avenue between the Courtyard and Bridal Salon, has three.  Unlike Corte Madera, it's legal to live above a store in San Anselmo.
• The best tools I've found so far are MarinMap's Geocortex and the county assessor's Property Tax Inquiry. The standard MarinMap is pretty handy, but nothing beats the querying capability of Geocortex. Find out the zone, size of buildings on the property, address, parcel number, and just about anything else you wanted to know. For the rest, you'll need to input the parcel number into the Property Tax Inquiry, which tells you things like the number of housing units, how much they pay in property taxes, and more.

Make Town Center a Town Center

Central to the discussion of Corte Madera’s housing concerns is that it is built-out. There is no more developable land, and its commercial areas are productive and full. Where will more people go? The answer lies in Corte Madera Town Center’s parking lot.

The Situation

Over the next 28 years, Corte Madera is projected to grow by 204 units, most of which will be enforced by the state through its RHNA process. The town wants to rid itself of RHNA by quitting ABAG, saying that the assignment of so many units is simply too high given the fact that there is no unused land to develop.

Enter Block 024-163, occupied by the four story Town Center mall, two gas stations, and a buffer along the Tamalpais Drive exit ramp. Of the 31.7 acres, only 7.5 acres are used by buildings, leaving the other 24.2 used by parking or parking access.

Town Center prides itself on imitating a vaguely Mediterranean village, with narrow brick walkways and arches. Transit access is provided by no fewer than eight all-day bus routes and two commute routes. By bus, it’s 45 minutes to San Francisco, eight minutes to San Rafael from the bus pad, and it’s walking distance to downtown Corte Madera, the Village, and most of Central and Southern Marin are biking distance. Town Center has a grocery store, doctors, cafés, and restaurants.

I can’t think of a better spot to put some low-rise apartments.

The Proposal

My concept is for Town Center to fill its entire lot rather than just a fifth of it, creating a walkable village that activates the streets around it for foot traffic and develops a bustling hive of activity on the inside. Even with parking garages using a quarter of the lot, the design could accommodate between 400 and 665 units of housing – far, far beyond what ABAG projects the town will need to build.

From the inside, the Town Center would look much like it does today: winding pedestrian streets 20-30 feet wide dominated by retail. The closest American equivalent I can think of is Santa Barbara’s Paseo Nuevo. Located downtown, the two-block mall opens directly onto the sidewalks, integrating seamlessly with the rest of the city. Small retail bays would encourage locally-grown shops that couldn’t afford larger retail, and encouraging studio apartments would ensure little undue pressure on schools.

The catch is that this sort of project is illegal under Corte Madera’s current zoning codes. Even the Mixed Use Gateway District is too restrictive, as it was tailor-made for the Wincup site and requires a parking space for every unit. The parking requirement would be particularly foolish for a development that relies on walkable, transit-oriented living, as it would impose onerous costs on the development for minimal return.

For the site to develop properly, a new zone would need to be developed for the site. Perhaps (and I’m spitballing here) a minimum of 40 housing units per acre but no maximum; no parking minimum; no restriction on what sort of store or office you could open on the site, contrary to what the code currently allows; a maximum height of 30 feet for the street, 45 for the interior; and a rooftop garden, to filter out the nastiness from the freeway. If the developer were allowed to unbundle the parking from the residences, meaning a resident could choose whether to just rent an apartment or to also rent a parking space, it would take some pressure off the need for more parking and allow the developer to figure out for itself how many spaces to build rather than rely on diktat from town hall.

The density may be enough to encourage Zipcar, the car-sharing service, to finally open in Marin. Studies have shown that one Zipcar takes 15 cars off the road, and that users tend to make fewer trips by car. If town hall wants to encourage transit use, too, it could facilitate a six month free bus pass program for anyone who moves to Town Center. Studies show that transit use is sticky – few people switch from transit to driving once going from the driver’s seat to the passenger seat – so putting people that already live in a walkable place onto transit from Day One will mean less traffic for everyone.

I present this project as a talking point, a concept of how Corte Madera could build value for itself through the affordable housing allocation process. The childless singles and couples that would move there would add tax revenue to the town without any additional burden on the school system. Rather than just a mall, Corte Madera would have a new village in Marin, and all on land that the city now thinks of as “built out” and undevelopable. These aren’t high rises, nor are they Soviet apartment blocks. By opening the door through zoning, rather than just constructing affordable housing, developers would be free to build housing however the market supports.

Every parking lot is an opportunity for something new. Storing cars isn’t a high use for land. It’s untaxable, and it leaves the land fallow for most of the time. Corte Madera has the space for new housing and, more than most towns, it has the location.  No matter what the town does it will need to build more housing. This is the best place for it.

ABAG, Let's Talk About Corte Madera

To ABAG Staff:

Congratulations!  You've been invited to testify at a couple of Corte Madera town council meetings.  I know it's far away and I know it's a tiny town, but please resist the urge to blow off these meetings.  Corte Madera deserves to know why it is projected to grow and how it's expected to grow when it feels as though it's already built out.  Luckily, the town council isn't terribly familiar with the Plan Bay Area process.  For example, Corte Madera's representative to ABAG, Councilwoman Carla Condon, only recently learned that Plan Bay Area involves more agencies than just ABAG!  There is a great opportunity to educate the council on what you do, why you do it, why it's important for Corte Madera, and why it's important for the region.

To prepare you for the task, I've assembled a bit of a cheat sheet of the questions you'll get and what you should do in preparation to answer.  Each of these could be its own article, but hopefully I can point you in the right direction to find this out on your own.

Why is Plan Bay Area necessary?

Don't simply say that the state mandated it, and don't simply parrot a line about Smart Growth.  Give the background on the subject.  For reference, make sure to read the articles Planetizen has gathered under its SB 375 tag, including the ones critical of the legislation.  That's your homework, because you need to argue for SB 375 just as hard as you argue for ABAG.

In short, Plan Bay Area is necessary to do exactly what makes the most sense: concentrate growth where there already is infrastructure to support residents; to build up our central cities; to reduce particulate pollution; to promote active living for a range of public health reasons; and to ensure growth builds up our region rather than weakens it.

Doesn't higher density growth lead to more greenhouse gases?

This is an argument popularized in Marin by Mill Valley resident Bob Silvestri, a kind of home-grown Wendell Cox.  His opus on the subject argues that low-density housing is more environmentally friendly than medium-density housing.  Mayor Bob Ravasio believes this, too.

Though there are a number of problems with his argument, the least obvious is that Silvestri argues as though no growth is a viable alternative.  Of course constructing buildings produces greenhouse gases, but the point is to reduce per-capita greenhouse gas production, not absolute production.  This means moving people to their feet where possible and transit where not, and that means that growth should happen with moderately higher densities.

Be prepared to answer criticisms like Silvestri's.

Doesn't ABAG want Corte Madera to become a high-rise city?

Assocated questions are: isn't Corte Madera already built out?  Where would we put more people?  ABAG's vice president stuck a foot in her mouth when she answered this question with a finger pointed in the air, saying, If you say your town is built out, then build up.  For towns in Marin, her statement played right into the image of ABAG as a soul-sucking, social-experimenting, power-mad agency that wants to destroy town character.  Never, ever, say that Marin needs to build up.

Not only does it sound bad to Marinites, but it's also not accurate. Instead of such a ham-fisted answer, you need to emphasize that Plan Bay Area wants to move the region back to how we used to build cities. To illustrate, talk about the parts of Marin that Marinites like.  We love the places like downtown Mill Valley, downtown Corte Madera, downtown San Anselmo, downtown Larkspur, etc.  When we think about small-town feel, we think of these commercial strips.  Contrast this with those areas we don't like as much: Smith Ranch, Terra Linda, Vintage Oaks.  The distinguishing factor between the two types of areas are what they were oriented around. The places Marinites like are old transit-oriented development, built around train stations and people walking.  The places Marinites don't like are car-oriented development, built around parking lots.

What Plan Bay Area envisions is a return to traditional town planning in those places that were built with the parking lot in mind.  In Corte Madera, allowing residential uses on the parking lots of the Town Center shopping mall, even if they're just townhomes, would be more than enough growth for many RHNA cycles and certainly more than expected over the next 28 years of Plan Bay Area.

People don't walk or bike now, so why would new residents?

To address this question, bring solid research and charts.  Remember that the densities you're talking about for Corte Madera are in the range of 4,000 people per square mile, and that it's proximity to transit amenities and bicycle infrastructure more than population densities that will induce people to use their feet and the bus.

Take, for example, the new study from the Arizona Department of Transportation.  Even at very low housing densities, moving people closer together brings down the number of vehicle miles traveled.  The goal isn't to eliminate driving but to give people the option to walk, bike, or use transit without it being an undue burden.  Also, it's also not solely focused on commutes.  Someone who drives to work but walks to Corte Madera Cafe on Saturday - Plan Bay Area promotes more of that.

Oh, and nearly one in five commutes in Corte Madera are already by transit, bike, or foot, so someone's doing some walking.

What good has ABAG ever done for Corte Madera?

Talk to the Council about what ABAG does on a regular basis for Marin County as a whole and what they expect to do for Corte Madera in the future. ABAG, for example, manages federal grant money as a metropolitan planning organization.  It also provides financial services for members; provides research data on population and housing in the region; and a host of other things (PDF).  If appropriate, talk about the role of Corte Madera's representative to ABAG and how you would love to work with her more.

What is the methodology used to create your growth numbers?

Bring a modelling expert with you who can answer questions about growth methodology.  This is important, so I'll say it again: bring a modelling expert with you to answer questions.  For Corte Madera, the whole dispute boils down to what is happening inside the modelling black box.  The council is worried that your agency will destroy Corte Madera's character out of negligence, so bring someone who can answer their questions and open up that black box.

Corte Madera has some legitimate questions that need legitimate answers.  You cannot sleepwalk through this presentation or the Q&A afterwards.  You will likely face a hostile public that will call you a fascist for doing regional planning.  You cannot zone that out either.  You need to be engaged and engaging.  You need to educate the Council about what One Bay Area is doing, why they're doing it, how they're doing it, and what it all means for Corte Madera and Marin.

In all honesty, I'd love to have the answers to some of these questions.  What is the proper role of a representative to ABAG?  What is the exact work that went into Corte Madera's projected growth?  I'll look forward to your testimony almost as much as the Council, I'm sure.

In any event, this is your chance to change the conversation in Corte Madera and the rest of the Bay Area.  This is your chance to reboot your messaging.  This is your chance to justify your agency's existence.  Don't let that chance slip away.

Come support Corte Madera in ABAG

Corte Madera will consider whether to finalize its departure from ABAG tomorrow (Tuesday) at 7:30. Come out and voice your opposition! I'll be speaking at the public comment time and I would love to have more than me there. As a reminder, Corte Madera voted to quit ABAG over what it saw as overreach by the association in housing mandates and the One Bay Area process. I strenuously opposed the decision, calling it a dramatic overreaction to nonexistent problems. It will hurt the town, in that it will get housing mandates from the state after the upcoming RHNA cycle is over in 2021, and will hurt the region as a whole, in that a growth model that fails Corte Madera may be failing the rest of the Bay Area. I will make the same arguments during the public comment period.

Mid-Week Links: Colombian Roast

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/39704761 w=620&h=349] Medellín has a transit system unlike any other.  For the steep mountainsides there are gondolas and escalators; for the center city, there are metro trains and BRT, and for everywhere else there's a burgeoning bikeshare system. Whenever I see movies like this, I imagine what kind of place Marin might have been if the trains had never stopped running, if BART had made it across the bridge, if we didn't value mall parking above people and the planet.  What kind of a country would we be if, rather than putting cars before people, we put people before cars?

Marin County

• The Ritter Center will expand into a temporary medical space, thanks to approval by the San Rafael council Monday night, but will be limited to only 60 clients per day rather than the 65 requested. (Pacific Sun)
• Opponents of the Albert Park minor league plan have filed suit, arguing that professional baseball violates the park's deed restriction against commercial activity. (Patch)
• If you want to influence your town, show up to public meetings, if only to counterbalance the protestors that tend to show up instead. (Herald)
• The Board of Supervisors delayed a vote on Lucas Valley's Grady Ranch, pending review of environmental concerns raised by the Corps of Engineers and others. (IJ)
• And...: Corte Madera started work on a new public plaza and cafe at its town-owned shopping center. (IJ) ... San Anselmo approved a new parking lot across from downtown. (IJ) ... Novato will install six electric car charging stations. (IJ) ... San Anselmo is considering major improvements to Greenfield Avenue. (IJ)

The Greater Marin

• Congress approved a 90 day extension of federal transportation legislation, ensuring the gas tax and road construction funds did not end last weekend. The House never took up the Senate transportation bill, and the result is all kinds of bad. (The Hill)
• Cost estimates for California High Speed Rail plummeted $30 billion under a new business plan released this week. (SFist)
• Golden Gate/Marin Transit may not be the best transit system in the world, but at least it's typically on time - something Muni can't really boast. (SFist)
• In the City often?  Need a break from the bustle?  You may want to investigate the privately owned public spaces that dot the landscape. (SFist)

ABAG Options that Work

Corte Madera’s departure from ABAG won’t solve any of their problems – indeed, it will compound them.  Despite the town’s protestations that housing mandates are imposed upon them by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats that don’t understand the town, the fact remains that by quitting ABAG they have simply gone from an organization where they had a say to a state housing department where they have no say.

If Corte Madera were serious about regaining local control over whether it will build any housing or not, it would look for ways to work within the system while seeking its reform.  In their ill-informed haste, Corte Madera left behind two important tools in the ABAG toolbox: forming a subregion, and allocation trades.

Shrink the fish pond

A subregion is a group of governments assigned their state housing needs as a block, and the subregion may then divvy up the allocations between members as they see fit.  This gives local governments significantly more control over planning decisions as staff is necessarily closer to the ground and even the smallest minnow of a town has a greater voice in a smaller fish pond.

An effective Marin subregion would need to involve the whole of the county's towns and cities.  Policy decisions, such as factors for the allocation methodology, would be decided by either the county’s ABAG delegation or the Marin County Council of Mayors and Councilmembers, consisting of all 60 of Marin’s elected councilmembers and supervisors.  Either way gives the process legitimacy, something ABAG is sorely lacking, and allows the public to be more involved decisionmaking.

Napa took advantage of the subregional option this RHNA cycle, forming a subregion for precisely the reasons of local control and to address local concerns.  Their draft methodology will likely include factors such as water availability and traffic, both serious concerns in Marin as well, and will involve significant negotiations between individual jurisdictions.

Alas, the time to form a subregion has passed.  Protests against this last RHNA cycle focused on the state’s supposed usurpation of local control and the deleterious effects thereof and so never got around to more productive lines of thought like forming a subregion.  Even if Marin were to establish a subregion tomorrow, the upcoming RHNA cycle would not take the subregion into account.  This process requires patience, and the blinkered opponents of RHNA are motivated by righteous anger, not calculated political moves.

Trading spaces

Luckily, ABAG allows localities who find their allocations particularly onerous to trade away some of their housing allocations, so long as a jurisdiction doesn't entirely abdicate its responsibility for new housing, compensates the receiving jurisdiction for the burden, and maintains the overall mix of affordable housing. ABAG must approve the transfer, but is not required to under state law - the Southern California Area Governments, ABAG's SoCal counterpart, does not require review, for example, though it does require the jurisdictions to be contiguous.

While there weren't any trades based on taste last cycle, as there would be if Corte Madera involved, Mountain View did transfer some of its allocation to Santa Clara County for practical reasons.  Moffett Field was projected to add jobs, but the town had no jurisdiction over the facility, which was in unincorporated county land, and protested that it was responsible for what amounted to federal workforce housing.  Santa Clara, as the proper jurisdiction over Moffett Field, agreed to take over responsibility for the allocated units.

It's unclear whether Corte Madera could be part of such trades while outside ABAG, as it would be the only jurisdiction in the Bay Area not part of the association.  Rather, as a jurisdiction receiving its allocation directly from the state it would likely be obligated to zone for the whole batch.  Town staff are preparing a report on what happens now that Corte Madera has left ABAG, which should shine more light on that issue.

Either option – forming a subregion, or initiating trades – requires political leadership that can reach across jurisdictional lines and convince those who want to work within the system.  It requires patience, and faith in the system, to lead reform, yet by acting so recklessly and counterproductively Corte Madera has shown it cannot be that leader.  Unless Marin finds such a leader, opponents of regionalism will continue to burn the only bridges they have back to local control.

A Lesson in Overreaction

There’s an old saying: “Think local, act global.”  It’s a pithy reminder that everything we do, from our brand of toilet paper to how we structure our cities, effects everyone else. I think someone forgot to tell Corte Madera that.

This past Tuesday, Corte Madera voted to quit ABAG, effective July, 2013.  The Council voted out of frustration at housing mandates it says are killing the town’s character, out of anger at Plan Bay Area, and out of a belief that Corte Madera is perfect.  Yet its actions will have no effect on any of the issues at stake in this debate and will hinder the town’s capacity to shape those issues.

Corte Madera will still need to zone for more housing.  Although ABAG is the administrator of housing requirements for this region, the mandate to zone comes from the state government.  By leaving ABAG, Corte Madera will receive its mandates directly from Sacramento, exposing it to the whim of a truly unelected and unaccountable body.  Within ABAG, Corte Madera had a voice in the association’s General Assembly.  It could contest mandates, allocation formulae, assumptions, and more.  Although staff has a major role to play in governments across the region, at least ABAG staff worked for local elected officials and were answerable to them.

Beyond ABAG, Corte Madera is still a part of the other three regional organizations – Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and the Bay Coastal Development Commission – which are all working on Plan Bay Area.  Indeed, Corte Madera will be materially affected by decisions made by these agencies but will lack any voice at the proceedings, as it has no representative on any of their boards.

If Corte Madera is subject to SB375, it will need to work directly with staff at each of those regional agencies to formulate its greenhouse gas reduction plans, using up valuable regional and town staff time simply to duplicate efforts and wasting taxpayer money to do so.

Not that any of this will matter for a while.  Although details are a bit sketchy, it seems as though Corte Madera will still be subject to ABAG mandates for the upcoming housing needs allocation.  If you listened to media reports you’d never know it, but there will be no material difference to Corte Madera as a result of these actions.  The town will still be subject to Plan Bay Area and will still receive housing allocations from ABAG until the following allocation in 2020.

The straw that broke this camel’s back were preliminary draft growth projections being used in Plan Bay Area's discussion phase.  They were too high, a problem brought up with force at Tuesday’s council meeting, but ABAG heard the voice of the town and others and will revise its numbers significantly downward in the next draft.  Those original numbers were released with no methodology, another complaint of Corte Maderans, but ABAG will release its second draft methodology this month.  Housing allocation numbers for the next cycle haven’t even been drafted yet, but they were brought up time and again as though the town already knew it would need to zone for hundreds of new units.  These are fake problems ginned up by Corte Madera’s ABAG representative, Councilmember Carla Condon, who should be fighting within the system rather than railing against it.

So what did Corte Madera get with its resolution on Tuesday?  Headlines, extra costs, and a muted voice.  Corte Madera will still receive housing allocations from ABAG in 2013 and the state in 2020, it will still be subject to Plan Bay Area, it will still be under regional organizations, but it has forfeited its voice in any of these decisions and has thrust upon its staff state-mandated planning requirements currently performed by ABAG.  The council gets to look like a hero to the county’s paper progressives, but its petulant overreaction to nonexistent problems will only compound the town’s woes.

Walkable Centers, Walkable Stations

If our local transit agencies ever revamp their bus maps or create supplements like my spider map, they should mark important stops as walkable centers, branding them like rail stations even if SMART will never go anywhere near them. Inspired by David Klion's metro station walkability rankings for the DC area I decided to make my own.  I was curious how our various bus pads and transit hubs stack up against one another in part out of curiosity, and in part to see whether major improvements could be made around our town centers and bus pads.  Using Walkscore, I got the following rankings, in order:

1. Santa Rosa Town Center, 98
2. Mill Valley Town Center, 97
3. Fairfax Parkade, 95
4. San Rafael Transit Center, 94
5. Copeland Street, Petaluma, 94
6. Terra Linda Bus Pad, 86
7. Larkspur Town Center, 83
8. San Anselmo Hub, 82
9. Sausalito Ferry, 82
10. Rohnert Park, Town Center, 82
11. Ignacio Bus Pad, 80
12. Cotati Town Center, 80
13. Tiburon Town Center, 78
14. Strawberry Transit Center, 75
15. Novato Transit Center, 75
16. Marin City Transit Center, 75
17. Rowland Avenue Bus Pad, 74
18. Lucas Valley Bus Pad, 74
19. Corte Madera Town Center, 72
20. Civic Center, 72
21. Paradise Drive Bus Pad, 71
22. Larkspur Landing, 71
23. Ross Town Center, 69
24. Delong Bus Pad, 68
25. Lucky Drive Bus Pad, 68
26. Tiburon Wye Bus Pad, 68
27. Canal (Average), 67
28. Seminary Drive Bus Pad, 66
29. College of Marin 63
30. Manzanita Bus Pad, 60
31. N San Pedro Road Bus Pad, 58
32. Spencer Avenue Bus Pad, 55
33. Atherton Bus Pad, 51
34. Alameda del Prado Bus Pad, 34
35. Marinwood Bus Pad, 18
36. Manor, 12

A few things stick out to me.  First, bus pads are far less walkable than town centers, though most of them are walkably close to amenities.  Especially surprising was the Lucas Valley bus pad, which is within walking distance of quite a few commercial outlets.  It is apparently more accessible than bus stops in downtown Ross and Corte Madera.  Second is the high accessibility of older towns and low accessibility of newer areas.  Third is that Marin's development is remarkably walkable compared to that of the DC metro area.  The average score for Marin is just a hair under 71, the same as DC's subway station average of 71, though some of the suburban counties have averages in the 40s. Lastly, there is no stop in Marin with a perfect 100.

One should keep in mind that Walkscore doesn't include the actual pedestrian environment. I'd much rather spend an afternoon in downtown Corte Madera than around the Smith Ranch Road office parks. Rather, Walkscore tells us that the bones of a real, metro-esque system are already in place, and that these neighborhoods, if retrofitted for walkability and served properly by transit, could take off.  It also tells us that development and the bus system have gone hand-in-hand: the various walkable (or at least accessible) centers around the county are served by the bus.

And these are the places that should be branded as transit hubs.  In DC, unlike the Bay Area, metro stations are the centers of a huge amount of development.  Cities market their metro stations as potential downtowns, and conversations about urban planning, office development, and more revolve around transit accessibility.  DC's metro map makes it easy for people to know how to get where they want to go, and businesses can market themselves with ease.  The carless Washingtonian may never get on the bus, but they know how to get where they need to go if it's next to a Metro station.

The same sort of branding and mapping could bring investment to the various gray fields around our bus hubs.  The Hub, for example, has an abandoned construction project not more than 500 feet away.  It's built into the hillside, so a taller building of four stories or more is certainly feasible.  Something similar might be built around Smith Ranch Road on either side of the freeway, while the huge parking lots around downtown Tiburon and Larkspur Landing could be put to far better use than car storage.

Because these centers are already walkable, they could in theory support more transit than is currently in place.  Marin's buses are blessed with walkable areas and mostly simple routes.  They just need that push to succeed.

Leaving ABAG Would Be a Mistake

Over the last year, rage against the Bay Area's alphabet soup of regional authorities has simmered just below the surface of Marin politics.  Although the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) got its share of hate for banning fires over Christmas and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) caught flack for housing mandates around SMART, it was the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) and its Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) process that drew the most fire by forcing localities to zone for more housing.  Marinites think their cities are already built out and so were incensed that an unelected agency could tell them to zone for more development.  The frustration has finally boiled over in Corte Madera, and there's a push for the town to leave ABAG.  It would be a mistake if it did.

Background: The State of Local Control

The RHNA process comes once every seven years, driven by a state mandate to accommodate affordable housing within the state's regions.  Sacramento directs regional agencies - ABAG in the Bay Area, SANDAG in San Diego - to assess housing needs in the area and assign a number of housing units regional towns, cities, and counties must zone for.  Marin has had trouble keeping up with the RHNA cycle and only now are the last towns finishing their housing plans.  Unfortunately, they took so long to finish that the next RHNA cycle is about to begin, dropping voters with more homes to zone for just as they figured out how to zone for the last bunch.

This cycle will be different.  ABAG is working with MTC, BAAQMD, and the Bay Coastal Development Commission (BCDC) to develop a regional Sustainable Communities Strategy (SCS), tying housing allocations to transportation, air quality, and water quality.  This unprecedented level of regional coordination means communities will need to work within the still-incomplete SCS or face financial penalties, as the regional agencies control and disburse a great deal of federal and state funds.  After going through a round of grueling negotiations over the last cycle's allocations and angst over the loss of local control, the SCS is just one more thing for local politicians to worry about.

Pulling Out

Into this walked Corte Madera's ABAG representative, Councilwoman Carla Condon.  For months she has argued that the association is trampling local rights, pursuing a social engineering project to make Corte Madera look like Oakland.  Mayor Bob Ravasio concurs, and would rather receive housing allocations directly from Sacramento.

I'm on record against these allocations - they distort the housing market and do rob cities of local control.  Yet I also know these allocations can do a great deal of good.  The densities mandated are not excessively high, and are met or exceeded in many parts of Marin, and they can give municipal councils an excuse to add housing near transit and historic downtowns.

Withdrawing from ABAG, as Corte Madera is considering, would not change either of those realities.  By dealing directly with the state, Corte Madera would be setting itself up to deal with a bigger bureaucracy with less chance of coming out on top.  As well, pulling out of ABAG could create a logistical mess for Corte Madera at other regional agencies, as transportation funding and support will be tied to the RHNA process, making even more work for town staff to sort out the inconsistencies with every other government in the region.

Far better would be for Corte Madera to spearhead a Marin County housing subregion.  ABAG allows localities to create subregions that can assign their own affordable housing needs.  Although ABAG still gives the subregion a total number of units, the subregion can assign those units however it likes.  A hypothetical Marin subregion would reestablish a modicum of local control over the allocations, allowing amenable cities, like Mill Valley or San Rafael, to take more units while others, like Corte Madera or Novato, would receive fewer.  Allocation would happen through the Marin County Council of Mayors and Councilmembers, so all localities would have a say in how allocations are made.

Alas, such a subregion would apply not to this coming RHNA cycle but the next, as the deadline for subregional formation passed last March.  As well, it's unlikely Corte Madera would be able to pull out of ABAG for this coming cycle either, meaning any reform will need to come from within ABAG or be in preparation for the rather distant future.  Given the major bureaucratic reforms coming with One Bay Area, it's too soon to say if the regional agencies will be too difficult for Marinites to handle.  In the interim, Councilwoman Condon should focus more on shaping the final RHNA numbers to Corte Madera's liking than trying to pull the city out of the ABAG altogether.

Mid-Week Links: Two Steps Back

Marin County

• San Rafael, planning as it is for a revitalized Station Area, thought it a good idea to eliminate the crosswalk at Third and Cijos, calling it a danger to pedestrians.  Rather than pedestrians being the ones complaining, it was the motorists.  There has not been a single accident at the Cijos crossing, and the one-way traffic was controlled from the nearby Lincoln intersection.  In place of the crosswalk, there's now a pedestrian barrier.  At least there are crosswalks nearby.  (Pacific Sun)
• Seventy units of affordable housing have been announced for Marinwood at the Marin Market site.  Although near bus pads, the affordable housing site is far from amenities.  Hopefully the developer will be required to improve the crossing over the freeway to the northbound pad. (IJ)
• SMART should buy the Whistlestop building, as the train project will render it useless to the seniors nonprofit. (IJ)
• San Anselmo is considering how to improve its Safe Routes to School Program at a community meeting tonight, and as of press time no decision had been made. Among the proposals are adding sidewalks and crosswalks, adjusting signal timing, and a pedestrian barrier along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. (Patch)
• The Greenbae Interchange Project and the Wincup development will both proceed roughly as planned, as MacFarlane Developers and TAM have reached an agreement on how to accomodate both projects. (IJ)

The Greater Marin

• If you missed a One Bay Area planning meeting, now's your chance to at least get your opinion in.  The Plan is soliciting online comments, and I encourage you to take the time to make your voice heard. (Sacramento Bee)
• The Golden Gate Bridge has installed speed signs for cyclists on the western sidewalk, although there isn't a speed limit on the bridge for bicyclists. (SF Examiner)
• Doyle Drive's second phase may be delayed because some state and federal funds haven't materialized as expected. (IJ)
• A Santa Rosa school may not open for want of a sidewalk.  The sidewalk was to be built with redevelopment money. (Press Democrat)
• Cotati's ambitious downtown roundabout plan, which stirred up so much controversy, is also in doubt thanks to issues stemming from redevelopment funds. (Press Democrat)
• Sonoma County's roads are absolutely terrible, at least according to a map prepared by the county's Transportation and Public Works Department. Road maintenance is severely underfunded in Sonoma, and some activists are pushing hard for change. In that light, a proposed road maintenance property tax could do the trick. (Press Democrat, Petaluma360)
• Level of Service, or LOS, is an absolutely terrible way to measure how well a city street performs its many duties, as it focuses solely on moving cars - not people - swiftly along. (Streetsblog)

Monday Links: Go Abroad

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o]
We often imagine that the Dutch were always cyclists.  While that's correct in some sense, the Netherlands faced sprawl and auto-centric development in the 1950s and 1960s, just as the United States did.  Unlike Americans, though, the Netherlands fought back, and the result is the Netherlands we see today.

Marin County

• Corte Madera's abandoned Madera Vista apartment complex will be renovated. They have sat vacant since a 2008 fire. (Twin Cities Times)
• Infill development near freeways should take into account auto pollution and take steps to mitigate it.  This is especially important in Marin, as the SMART corridor runs parallel to 101 for much if its route, and to the One Bay Area process. (California Watch)
• San Anselmo wants to buy Bald Hill, currently in Ross, but nobody knows how to get in touch with the owners.  The hill is owned by Asian Alliance LLC, and the founder and last contact the town had died years ago. (IJ)
• Downtown San Anselmo is undergoing a bit of a shake-up, with a number of storefronts vacant and a Goodwill moving in.  A group wants to convince George Lucas to open a theater in town, but making that happen could be difficult (IJ)
• Sausalito's Housing Element is nearly complete and will be submitted officially to the City Council on January 31.  If approved, it goes to the state on February 2.  (Marinscope)
• Mill Valley wants to update their General Plan, refocusing on transit and traffic-calming.  With sometimes half-hourly buses it stands a better chance than some areas, but hopefully it will work with Marin Transit and GGT to enhance transit options. (Mill Valley Herald)
• Larkspur Landing might get $2 parking after all, given a tepid Board response to a premium-space idea. This will help manage demand a bit at the terminal, which tends to fill up early. (IJ)
• West Marin's open space portfolio will soon increase by 22 acres after a successful fundraising drive. (IJ)
• San Rafael's red light program will be studied to assess its impacts on driver behavior, including rolling right turns, which can be unsafe to pedestrians. (IJ)
• A 90-year-old driver struck and killed a pedestrian at Second and G in San Rafael.  The exact circumstances are unknown. (IJ)

The Greater Marin

• Looks like downtown living really is good for you.  Residents of areas with a high density of businesses walk three times as much as others, but the areas need to draw in non-residents to succeed. (Atlantic Cities)
  
• San Francisco's SFPark project is dramatically increasing hourly revenue on its meters.  The project gives drivers the option of paying by credit card, phone, or cash, which is useful for the large hourly charges in popular locations. (SF Examiner)
• California's ability to establish cycletracks, bikeways, and other proven bike facilities is stymied by too-conservative design guidebooks that call these "experimental" facilities.  Sadly, AB 819, which would change that, is slowly being gutted. (Streetsblog)
• The American Public Transit Association (APTA) has published a rundown of how to talk to opponents of high-speed rail projects with a new report of common criticisms and appropriate responses. (Streetsblog)
• Head of the California High Speed Rail Authority has stepped down, as has the chairman of its board, citing personal reasons. (Sacramento Bee)
• Caracas has a gigantic, abandoned office tower in its center, and some entrepreneurial folk have set up their own town inside. The best part, they say, is having so much transit access in the middle of the city. (Foreign Policy)
• It's estimated we've paved about 3,590 square miles for parking, about 2 spaces for every man, woman, and child in the United States, and it's time to take them seriously not just as blight, but as public space. (NY Times)

Mid-Week Links: The Right Kind of Parking

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/34514767 w=620&h=349] So people sometimes think I'm a geek; I bore them to death with talk about LOS and bike lanes and units per acre, but when so much can be done with just bike parking I can hardly shut up.  Marin, despite its cycling culture, has very little bicycle parking in its downtown cores.  Replacing one car space every other block with bike parking in downtown San Rafael, for example, would add 50 bicycle parking spaces for only 5 car spaces.  As well, putting the bikes where drivers need good sight lines would make the program even better.

The North Bay

SMART construction has officially begun!  For the moment it's just survey teams and a sign, but the $103 million contract has sparked the first construction work of the project.  Construction will be from Santa Rosa's Jenning's Road station, added back in during contract negotiations and now relocated to Guerneville Road, to the Civic Center.  Meanwhile, RepealSMART is turning to paid signature-gatherers to qualify for what they claim is the qualifying target: 14,902. They've acknowledged they wouldn't be able to meet either of the two higher proposed numbers: 30,000 or 39,000. (Press Democrat, IJ, Business Journal, Watch Sonoma County)

• Tea party protesters interrupted a One Bay Area public planning meeting in Santa Rosa.  I hope Marin's meeting will be more civil. (Press Democrat)
• There is a problem with the Wincup development in Corte Madera.  Apparently the parking garage is going where a new freeway ramp - part of the Greenbae Interchange Project - is supposed to go, and TAM isn't happy. (Pacific Sun)
• Larkspur has a pedestrian bridge design. (Patch)
• BioMarin is expanding to the San Rafael Corporate Center, lowering the city's office vacancy rate from 40% to 12%. While office employees only support 4 square feet of retail, it is a chance to build more street life in eastern downtown. (Patch)
• The Novato pot club has done what the Fairfax club could not: survive. Although neighbors and city and federal officials want to shut down the club, owners are soldiering on after winning an eviction suit from their landlord, who complained there was marijuana smoking on the premises. (IJ)
• The driver of an Aston Martin caused a four-car crash on Highway 101 after losing control of his vehicle and clipping another driver's car.  The highway closed for 30 minutes. (IJ)
• Larkspur Landing could get parking fees on 160 of its "prime" parking spots for only $65 per month.  GGT is mulling the move to help close the Bridge District's 5-year, $87 million deficit, although the program would only amount to $625,000 over that time frame. (IJ)
• A cyclist severely injured himself on Alexander Avenue on Wednesday when he lost control of his bike and crashed into a guardrail.  Sausalito wants to redesign Alexander Avenue to make it safer for the many cyclists who use it to get to and from the Golden Gate Bridge. (IJ)
• Terrapin Crossroads lives, and it's heading to the Canal to take over the site of Seafood Peddler. The approval process is expected to be handled administratively, as Seafood Peddler already had most of the appropriate permits. (Pacific Sun, IJ)
• Design and zoning issues could become a political issue in San Anselmo now that Councilman Jeff Kroot is involved in a spat with a neighbor over a planned expansion of Kroot's home. (IJ)
• High-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes are not financially viable on Highway 101 through Marin, according to a TAM study, without upping the carpool requirement to 3 passengers. It's just as well, as HOT lanes would cripple any casual carpooling initiative in the county. (IJ, The Greater Marin)
• Healdsburg wants to fix an old bridge for $12 million, but don't have the money to do it.  Federal officials are skeptical of the plan and appear to prefer replacing the bridge for $25 million. (Press-Democrat)

Mid-Week Links: Popup Surprise

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/33187820 w=620&h=349] A group of retailers are moving into abandoned storefronts in Old Downtown Oakland in an effort to revitalize the neighborhood in a concept called Popuphood.  The idea of pop-up stores, where abandoned storefronts are temporarily occupied by retailers, is not new.  They attract foot traffic to areas that don't see many pedestrians and shoppers, giving a run-down neighborhood new buzz and new life.  Applying it to a whole neighborhood, with multiple storefronts, is a much larger application.  Check it out at 9th & Washington.  If you're going by transit, the nearest BART is 12th Street Oakland City Center, which you can get to via GGT to Richmond or San Francisco.

Marin

• The Novato Design Review Commission chairwoman resigned mid-meeting to allow a downtown strip mall to proceed without her approval. (IJ)
• Last night, Novato debated food trucks and Hanna Ranch. No news as of press time as to decisions made. (Novato Patch)
• Lucas Valley: George Lucas's proposed Grady Ranch development drew fire from local residents at a Marin County Planning Commission hearing on the subject. (San Rafael Patch; IJ)
• Golden Gate Ferry is now on the winter schedule, cutting a couple of trips per day. (IJ)
• Marin County's controversial tree-cutting proposal for West Marin has been scaled back. (IJ)
• Last night, the Corte Madera Planning Commission heard details on the WinCup development and Nordstrom's expansion plans at The Village shopping center. The WinCup development was told to push for more sustainability measures. (Larkspur-Corte Madera Patch; IJ)
• Anti-chain Marin may end up with a Subway shop in downtown Mill Valley.  One commenter: "Declasse". (Mill Valley Patch)
• Ross is demanding that an extraordinarily wealthy family fulfill its obligations to the town and remove a fish barrier in Ross Creek on their property.  The creek is a spawning habitat for steelhead trout. (IJ)
• At long last, the Novato Theater is under new management that plans to reopen the downtown theater to the public. (IJ)
• The ongoing controversy in West Marin regarding oyster fishing in Drake's Bay may be a moot point if former Assemblyman Bill Bagley is right and the operations are already legal, per action in the 1970s. (IJ)
• Sometimes a coffee shop can stir up quite a bit of trouble: Peet's wants to open up shop in Tiburon but faces opposition from residents who claim the coffee niche is already well-served by local stores.  The town's Planning Commission will discuss the issue tonight at 7:30. (IJ)
• Some bloggers have uncovered a marvelous bike map of California from the 1890s. (Grist)
• The Marin County Board of Supervisors spend the most per-capita on office expenses of any comparable county in the State: $2.7 million. (IJ)

The Greater Marin

• It's been a banner week for biking in the Bay Area, with plans for a multi-use path over the Bay Bridge, new bike lanes in Sonoma drawing praise for calming traffic, and new bike infrastructure in Napa. (Chronicle, Press Democrat, Napa Valley Register)
• California's shifting demographics means shifting housing demand, too, with 75% of it being for rental, transit-oriented development - just the sort of housing Marin has been reticent to approve. (Urban Land Institute)
• San Francisco's performance parking isn't working quite as well as expected, although the experiment is far from over. (Greater Greater Washington)
• Cotati is in far better shape than other cities in the region, with a balanced budget, restored programs and active revitalization efforts for downtown and elsewhere.  You can see its signature roundabout plan in action. (Rohnert Park Patch)
• A Napa cyclist is in a coma after being struck on Thursday.  He was in a crosswalk when he was hit by a 70-year-old driver. (Napa Patch)
• Americans aren't nearly as attached to their cars as people think, as research shows a strong connection between transit mode share and gas prices. (The Atlantic Cities)

End-Week Links: Fantastical Connections

Ordinarily, not much happens in the great wide world of Marin's urban affairs, but sometimes a lot happens.  When that happens, you get an overdose of linkage.  One article deserves special attention, though. Novato city planners are celebrating the soon-to-open Chipotle burrito shop in a downtown strip mall, saying that anything that happens in downtown is an improvement.  This is the opposite of true, and I would hope that professional planners would have an understanding of what makes a vibrant downtown.

Does the building engage the sidewalk?  Nope, it puts the trash next to the corner it abuts.  Does the business promote local vitality?  Nope, it's a fairly bland national chain.  What's most infuriating, to me, is that the building was gutted and rebuilt like some sort of historic landmark rather than being rebuilt as something that could really improve downtown.  What's suffocating downtown are businesses and structures like this and the planners that enable them to continue.

Marin

• A recently approved home in Sausalito was originally supposed to include a second unit made of two shipping containers but owners were forced by the Planning Commission to cut it from plans due to neighbor concerns. Simultaneously, Sausalito is emulating Novato's push to legalize second units as a way to meet affordable housing mandates. (Marinscope)
• Sausalito Councilwoman Carolyn Ford - famous for getting her hand smacked by Councilman Mark Kelly and pressing battery charges - wants a parliamentarian to keep order at the Sausalito Council's contentious meetings. Given an almost unheard-of split vote on mayor, this might be wise. (IJ)
• Environmental activists celebrated the death of a planned renewable energy project in West Marin, proving cognitive dissonance knows no ideology. (IJ)
• Corte Madera's WinCup apartment complex will go back before the planning commission on the 13th. (Twin Cities Times)
• Brad Marsh, who won third place in the recent Larkspur City Council election, has been appointed to fill the seat vacated by Joan Lundstrom retirement. (IJ)
• SMART was debated for the umpteenth time last Wednesday. (IJ)
• An 11-year-old bicyclist was struck by a driver (or maybe the cyclist struck a car?) on a residential street in Mill Valley and hospitalized with possible spinal injuries. (Bay City News via Marinscope)
• Novato's school board contemplates school enrollment boundary changes, taking it as an opportunity to rebalance the socioeconomic makeup of the schools. One unexpected item: school trustees expect enrollment to shrink over the next five years. (IJ)
• One more step forward for aspiring suburban bee-keepers and chickenherds in Corte Madera. (IJ)
• Expanding Gnoss Field makes sense, says the IJ Editorial Board. (IJ)
• San Rafael's Ritter Center gets grant, makes good: the community wellness center is expanding its services and has become a Federal Qualified Healthcare Provider thanks to the Affordable Care Act. (Pacific Sun)
• Gerstle Park residents defend their decision to take legal action over Albert Park. (IJ)
• Ever wonder what used to be where 101 is now in San Rafael? Salt baths and a freight port. (Patch)
• Everybody loves a fantasy map: imagining BART to Marin and beyond. (Muni Diaries)
• You might not to be able to tell, but a $10 million water project was just finished in Kentfield. (Ross Valley Reporter)
• Might SMART avoid some of the mistakes other transit agencies have made? It's unlikely, but not impossible. (Forbes)

The Greater Marin

• Smart growth is about more than livability, walkability and emissions. It's about keeping that parking lot out of paradise.
• Rather further south on Highway 101, Facebook is posing a major problem to Menlo Park commuters as it tries to squeeze 6,600 employees onto its transit-inaccessible campus every day. (SFist)
• Retail and transit fit together so well, urban retailers are saying more transit less parking. (GlobalST)
• One of my favorite transit experts and blogger at Human Transit, Jarrett Walker, talks buses vs. trains, mobility, and more. (Willamette Week)
• Opponents to Cotati's plan to humanize its main street are threatening the city with a ballot measure to ban roundabouts within city limits. Merchants claim the redesign would hinder drivers and, therefore, decrease business. (Press Democrat)
• What to do with Santa Rosa's downtown mall? (Press Democrat)

Mid-Week Links: Portly Passengers

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znLBYLeH1Nk]Pardon my geekery, but this was the first I'd seen of Marin's old commuter trains in action.  They're EMUs, the electrical version of SMART's DMUs.  Strange also to see so much empty space in West End, and interesting to see how the buildings along the rails still treat the roads as something to be shunned.

Marin County Elections

• San Anselmo, Larkspur and Corte Madera all had council debates this week, none of which are available online.  At least you can read about the races; that's good enough, right?  If you can time it right, you can watch them on the Community Media Center of Marin's live stream.
• There is a highly edited video of the San Rafael Council Candidate's forum available on Patch with a pre-event questionnaire.  Candidates are all in favor of leveraging SMART to improve downtown, with incumbent Damon Connolly giving the strongest answers.
• Last month's San Rafael mayoral debate may not have been recorded (the host speculated that it "would've been a good idea"), but that doesn't mean there's no news.
• Tiburon's school board race wouldn't come up but for a renewed focus on making Tiburon Boulevard, the principal artery on the peninsula, a safer, better street for all users but especially schoolchildren.
• Mill Valley's vacancies were uncontested, so the town cancelled their elections.  Not everyone is happy.

Marin County

• SMART has secured authorization from the MTC to use $33.1 million in Larkspur station funds on the IOS.
• "We believe in working toward making [SMART] better, ensuring that it spends its money wisely and makes sound decisions. Opponents just want to kill it." - Press-Democrat Editorial Board
• Marin Transit contracts with Golden Gate Transit to provide local bus service within Marin, and it wants to renegotiate.  In the comments Kevin Moore and I get into the details of GGT's farebox recovery rate.
• Food Truck Crush is over for now.  Long live Off the Grid!
• A driver accidentally killed herself and seriously injured a passenger in a crash on 101.
• San Rafael's West End is a bit of a drive-through part of the city, and a vacant Big Box doesn't help.
• Two new developments are up for review in San Rafael: a 67-unit apartment building at 1380 Mission and a 9 unit townhome building at 21 G.  The meeting and documents are available on San Rafael's website.
• Biking is certainly for road mobility, but MCBC is shifting focus to the slopes and trails in Marin's open space.
• Getting women interested in biking, one class at a time.
• Believe it or not, it's more expensive to live in Marin than it is to live in San Francisco.  Being forced to rely on the car doesn't help.
• Novato debated its housing element last night.  No word on decisions as of press time.
• Mill Valley did the same, and also debated an amendment to the Miller Avenue Streetscape Plan.
• San Anselmo is getting a bunch of slurry seal work done on its roads, although it was delayed by rain.

The Greater Marin

• Santa Rosa is getting progressive, what with plans for a pedestrian bridge, bicycle parking and shower requirements.  It could use an overhaul of its use-based zoning restrictions, though.
• San Francisco's F-Line - those historic streetcars running along the Embarcadero - is expanding West.
• The US Department of Transportation is pushing high-speed rail loans out the door before Congress shuts down the whole intercity rail project.
• Greater Greater Washington posits that music venues should engage with the streetscape but often don't, and I'm inclined to agree.  Fenix Live in San Rafael will do well on this metric.

Mid-Week Links: Spin Cycle

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/29401217 w=620&h=349] Marin has one of the best recreational cycling cultures in the country and a burgeoning commuter cycling culture, but everyday travel is typically done by car - you can blame our beautiful and formidable geography for that. Cycling For Everyone from Dutch Cycling Embassy gives a vision of how Marin could look if we embraced the bike in Terra Linda as much as we do on Mount Tam.  The Pacific Sun has an excellent rundown on the political debate so far, from the Capitol to the Alto Tunnel.

The Greater Marin

It's so easy to focus on Marin and its foibles that sometimes we forget that other places are doing awesome things.  Take Norfolk, VA, an active but small city of 242,000 people and one light rail that goes by the name of The Tide.  The Tide is brand-spanking new and underwent the same issues SMART is dealing with today: cost overruns, plans cut short, and political opposition.  After surviving that gauntlet, The Tide opened to great fanfare this past August.  One month in, the Richmond Times-Dispatch examined how the city feels about it now.  In a word, they're proud.

Marin County

• Of course, if RepealSMART gets its way, SMART will just be a failed dream.  The anti-rail organization started gathering signatures for its repeal measure this week.
• In good news, MTC approved its $33.1 million SMART bailout (PDF) and recommended to the Federal Department of Transportation that it receive another $18 million (PDF) in federal funding for the accompanying bike/pedestrian path.
• The IJ has profiles on Town Council candidates for Corte Madera and San Anselmo, and Patch will host a candidate debate for San Anselmo on October 5.
• Tensions in Sausalito came to light when Councilmember Carolyn Ford filed battery charges against Vice-Mayor Mike Kelly for hitting her hand (rather hard) during a council meeting.  Video at the link.  Kelly has since apologized, but no word on whether the charges will be dropped.
• The empty seat left by Joan Lundstrom's retirement from the Larkspur City Council must be filled, either by a special election after the current election is over or by an appointment.
• Speaking of Larkspur, Piper Park is due for a makeover.
• San Rafael's Design Review Board approved the Fenix Live music venue for the heart of Fourth Street.  You can hear the Board's deliberations here.
• Novato wants to sprawl, and, as much as it hates density, it loves its sprawl.  Planners just approved a 3-unit-per-acre subdivision.  Larkspur isn't much better after the sale of a pre-approved 5-unit-per-acre development. That one is just one block from downtown in a prime walkable development location.  You can check out a possible site plan for Larkspur here (PDF, p. 13), although it may not be accurate because of the change in ownership.
• Ever wondered what the deal is with that empty commercial building at 520 Red Hill Avenue?  Now you can find out.

The Golden Gate

Golden Gate issues deserve their own section this week because the sheer number of news items cries for special attention.  It cries, we answer.

• Golden Gate Transit will install WiFi on all its buses, making it an even more attractive transit service.  Cost is cheap, too: only $610,000 for the final cost.  Take that, BART.
• Marin Transit wants to reopen their $15 million/year contract with Golden Gate Transit to provide local bus service in Marin.  Marin Transit argues that GGT is overcharging by about 23%, while GGT argues the extra cost is due to regularly scheduled overtime.  Sounds like GGT has a staffing problem.
• The Golden Gate National Recreation Area will be reconfigured under a preliminary general management plan with the aim of "connecting people with parks."