Report: the FRA makes trains less safe, more expensive

A new report out by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (and I suspect you’ll recognize half the byline), says the FRA’s safety regulations, enforced in the name of safety, perversely make us less safe. Rather than use the best practices of Europe or encourage train manufacturers to innovate, the FRA’s rules prescribe antiquated crash management technology from the 1910s. Dangerous and more expensive trains are the result. To find out why, you’ll need to read the report for yourself. It’s an easy read, just six pages, and it details how SMART, in the West, and Acela, in the East, have been dramatically affected by the FRA’s regulations, though they aren’t the only victims. You can see the stark difference between the two regimes in a crash test video that went into the FRA’s report on its own safety measures. The top train is FRA-compliant, while the bottom is compliant with European regulations from the International Union of Railways (UIC):

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUpUJrk4QBE?rel=0]

The top train experiences something called an “override”, which you’ll find mentioned in the report. It’s what FRA-compliant trains too-often do in a crash. And, on the bottom train, you can even watch how, for a split second during the crash, the oncoming train pauses to absorb the crash energy. That's UIC crash safety in action.

Something I realized after the report had been written, too, was that the FRA's rules hurt domestic train manufacturers. FRA-compliant trains are illegal overseas, as they don’t meet UIC standards, just as European trains don’t meet American safety standards. This forces domestic manufacturers to choose between serving the tiny US market or the much larger global market.

Though bashing the FRA is a favored pastime among more technically-minded bloggers, desperately needed regulatory reform seems to have gained little traction where it matters most. Here’s hoping CEI’s white paper can change that.

Larkspur's SMART station: Answering the critiques

Last time, we examined how the station got to be placed where it is. The gap in building the first and second segments gives activists a window to try to change the mind of SMART staff and board members, and by the looks of things they'll need the extra time. After seven years, the planned site of the Larkspur station is pretty well set in stone, at least if you ask the agency. Whenever asked to move it, SMART has taken the position that the location is final.

This, to put it mildly, is frustrating.

How can the concerns raised by Larkspur years ago and those raised by SMART be addressed?

Larkspur

When Larkspur first voiced opposition to a ferry terminal station, the city council was opposed to the project entirely and objected on three grounds: glare, aesthetics, and a desire to avoid renegotiating Marin Country Mart's planning documents.

The concern over glare is so odd it hardly deserves mention. Sun glints off parked cars in the ferry terminal and all over the neighborhood. Adding a train would not increase glare.

Aesthetic concerns deserve more of a mention. Larkspur argued that views of the Bay would be blocked by an elevated structure and the neighborhood would be marred by a rail viaduct.

Though the vista is dominated by the ferry parking lot, viaducts are very rarely attractive things, at least in the United States. Since the train would run through the parking lot of a major shopping center and across the field of view of some of the stores, SMART should take a page from Germany and incorporate the shopping center into the viaduct itself.

A huge number of trains in Berlin run on elevated tracks, often running right through the city. Unlike the loud and grungy viaducts in Chicago or New York City, these have been integrated into the city by becoming buildings in themselves. Cafes, shops, and restaurants have taken up residence beneath the rails. In essence, the viaducts are very long buildings with trains running on the rooftop.

Marin Country Mart wants to emulate a maritime village, something vaguely European. By using the viaduct as buildings, Marin Country Mart could emulate something actually European. Though it would require cooperation from the SMART board, it would ameliorate the aesthetic concerns of the neighbors and add value to the shopping center's owners.

Marin Country Mart brings us to the third objection: planning. Larkspur officials in 2006 did not want to revise the Planned Unit Development plan that governs the shopping center, something that would need to happen if SMART extends a viaduct through their property, as two buildings would have to come down on the edge of the property.

But if both parties are willing to renegotiate, there's no reason why Larkspur couldn't amend the plan. Extending SMART through the shopping center makes a more direct connection between the train and shopping. That means value added to the center, especially if the viaduct can be made up as nice as the ones in Berlin.

SMART

Now that opposition in Larkspur has passed, SMART itself stands opposed to an in-terminal station. As far as I can tell, it's mostly intransigence. It's not in The Plan, so therefore shouldn't be added to The Plan. But publicly, SMART will likely say that it's an issue of cost (too high) and ridership (won't change much). These are things we can assess, though intransigence might go a bit deeper.

For cost, elevated rail structures like this one typically cost about $70 million per mile to build, including stations. SMART would need to build a viaduct 2,200 feet long, or about 0.4 miles. Multiply that against the average cost per mile and one arrives at $30 million. Let's add in $150,000 for building demolition, $100,000 for EIR amendments, and a generous $1 million for land acquisition, for a total cost of $31.3 million. That brings the cost of the whole system from $724 million to $755 million.

This is a bargain, especially for a project of regional significance. If SMART extends to the Larkspur terminal, it could transport a significant number of ferry riders. If it transports even a tenth of them (540 per weekday), the project will cost about $96,000 per trip, not counting the people who will occupy the now-freed spaces in the parking lot. The Greenbrae Interchange Project, in contrast, will add meaningful capacity for about 825 trips* in the peak hour at a cost of about $173,000 each.

Intransigence

SMART staff have dug in their heels on this project, but that's not to say they can't be persuaded or forced to come up with a good plan. However, will will take time.

The first thing you can do is understand the costs involved, as above. While the numbers in this post are estimates, SMART has not studied the issue in depth; they know just a hair more than I do about potential costs and ridership. Until there is a proper study, we cannot know for certain how much it will cost, nor how much benefit those monies will buy us.

The second thing you can do is start to lobby boards, commissions, and SMART staff. Since a ferry/train connection is a project of regional importance, TAM, SCTA, and MTC should rank it high on their list of congestion mitigation projects. $31.3 million is a pittance compared to what is doled out in a given year, and this is a critical link in the North Bay's transportation infrastructure. Residents of San Francisco and Sonoma have leverage as well, as the station will effect the usefulness of their own transportation systems.

Golden Gate Transit needs to push SMART to improve access, too. This will directly benefit GGT's ferry business and increase the value of their park and ride lot, should they ever decide to lease it to developers.

Find your SMART, SCTA, MTC, TAM, and GGBHTD representatives and tell them you want SMART in Larkspur.

*This is the number of new northbound cars that will be accommodated on the freeway. The project won't add any southbound or HOV capacity that will be used.

Larkspur has a second chance to do SMART right

While Sonoma gets to reap the benefits of SMART, including a $15 million expansion of the IOS to the Santa Rosa Airport, Marin’s commuting public rightly grouses that it doesn’t serve their needs. Yet by ignoring Larkspur Landing for now, SMART has a chance to do what it should have done from the start and plan for a station in the ferry terminal.

A core principal of transit planning is connectivity. Any network is only as good as the strength of its connections, and transit is not excluded. The strongest sort of transit connection is the cross-platform connection, which allows you to hop off your train or bus, cross the platform to your transfer and be on your way. It's like switching planes in an airport by walking one gate over.

In contrast, a weak transit connection forces riders to leave one station, walk a couple of blocks, and enter another station. Rather than boarding a connecting flight at the gate next to yours, we need to hike across the airport to another terminal entirely. Though this may be tolerable once in a while, as a daily commute it can crush even the hardiest transit enthusiast.

Sadly, SMART has opted against convenience and in favor of soul-crushing. Current plans call for locating the ferry station a half mile from the ferry terminal, requiring transferring riders to either walk along parking lots and unfriendly streets or wait around for a shuttle. A commute that might already involve 2 transfers will become one involving 3.

Larkspur residents, most of whom who won't even get direct SMART access, rightly complain that this makes little sense. The Station Area Plan for the Larkspur Landing neighborhood calls for relocating the station into the terminal and decries the poor site chosen by the SMART board.

SMART's draft environmental impact report contained a draft plan (very large PDF) to put the station in the ferry terminal. Back when station sites were being planned, staff created four alternate proposals for Larkspur, including two with better access to the ferry. The best one placed the station adjacent to the current terminal entrance at the end of a half-mile of elevated track. Given the current going rate for elevated rail, this option would cost about $30 million plus land acquisition costs. That’s about one-fifth the cost of the Greenbrae Interchange Project next door.

Yet at the request of the Larkspur City Council (PDF), SMART went for the station plan staff explicitly recommended against. The city complained that the removal of two buildings would require modifying the plan that governs Marin Country Mart, and that an elevated rail line would obstruct views of the Bay. They also were concerned about cost, though Larkspur wouldn't need to pay for the extension. Another concern raised earlier by staff is that a station in the ferry terminal would make extensions to Corte Madera or San Quentin more difficult.

Though these concerns are well-intentioned and should be addressed in any plan to relocate the station, it's foolish to scuttle a dramatic service improvement over parking lots and fantasy expansions that are decades from reality.

And here is where we have a new opportunity. By splitting construction of the line in two, SMART has given Larkspur residents a chance to change that seven-year-old bad decision. Nobody likes to run across an airport to catch a plane, and no commuter likes to walk across a half-mile of parking lots and traffic to make a transfer. Larkspur needs reverse its earlier request and demand a world-class transit connection, and residents should ask for the same. And SMART should listen.

Next time, I'll examine the city council's original concerns and how they might be addressed.

SMART grade crossings and congestion

Some SMART opponents have been arguing that the SMART train will cause massive traffic congestion along its route whenever it closes the crossing gates.

The idea is that SMART will run most often at rush hour, when our roads are busiest, and that it would cross over some fairly busy roads at grade. The crossing gates would close for a time, backups would result, and rush hour would be ruined for everyone. This analysis deserves examination.

Federal guidelines on the subject require crossing arms to close at least 20 seconds before a train passes, and open no more than 12 seconds after the train has passed. Though most crossing arms I've seen open almost immediately after the train has passed, let's say the gate will be closed at least 32 seconds.

If a 170-foot SMART train is moving at 25 miles per hour, or 37 feet per second, it will clear a 35-foot wide intersection in less than 6 seconds. If it's slowing to a stop, such as around Fourth Street in San Rafael, it might travel at about a fifth that speed, and will cross the same intersection in 28 seconds. SMART's design documents say it will run at the same speed as parallel streets, so these are reasonable speeds to assume. Added these times to the minimum closure time and we find a maximum an approximate wait delay of 60 seconds, roughly the same amount of time as a normal traffic light. Thanks to long headways, each grade crossing will have to endure, at most, 60 seconds of delay twice four times per hour.

In the populated areas SMART will cross through, the crossing arms will communicate with with the rest of the traffic light system. That will further minimize the effect of the train's activities on local traffic flow.

It seems, then, that the concern is overheated. While freight trains extending thousands of feet in length would cause major congestion, the relatively short SMART trains will be speedy enough so as not to cause a problem. With intelligent traffic engineering, they won't be any more of a pain than traffic lights are now.

This post has been updated for clarity.

Well, that SMARTs a little...

On December 10th, 2012, the Sonoma County Transportation Authority Board of Directors approved programming $6.6 million of the County’s $9.9 million pot of federal Congestion Mitigation Air Quality (CMAQ) funds to Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) for the purchase of an additional train set. We know you are probably having some feelings about this decision, among them anger and confusion.

SCBC’s here to provide for you some context, describe the circumstances around the vote, explain what the vote means for bicycling in Sonoma County, share our position on the vote, and our strategy moving forward.

The Context

Sonoma County Transportation Authority (SCTA) coordinates transportation planning and funding throughout the County. Most of the transportation funding that SCTA receives is programmed through the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), SCTA’s Regional counterpart, which manages transportation planning and funding for the 9 Bay Area Counties.

SCTA works to bring to Sonoma County funding for highways, roads, transit, and bicycle and pedestrian projects. This is a complex and wonky process comprising many pieces. There are various “pots” of federal and state money that filter through MTC to SCTA.

One of these pots is CMAQ. These federal funds can be used for projects that help reduce traffic congestion and air pollution. A variety of project types are eligible for CMAQ funding, including, but not limited to, transit, bicycle, and pedestrian projects. In Sonoma County, CMAQ has historically been a significant (if not the top) source of funding for bicycle pedestrian projects. SCTA programs these funds to eligible projects through a competitive process in 2-4 year cycles.

The concerned $9.9 million pot of CMAQ funding (mentioned in the introduction) is for projects through 2016, and is set to be programmed starting in 2013. Over the past year, each of the nine cities in Sonoma County, the County of Sonoma, and SMART itself, have been able to submit projects to be considered for CMAQ funding. These jurisdictions submitted to SCTA by a November 30th deadline $38 million worth of projects deemed eligible for CMAQ funding. Under the normal SCTA process, these eligible projects in 2013 would have to compete for shares of the $9.9 million of available CMAQ funding.

The Vote

On Thursday, December 6th, Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition learned that SMART was to make a special request to the SCTA Board of Directors at the latter’s December 10th meeting. Based on our understanding, other stakeholders and the members of the SCTA Board of Directors learned of this request the same day as did SCBC.

SMART’s request was that the SCTA Board agree to put ahead of all other CMAQ-eligible projects its own eligible request for $6.6 million to purchase an additional train set. The SCTA Board was asked to vote on whether to program this funding without putting SMART ‘s request through SCTA’s regular competitive process.

SMART asserted that it needs the train set in order to provide full service to the North Santa Rosa station at the time the Initial Operating Segment (the “IOS” – North Santa Rosa to San Rafael) opens in 2015 or 2016. SMART asserted that full service to this station (rather than the 2/3 service possible without it) is critical because North Santa Rosa station represents 80% anticipated ridership for the Sonoma County portion of the IOS.

SMART argued that going outside the normal SCTA process was necessary because SMART must order the train set by the end of 2012 for two reasons: 1) SMART will be able to get the additional train set for the same price as those it has already ordered; and 2) If SMART does not order now, the new train set will not arrive until 2018, well after SMART begins service on the IOS.

After asking some good questions, hearing public comment by 7 people (including SCBC Outreach Director Sandra Lupien), and a good amount of discussion, the SCTA Board voted 10-2 to approve SMART’s request. Almost every member of the Board said they were unhappy with the ramifications of their decision for available bicycle/pedestrian funding, and expressed that it was a very difficult decision to make.

What it means for bike/ped

By approving SMART’s request for $6.6 million, the SCTA Board has left just $3.3 million in CMAQ funds available for about $31 million in CMAQ eligible projects. It is hard to tell based on the project list overview what portion of the projects submitted by cities and the County are bicycle projects. It looks like most of them are multi-use projects that include some combination of roadway improvements that may include bicycle lanes, sidewalks, and crosswalks. There are a few multi-use Class I projects on the list. The largest share of bike/ped projects on the list are segments of the SMART Multi-use Pathway.

These bicycle-pedestrian projects will, through SCTA’s normal process, have to compete against each other and the other eligible projects for a much smaller pot of money. That could mean that important bicycle-pedestrian projects could be more likely to be delayed until a later funding cycle.

When voting on SMART’s request on December 10, several members of the Board expressed hope that SCTA would prioritize the bicycle-pedestrian projects for the remaining $3.3 million in funding. The Board also directed staff to allow jurisdictions to re-submit their CMAQ-eligible projects to enable jurisdictions to prioritize projects based on the smaller pot of money.

Finally, SCTA staff did mention that there is $1.4 million in potential bike/ped funding through the Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP), and $11.4 million available in Surface Transportation Projects (STP) funding that can be used for bike/ped.

SCBC’s position

This decision SMARTs for sure, but we want to be sure that SCBC’s position is clear. There are parts of this whole situation that we don’t like, parts we think are not a huge deal, and parts that we think need a little clarifying.

What we really don’t like

1. SMART jumped the queue with an 11th hour request – Based on the conversation on December 10th, SCBC can understand why SMART needs to buy the train set by the end of the year, particularly because a 2018 arrival of the train set would be too late. What we don’t understand is why SMART waited until the last minute to make the request. When SMART announced in early 2012 that it was able to add the North Santa Rosa Station to the Initial Operating Segment, it announced that it could only offer 2/3 service to that station with its budgeted equipment. That left nearly a year to figure out how to get the train set needed to offer full service to North Santa Rosa. A few months – rather than a few days -- lead time on SMART’s request would have allowed the SCTA Board of Directors to make a more well-reasoned decision, explore other options, etc.

2. SMART did not notify stakeholders (other agencies, public works departments, SCBC) that it planned to make this significant request. The lack of communication left SCBC – and probably other stakeholders – feeling blindsided.

3. This process has made clear that SCTA’s CMAQ-eligible project list does not include a satisfactory number of competitive, deliverable bicycle projects. This, in spite of the fact that each municipality has excellent bicycle/pedestrian projects planned. This means that jurisdictions are not submitting their bike/ped projects for funding.

4. This vote by the SCTA Board threatens to delay some projects for several years. We don’t like to see any bicycle/pedestrian project delayed. We think that the need to increase safe bicycle access must be prioritized and that jurisdictions must build out their bike/ped plans.

What is not that big of a deal:

1. Using CMAQ money to support important transit project in our County -- SMART -- is a legitimate use of this funding source.

What is worth noting:

1. The availability of the $1.4 million in TAP funds is a good thing, and so is the potential availability of $11 million in STP funds. Both of these funds are also competitive and by no means limited to bike/ped projects.

What SCBC is going to do

1. Status of the Multi-use Pathway (MUP) Many people appear to be under the mistaken notion that this decision somehow means that SMART has cut the multi-use pathway from the project. This decision is not related to the MUP in any way. That said, SCBC does hear concerns from the bicycle community as to whether SMART does in fact intend to build the pathway as planned. While we are aware that segments of the MUP are currently under construction, and more will be under construction in the Spring, we believe that SMART owes the bicycle community a strong and direct commitment. Therefore, we will meet with SMART next week and demand that SMART provide public assurances that the MUP is, was, and always will be a part of the SMART project. We will also urge SMART to make a public statement as to the status of the various segments of the MUP and when they’re expected to be completed.

2. SMART as a community partner We will explain to SMART that the agency must be a transparent, communicative community partner that engages key stakeholders in key decisions.

3. Urge SCTA to prioritize bike projects As noted above, some members of the SCTA Board expressed hope that bike/ped projects would be prioritized for the remaining CMAQ money. We will push SCTA to honor this sentiment with action. We will also push SCTA to fund bike/ped projects with the $1.4 million in available TAP funds, and with some of the $11m in available STP funds.

4. Push for more, deliverable bike projects As noted above, this decision has made clear that for some reason, the various jurisdictions are not submitting their compelling bike projects for CMAQ funding. We are going to work with public works departments to find out why they’re not bringing forth their bike projects, and to provide support and encouragement to help them do so moving forward. Every community in Sonoma County has great plans for bikes; we need the jurisdictions to prioritize getting those projects funded, implemented, and open to the public!

Thank you for taking the time to read and understand this situation. Here is what you can do to help:

1. Join Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition. We are your voice! We’re here to fight for bicycle projects. Your membership makes SCBC more influential.

2. Get everyone you know to join Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition.

3. Make an end-of-the-year donation to Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition. We’re not kidding around. Donations and membership dues make it possible for us to represent the bicycle community. We get grants for programs like Safe Routes to School, but grants are not available to fund our advocacy efforts. It’s up to you!

4. Write to your elected officials, to the SCTA Board of Directors, and to the SCTA Executive Director. Let them know you want them to prioritize funding for bicycle projects in Sonoma County and in your city. If you need help finding these email addresses, please contact SCBC.

Please call us at 707-545-0153 if you have any questions. You may also email Sandra@BikeSonoma.org.

SCBC is here to fight to create the safe, accessible, amazing bicycle community we want to see; together with you, we’re making it happen!

This piece was cross-posted from the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition blog.

End-Week Links: Hills

Marin Lesser and Greater

• Peter robbed; Paul under investigation: Sonoma granted SMART $6.6 million of $9 million in bike/ped funding. The funds, from a federal congestion mitigation grant, will be used to purchase an additional train for the extended IOS. Sonoma bike activists are angry, to say the least unhappy, understanding, and moving forward. (Systemic Failure, SCBC)
• Tilting at windmills: Wind turbines could be allowed in West Marin under the latest revisions to the Local Coastal Plan. Environmentalists oppose the measure, saying it would industrialize the rural region. (Pt. Reyes Light)
• Tackling homelessness in San Rafael: Through mental health services and jobs, San Rafael is doing more to fight homelessness than just crack down on nuisance behavior. Here's hoping it does good. (IJ)
• Another study coming down the track: Transit feasibility in the Fairfax-San Rafael corridor is on its way yet again. TAM and MTC will examine whether BRT, rapid bus, or a full-fledged streetcar line would be best to serve the 5-mile strip. (Pacific Sun)
• RHNA is almost as fickle as thought: Despite 43 years of affordable housing mandates, California remains woefully short on affordable housing. ABAG has tried to adjust to the demands of cities, but such a scattershot approach doesn't make up for the state process's shortcomings. (Bohemian via Scott Alonso)
• Get your son on a bike: Research from the UK shows that it's far safer for young men to ride a bike than to drive. Given that driving is the number one cause of death among teenagers, perhaps those Every 11 Minutes campaigns could be supplemented by some good old-fashioned bike lessons. (Red Orbit, CDC)
• Hybrids really aren't so green: Hybrids, at least if you look at their entire life-cycle, really aren't as green as their reputation. The batteries are difficult to dispose of; the mileage really isn't so great; and their battery will only last about 80,000 miles, meaning one will need to buy a new vehicle far sooner than otherwise. Perhaps Marin needs a new family car, like a bike. (Streetsblog)
• Do the council shuffle: San Anselmo picks Kay Coleman for mayor. (Patch) ... There's still time to apply for San Rafael City Council. (IJ)
• And...: Despite the threat of financial receivership, Detroit's downtown is positively booming. (NY Times) ... Local transit has published their holiday schedule. (GGT) ... San Rafael Airport developer compares their sports complex project to Grady Ranch. (IJ) ... The libertarian take on land use planning. (United Liberty)

The Toll

At least five people, and possibly a sixth, were injured this week.

• Yes, a hit and run is indeed a felony: Jared Whisman-Pryor, who prosecutors say hit and seriously injured bicyclist William Schilling, has turned himself in to Rohnert Park Police. As it turns out, he will be charged for felony hit-and-run. (PD)
• Obituary for mother killed last week: Barbara Rothwell accidentally killed herself in a car crash last week near Bolinas. The Point Reyes Light paints a portrait of her life cut short. She was 48.
• Marin Injuries: A driver hit a woman while she was crossing the street in Novato, sending her to the hospital. (IJ) ... A driver seriously injured himself by crashing into a power pole in Terra Linda. (Patch)
• Sonoma Injuries: Ben Rhoades seriously injured himself and another driver by driving under the influence and colliding head-on with the other driver near Cotati. (Patch) ... A driver rolled their minivan in Santa Rosa on Tuesday, though whether they injured themselves wasn't immediately reported. (PD) ... An 87-year-old driver seriously injured Wilfred Lewis, who was crossing the street in Santa Rosa. The driver said he never saw Lewis. (PD)

Got a tip? Want to write an article? Email us at theGreaterMarin [at] gmail.com or send a tweet to @theGreaterMarin.

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: Oops

Marin and Beyond

• SMART is owning up to its failures at Gallinas Creek, admitting that it misinterpreted its own guidelines for construction work and violating state and federal protected species and habitat laws in the process. The agency is now seeking the proper permits to continue construction work. (IJ)
• The Marin Board of Supervisors approved a sprawl development just past Santa Venetia, allowing ten homes to be built far from just about anything. (IJ)
• That GGT/MT contract isn't quite as finished as we'd hoped. While staff tried to finalize language, Marin Transit raised concerns that it doesn't give MT the flexibility to choose which routes GGT would operate, leading to an impasse. (IJ)
• India issued, then rescinded, an arrest warrant for Vijay Mallya, owner of Marinscope newspapers. His airline, Kingfisher, bounced $1.9 million worth of checks; the warrant was withdrawn when Kingfisher agreed to pay the outstanding bills. (IJ)
• Every time you use a Clipper card, a computer records that data, and that data can be subpoenaed. There's also a smartphone app that allows a Clipper card to be read and travel history retrieved. (Bay Citizen)
• The Federal Housing Administration has loosened restrictions on financing for mixed-use development. Under old rules, which I discussed a while ago, FHA wouldn't fund developments with more than 25% commercial space. Under new rules, that goes up to 50%. (Streetsblog)
• Though some Marinites call anything above 4 units per acre "extremely high density housing", a development in Los Angeles shows that even 40 units per acre can be suburban and walkable. (Greater Greater Washington)
• And...: American AgCredit plans to build a new office park in Sonoma County, thankfully near a planned SMART station. (NBBJ) ... Our Presidential election season utterly ignores car-free issues. (Greater Greater Washington) ... MCBC is hosting a family bike workshop this Saturday at 10am in Larkspur. You should definitely be there. (IJ) ... Fairfax's Biketoberfest was a roaring success, as always. (Patch)

The Toll

This week, our transportation system killed three people and wounded 14 others.

• A man killed himself when he crashed his SUV into a tree in Santa Rosa on Thursday. Police aren't sure why he lost control of the vehicle, and his name hasn't been released. (PD)
• Joseph Von Merta was killed by a driver in Santa Rosa, the ninth pedestrian to die in the city this year. He was hit while crossing the road early Monday morning, and died Wednesday night. The driver, Emanuel Morales-Rodriguez, suffered minor injuries, and fault has not been determined. Von Merta was 57. (PD)
• A driver died in a single-car crash in Windsor early Sunday morning while she exited Highway 101. Sheryl Greenlee may have suffered a medical emergency that killed her and caused the crash, but the investigation is ongoing. Greenlee was 43. (PD)
• A driver lost control of their vehicle near Marinwood and spun out on wet pavement. The result was an 11-car crash and eight injured people, six of which had to go to the hospital. (Patch)
• Cassandre Jade seems to have seriously injured herself in Lucas Valley. She drove off the road and into a creek before dawn on Thursday and was only extricated four hours later. (IJ)
• Three people were injured in a three-car collision in Healdsburg. (PD) ... A bicyclist was seriously injured by a driver in Santa Rosa on Saturday. (PD) ... A car flipped on Highway 101 in San Rafael on Wednesday morning. No injury or other information was released. (IJ)

Mid-Week Links: Streaks

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EUw69IJZlI] Bicycling has exploded everywhere in the past five years, and every time I go down Miracle Mile I see at least a few bicyclists en route. In the 1990s, they would be a rare sight indeed. In San Francisco, families are turning to the bike as a means of moving kids, groceries, and the rest, and it largely works. But the rapid expansion of bicycling has not been met with similarly rapid expansion of bicycling infrastructure. Advocates in more urban areas, such as San Francisco, insist this is the way forward, while guerrilla infrastructure shows just how easy it can be to make a bike lane, and therefore a street, safe.  Miracle Mile is wide enough for a protected bike lane, and Marin is an ideal place for others. Perhaps we should try, too.

Apologies for the spotty update schedule. Personal scheduling made it impossible to devote as much time as needed for a good blog, so I've been on something of an unplanned hiatus. But, much happened over the past two weeks, and here's the best of it.

Marin County

• Marin Transit ran slightly less of a deficit in FY2011-2012 than expected, but budget crunch isn't stopping minor capital improvement projects or expanding its volunteer driver service for the elderly. Meanwhile, contract negotiations with GGT are going "really well" and are expected to be completed by the end of the month. (IJ)
• SMART plans to spend $12 million to create "quiet zones" where its trains won't have to blow their horn while crossing streets. If the district had chosen to operate a transit line instead of a mixed passenger/freight railroad, it wouldn't need to spend the money in the first place. (Systemic Failure)
• Despite neighbor opposition, San Rafael unanimously approved the Civic Center Station Area Plan. The plan, however, would have neighbor concerns attached to the report to inform debate over future development in the area. (IJ)
• San Rafael owes California almost $1.6 million in redevelopment agency funds, at least according to the state. San Rafael and other cities are protesting the bill which they say unfairly excludes bond obligations. (IJ)
• Grady Ranch is apparently zoned for 240 affordable housing units, though it would be a sprawl project run amok, far from the freeway, amenities, transit, and anything resembling "walkability." (IJ)
• Sausalito councilmembers Carolyn Ford and Mike "Hand-Slapping" Kelly will not run for reelection this year, leaving only one incumbent - Linda Pfeifer - in the race. She will be joined by six others in a fight for three at-large seats on the famously contentious body. (Pacific Sun)
• And...: Patch wonders if distracted pedestrians are victims of natural selection when they get hit by traffic... GGT is moving some bus stops in North Beach to make way for Central Subway construction. (GGT)... Fairfax will hold Streets for People this Sunday, 12-4. (Patch)

The Greater Marin

• Easier transfers, more direct routes, and shorter headways are in store for Napa's transit-riding public. NCPTA wants to double ridership on its VINE bus system to 1.2 million trips per year and thinks this may be the way to do it. (Napa Valley Register)
• California has another $43 million it can spend on any transportation project it likes. The US Department of Transportation released the money from unspent earmarks as part of a national $470 million initiative. Whether Caltrans will spend that money wisely, of course, is anyone's guess. (Sacramento Bee)
• The presidential race is absolutely a study in contrasts, and transportation policy is no exception. In short, the Obama Administration wants to dramatically boost spending on transportation, though whether Congress will allow him to do so is another story. A hypothetical Romney Administration, in contrast, would dramatically shrink federal spending in the sector, and would likely have a Congress amenable to such a plan. (Transportation Politic)
• And...: Clipper Cards to cost $3 after September 1. (Sacramento Bee)... Santa Rosa reconnects its grid with a new 6th Street underpass. (Press Democrat)

The Toll

Over the past two weeks on our transportation system, one man died, eight people were seriously injured and 12 people suffered minor injuries. The details:

• Scott Reyna died after crashing his truck on Highway 101 near Petaluma early Monday morning. The crash caused a huge backup later in the commute, and subsequent crashes in the resulting backup sent a woman to the hospital with minor injuries. Scott was 43. (Press Democrat)
• That same morning, another man seriously injured himself while driving under the influence on Highway 101 near Marinwood. (Patch)
• A bicyclist, Toraj Soltani, was chased down and struck by an elderly driver last Thursday in Santa Rosa. Soltani tried to avoid the driver by moving to a golf course, but the driver pursued off-road and ran him down, inflicting serious injuries on Soltani. 81-year-old Harry Smith was later arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. (Press Democrat, IJ)
• On Sunday, a man drove north in the south-bound lanes of Highway 101. Eventually, he struck another vehicle near Cotati, inflicting major injuries to himself as well as the driver and passenger of the other vehicle. (Patch)
• A woman injured herself and the four children in her car when she crashed into the back of a parked truck in Novato. Thankfully, all injuries were minor. (IJ)
• A man hit a woman with his car in downtown San Rafael. The woman suffered pelvic injuries as a result, and the driver was arrested for driving on a suspended license. (IJ)
• And...: Someone hit a telephone pole on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard in San Anselmo, but no report of injuries. (Patch)... A 2009 bike-on-pedestrian crash in Sonoma goes to trial. (Press Democrat)... A man seriously injured himself while lane-splitting on a motorcycle in Novato. (IJ)... A man suffered minor injuries when his garbage truck crashed into a gym in Novato; no word on whether he had control of the vehicle he was driving. (Advance)... Five people were injured in a three-car pileup in Rohnert Park. (Press Democrat)... A cyclist injured himself in Santa Rosa. He was trying to avoid a car that apparently had the right-of-way. (Press Democrat)

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)

High SMART frequency on the cheap

In response to my analysis of SMART’s potential for double-tracking, commenters Richard Mlynarik and the Drunk Engineer pointed out that other rail lines run high frequency with sidings only and not a full-fledged double track.  SMART, they reasoned, would save a bucketload of cash by building something similar, and they're right. At 15 minute headways, SMART will have at most 6 trains going in each direction once it reaches full build-out.  If they stick to precise scheduling, they will pass at 6 predetermined points. Under the current plan, SMART will run 30 minute headways under a similar scheme, with only 3 passing points of 4 miles each. At that 4-mile standard, we would need another 12 miles of track (another 3 sidings) to permit 15 minute frequency.  While my original assumption was for 56.7 miles of construction (70.5 miles minus the 1.8 mile Puerto Suello segment minus 12 miles of passing track), with this dramatically reduced need for new tracks we can shrink the cost by a similar margin. Rather than cost $284 million, 12 miles of track will only cost $60 million. That's much more reasonable.

California regulations treat sidings differently than regular two-track systems, and pegs the minimum width of the right-of-way at 50 feet, rather than 44.  While that means the sidings will interfere with the mixed-use path in the narrower segments of the right-of-way, moving the path is far cheaper than extraneous track.

Though this doesn’t give SMART operational flexibility to raise and lower frequencies or speeds at will, the currently planned system doesn’t either. Any changes in frequency or speed will require some capital investment to ensure passing tracks are where they need to be. Compared to the cost of SMART's trains, though, it's not much of an expense.

Can SMART Double-Track?

The currently planned SMART line, while a much-needed addition to our region’s transportation mix, is inadequate as a car replacement.  The trains will run every 30 minutes during rush hour, once in the middle of the day, and not at all at night.  This is well below the generally accepted 15-minute minimum for show-up-and-go service that you would get on BART.  To bring SMART up to that level of service will require an investment, but not as dire an investment as typically thought.

The easiest problem to solve is that of mid-day service.  SMART should just run trains during that timeframe, problem solved.  Freight could roll during the unused nighttime hours.

The problem of long headways, however, is a physical constraint.  SMART operates on a single-track corridor with sidings to allow trains to pass one another as they move in opposite directions.  The double-track segments will make up about 17% of the corridor, but that’s just enough to allow 30 minute service and not much more.

To double-track, California law requires a 44-foot right-of-way: 15 feet from the track’s center (centerline) to the edge of the right of way, 14 feet from centerline to centerline, and 15 feet on the other side.  SMART’s corridor typically includes a mixed-use path as well, which is another 12 feet wide, bringing the preferred right-of-way width to 56 feet.

While most of the right-of-way is wide enough for two tracks and the path, in three locations – Petaluma, Novato, and San Rafael – the width available drops to 50 feet and the mixed-use path will need to be moved to a parallel street.  Still, in each of these segments it's trivial to double-track. In San Rafael, however, we face a much different situation.  The right-of-way narrows to 30 feet from Puerto Suello Hill to the Downtown San Rafael station, substantially less than required by California for a second track.

Thankfully, the segment is short enough that it doesn’t need the second track.  The 1.8 miles will take about 2.5 minutes to traverse.  If we include a 2 minute pad and schedule our northbound and southbound trains to arrive at San Rafael at the same time, there will never be any conflict and therefore no need for a second track.

This solution does introduce some constraints on future SMART operations.  Dwell times would need to be introduced to ensure punctuality at San Rafael.  Headways could never be less than 7 minutes at current speeds (2.5 minutes for the southbound train to clear + 2.5 minutes for the southbound train to clear + 2 minute pad).  It might be possible to double-track the tunnel, which doesn’t need as much width, and squeeze out another minute of headway, but by then there would be other problems of capacity that could be solved more cheaply.

The cost-per-mile of double tracks varies from project to project.  A double-track project in Carlsbad had a cost of $9.68 million per mile; another project in New York State had a cost of $5.28 million per mile (PDF); and a third in Florida gave about $5 million.  These give an estimated cost of between $284 million and $549 million.  The lower figure is more in line with industry standards, and it’s roughly half the cost SMART will spend on physical rail on its existing right-of-way.

The last piece to the puzzle, rolling stock, is similarly expensive.  The Nippon-Sharyo DMUs used by SMART cost $6.67 million per train.  At my proposed 15 minute headways, SMART would need 15 trains, 9 more than currently on order, at a cost of $60.03 million.  At the maximum service of 7 minute headways, SMART would need 28 more trains than currently on order, costing $186.76 million.  The next logical steps – electrification to speed trains, grade separation to eliminate street crossings, and automated trains to decrease costs – would squeeze more capacity out of the line, but that’s beyond this exercise.

We do this for transit and frequency

Every city on the route, except Novato, wants to accommodate new construction around their SMART stations.  Given the trendiness of smart growth and transit-oriented development, city planners and councils are giddy with the possibilities.  In Windsor, the city has applications for 1,150 new apartments despite the fact that Windsor isn’t even on SMART’s initial operating segment.

Yet there won’t be much rail transit for them to orient around.  Buses can take up the slack, but they are slower than SMART and are forced to mix with traffic on 101.  The train will outperform buses in every measure except frequency of service, and providing more of that premium transit product would keep more people off the roads.  One ridership study for a SMART corridor with 15 minute headways estimated 24,000 trips per day, a sizable percentage (one-quarter to one-third) of the transportation market between Sonoma and Marin.

But this project is for a Phase 3, not for the current IOS.  SMART has yet to prove its worth to the North Bay, and the North Bay has yet to prove it can support a rail line.  The density of jobs, residences, and activities is currently quite low near the planned stations.  The capital improvements needed are expensive, as are high frequencies, and it’s not clear they would be worth the investment.  SMART can't write off that possibility, however, and needs to engineer its tracks to allow double-tracking in the future. Though it styles itself a commuter rail, SMART could be the primary transit artery for Sonoma and Marin, and it needs to be ready to fill that role if it comes. Until then, the least it could do is run trains whenever it can: 30 minute headways, all day, every day.

Mid-Week Links: Formalization

Marin County

• Marin City is pondering incorporation. Though it would give the community of 6,000 greater independence in some respects, it would also mean higher costs, its own RHNA, and added responsibilities now taken care of by the county. (IJ)
• Skywalker Properties was partially to blame for the Grady Ranch debacle, at least according to the state water board, because it knew certain aspects of its creek restoration effort were "unacceptable." (IJ)
• New housing guidelines are in development for unincorporated Marin, and the county wants your input. (Pacific Sun)
• And...: The Marin District Attorney has launched an investigation into a $350,000 housing loan given to former RVSD general manager Brett Richards. (IJ) ... Belvedere has an interim city manager. (IJ) ... Fairfax to get electric vehicle charging stations. (IJ)

The Greater Marin

• Metro Atlanta rejected a major investment in its transportation infrastructure on Tuesday, turning down a 1% sales tax in all but three of its regions, which will see their own investments. Transit advocates are, of course, disheartened. (Streetsblog)
• The fiscal health of a city is related to its urban form. Sprawling suburbs cost more to maintain than more densely packed cities and towns. Stockton and Bakersfield didn't go under because of too much housing; they went under in part because they spread it too thin. (CNN)
• Coddingtown Mall is throwing its weight around, demanding that the Coddingtown Station Area Plan leave some streets without bicycle lanes, cut out other bike lanes and new streets that cross mall property, and more, saying they would impose "undue economic hardship" on the property. (Press Democrat)
• Napa County has a new director of transportation and planning. Kate Miller's resume is thick on more urban experience, running AC Transit and working for MTC, and here's hoping that will translate into better service for the Valley. (St. Helena Star)
• When Caltrans wants to improve air quality in Los Angeles, it doesn't turn to transit, it turns to wider roads. (Bay Citizen)

The Toll

• A 37-year-old cyclist died in Santa Rosa after a driver hit him at an intersection. He's the fifth bicyclist to be killed in Santa Rosa this year. (Press Democrat)
• Sonoma: A very intoxicated driver seriously injured himself and a man standing in the shoulder of Highway 116. (Press Democrat) ... A driver ran off a cliff and survived. (Press Democrat) ... A driver was beaten and his car was stolen after a minor fender-bender in Santa Rosa. (Press Democrat)
• Marin: Two motorcyclists riding at around 100 miles per hour collided, seriously injuring one another. (IJ) ... The plaid-hating Tiburon driver apparently also hates bicyclists. (IJ) ... A woman drove off Highway 101 and injured herself. (IJ)
• The toll this week was one person killed, six people injured, and one person beaten.

Mid-Week Links: Plaid

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/4140910 w=620&h=357] Now that Fairfax and Sausalito are cracking down on cyclists violating stop-signs, perhaps it's important to ask whether current law is the best law. A bicycle, after all, is absolutely not a car - it can stop faster, gives a better field of view, and is much more efficient when moving than when stopped. Idaho allows cyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs, to great effect. California ought to pass the same.

Marin County

• Marin and Sonoma both dropped state parks from their park taxes after $54 million was found in the state parks department's coffers. While Sonoma's plan is dead, Marin's tax plan would go to county open space instead. (Planetizen, IJ, Press Democrat)
• Larkspur and Tiburon are both pondering library expansions, though residents in both communities wonder if the proposed buildings will be too large for the demand. (IJ)
• HOV lanes in Novato are now open to the driving public, ensuring easy driving for a little bit until traffic catches up with capacity. (IJ)
• A permanent farmer's market, a roundabout, and other improvements will come to the Civic Center under a plan recently approved by the Board. Unfortunately, it's at odds with the SMART Station Area Plan for the Christmas Tree Lot just south of the station, which calls for 4-5 story residential and retail. Planning and design for the improvements will cost about $2 million. (IJ)
• And...: Construction has begun on SMART's railcars. Delivery is expected in about a year. (Patch) ... Novato will convert a city-owned building into art studios for around $100,000. (IJ) ... A West Marin ecotopia could be shut down for running afoul building regulations, but its builders pledge to carry on. (IJ)

The Greater Marin

• Projections of growth are so often wrong, but they always inform whether we build new freeway lanes or rail lines or whatever. There must be a better way. (Strong Towns)
• Activists accuse Veolia Transportation, which operates Sonoma County Transit, of human rights violations and want the county to investigate. Veolia's parent company operates bus service between Israel and West Bank settlements. (Press Democrat)
• MTC will study a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax on Bay Area drivers to raise money for roads and transit. The tax hasn't gone anywhere in other jurisdictions, but boosters are optimistic a VMT would be an answer to the Bay Area's financial woes. (Mercury News)
• Some Chicago designers want you to help create the perfect transit app. Not only would it tell you how to get where you're going with the schedule, it would give you real-time arrival information, allow stopovers for coffee or errands, interface with your calendar, remind you to bring an umbrella, and more. (Co.Design)

The Toll

• You'll notice I have this new section for the death and injury toll on the roads in Marin and Sonoma as reported by local news outlets. Why? Because in the first three months of this year, 7,280 people were killed on the road in the US, doing nothing more than living their lives. It's the least we can do to report on the human cost of our road-centered policies in this little corner of the country. (Atlantic Cities)
• A Tiburon man drove onto a sidewalk to hit a pedestrian whose plaid jacket he didn't like. The suspected driver, Eugene Thomas Anderson, has been arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. (IJ)
• Three cyclists were struck by drivers in Santa Rosa this week, though one driver claims to have lost control of her vehicle. None suffered more than moderate injuries. Separately, a driver suffered moderate injuries after running his car off the road. (Press Democrat)
• In Marin, two people were slightly injured in a bizarre two-crash incident in Novato. Another driver drove off the road in San Rafael, giving herself minor injuries. A driver couldn't negotiate a turn and so rolled his van about 150 feet down a West Marin hill, resulting in minor injuries to himself and one of his four passengers. Lastly, a driver lost control of his truck in Larkspur, crashing it into a nearby townhouse. The driver and passenger sufferend moderate injuries. (IJ, Twin Cities Times)

Mid-Week Links: Progress

Marin County

• Contract negotiations between Marin Transit and GGT are starting to pay off, though a timeline for finishing the new contract is still elusive. The MT board delayed a decision on Monday, deciding to let the negotiations play out. (IJ)
• Structures built in the SMART right-of-way, i.e., stations, will not be required to go through the local design review process thanks to legislation introduced by Assemblyman Michael Allen and passed by the state legislature. They will, however, still be subject to local zoning ordinances. (Pacific Sun)
• The new federal transportation bill, recently signed into law, will likely cost Marin some $500,000 in Safe Routes to School funding. Local sources of funding means the program will stay alive in the county, but with rather less robust finances. There is, of course, much more to the bill. (IJ, Streetsblog)
• The Marin County election season is heating up again, with Sausalito's hand-slapping Mike Kelly retiring after eight years on the council being the biggest news so far. In all, 28 positions around the county will be on the ballot come November. (IJ)
• The venerable anchor-out community of Sausalito holds some of the most colorful, despondent, independent, thoroughly old-school Marinites in the county. With the America's Cup around the corner, some of the anchor-outs wonder if their time is up. (Bohemian)
• Novato's new city office building broke ground on Tuesday, signalling an end to one of the major controversies swirling around the community, though don't count on hearing the end of it at council meetings. (IJ)
• Since the Pacifics began playing at Albert Park, there have been few problems, despite the vociferous arguments made during the process to approve the team's use of the field. (IJ)
• And...: GGT apparently runs unscheduled ferries between Sausalito and San Francisco to pick up bikers. Why not put them on the books? (IJ) ... San Rafael touts the recent HOV freeway widening as consistent with its Climate Change Action Plan. (News Pointer) ... Give your ideas for the Larkspur's SMART Station Area Plan this Monday at 6:30pm. You already know my idea. (IJ)

The Greater Marin

• Plan Bay Area has been criticized as too oppressive and too dictatorial to communities that believe all development is character-destroying development. In trying to ameliorate these concerns, PBA may have become too weak to actually achieve its goals. (Underground Science via Google Cache)
• The legal hurdles for California High Speed Rail got a little bit shorter this week. Five lawsuits are in settlement, and other opponents have been cowed by the project's recent victory in the state legislature. (Mercury News)
• Downtown Phoenix, Arizona, really isn't that great, but it doesn't have to be. Shade, density, non-car connections, and a grocery store would all make the core of that desert metropolis more livable. (TDG)
• Demand for walkable neighborhoods is at an all-time high. Riding high on the trend are new urban cores like Bellevue, Washington or Silver Spring, Maryland, which have retrofitted their suburban downtowns into something much more traditionally urban. (Fiscal Times)

The Toll

• A 60-year-old bicyclist was sent to the hospital last night after a crash involving a car driver in downtown San Rafael. The driver stayed on the scene. (IJ)
• Jessie Garcia died Saturday while driving in Santa Rosa. A vengeful driver struck his car instead of her boyfriend's motorcycle, which she had been aiming for, causing his vehicle to flip and burst into flames. That driver, Heather Holmes, has been charged with second-degree murder. (Press Democrat)

Have a tip? Want to contribute? Email me at theGreaterMarin [at] gmail.com.

Mid-Week Links: Decisions

Marin County

• SMART will consolidate its offices in a transit-unfriendly Petaluma office park, far from downtown and far from the city's planned rail station. A finalist property was downtown but even transit agencies can fall victim to the siren song of sprawl. The lease is up in six years. (Press Democrat, NBBJ)
• Norm Solomon has conceded the race for Congress to Republican Daniel Roberts, all but ensuring a smooth election for Assemblymember Jared Huffman to Lynn Woolsey's seat. (Patch)
• Golden Gate Transit, along with a host of other regional agencies, is hiking fares on buses and ferries on July 1. Drivers, alas, will keep paying the same tolls. (IJ, GGT)
• People are excited about closing the Novato Narrows by adding carpool lanes, the least bad kind of freeway expansion. On the downside, it'll suck ridership away from the other big transit project on that corridor, SMART. (IJ)
• The San Rafael Street Painting Festival is may not return again this year, or any other year. The wildly popular festival closes down Fourth Street for a day but has proven to be a money-losing enterprise for Youth in Arts, the sponsoring nonprofit, and they've called it quits. (IJ)
• Nobody likes waiting in line to exit the parking lot after the Marin County Fair, so why not take the bus instead? You could even park at your local Park & Ride. (GGT)
• And...: GGT's bus stops are now on Google Maps as the agency continues its new-found affinity for customer service. (Google) ... A Marin City housing activist will not be evicted for hosting her dying mother after all. (IJ) ... On the opposite end, a Belvedere couple bought and demolished a $4.2 million home to expand their views and, presumably, their yard. (SFist)

The Greater Marin

• Healdsburg is getting serious about bike infrastructure now that its petition to be an official Bicycle Friendly Community has been rejected by the League of American Bicyclists. (Press Democrat)
• Housing growth projections are notoriously difficult to get right, and the numbers ABAG is using for Plan Bay Area is complicated by internal and external politics to boot. (SF Public Press)
• SFMTA has its proposed alternatives for the Geary Bus Rapid Transit line available to browse and comment. Though the current plan is to give only the 38-Limited access to the route, GGT's Route 92 runs as a limited-stop service along Geary, so Marin City commuters stand to benefit from the process as well.  As well, Van Ness BRT has been approved has a preferred alternative, meaning one more step to better service for Muni, as well as GGT's Routes 10, 70, 80, 93, 101, and 101X. (Streetsblog) [edited per Viktoriya Wise's correction.]
• California High Speed Rail faces a major funding hurdle in Sacramento today. The Legislature needs to release $2.7 billion in bond money so construction can begin on the central part of the line in the Central Valley. But lawmakers have also released a Plan B that would focus the funds on LA and San Francisco improvements instead, and there's always the chance that no rail will pass at all. (Streetsblog)

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: Build to the Boom

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26xOvGADc4c]If you have 45 minutes, listen to Chris Leinberger's presentation in Kansas City about walkable housing development. He makes a strong argument for building more walkable centers for those that want it - exactly the sort of thing Marin and Sonoma are planning around their SMART stations and exactly the way our towns were built a century ago. (SGA)

Marin County

• Caltrans has allocated another $112 million to widening Highway 101 between Sonoma and Marin, not quite enough to bridge the $177 million gap in its billion-dollar widening project, duplicating much of SMART's future service. (NBBJ)
• Golden Gate Ferry workers went on a surprise strike last Saturday to draw attention to stalled contract negotiations. Terminal attendants want a raise as compensation for new duties they took on after ticket takers were laid off, while sailors and captains want private quarters aboard the ferries, among other complaints. (IJ)
• The Board of Supervisors spent $75,000 in discretionary funds this quarter on items ranging from high schools to the opera. Where did your Supervisor invest discretionary funds this quarter? (IJ)
• As expected, Novato will move ahead with its downtown office plan, voting 3-1 to proceed with construction. (Pacific Sun)
• The Drake's Bay Oyster Company has been farming oysters in Drake's Bay for over a century, but the National Park Service may not renew their lease. Though the arguments for and against renewal have revolved around science, the basic question is philosophical - whether a wilderness area should have commerce. (Pacific Sun)
• A nifty tool developed by the Greenbelt Alliance shows the various greenfield developments on open space. Though it doesn't seem comprehensive, for what it has it's quite useful. (Greenbelt Alliance)
• If your bike was stolen recently, it may be in police custody. Hundreds of bikes were found after SFPD busted up a ring of thieves, and they've released pictures of the merchandise. (SFist)

The Greater Marin

• As it turns out, Marinites aren't the only ones who value their walkable town centers. Homes in walkable neighborhoods command significantly higher prices than places that are not. Even Des Moines, IA, is getting in on the action. (NYT, Des Moines Register)
• The explosive growth and new-found prosperity of Washington, DC, is based on childless singles and couples, who each net the District about $6,000 more per year than those with children. (These are the same folks Marin excludes due to density policies.) Now that these singles are getting married, can Washington adapt? (Atlantic Cities)
• About 25,000 San Franciscans were forced off the road when a handful of people driving private automobiles, with police escort, pushed their way into a street fair on Sunday. The action ended the celebration and opened the way for through traffic. (Examiner.com)
• The Golden Gate Bridge was never in danger of collapsing on its 50th Anniversary, despite the spooky sight of a bridge flattened by the massive crowd in the middle. (Mercury News)
• How hard would it be to rebuild the Golden Gate Bridge were it done today? Given environmental review, agency oversight, and a more contentious political environment, it's safe to say it would be tough. (IJ)
• The tallest building in the West will redefine San Francisco's skyline and serve as the centerpiece of the new Transbay Terminal. The building was approved over objections from people concerned about shadows. (Chronicle)
• The sector plan for Santa Rosa's northern SMART station is coming together nicely, with a great deal of effort to move people away from cars, reconnect the street grid, and apply the kind of density this sort of project can support. Not everyone is happy, however, with Coddington Mall managers especially concerned over new rights-of-way called for in the plan. (Press-Democrat)

Mid-Week Links: End of the Line

Marin County

San Anselmo's Easy Street Cafe will close this Sunday after struggling with the economy and the Redhill Shopping Center remodel.  There is still hope that it will reopen somewhere else, though the odds seem slim.  With this institution's closure, speculation is running rampant that the shopping center is turning into a regular chain-dominated strip mall.  So far, eight businesses have moved out or been evicted.  You can find their letter on the Pacific Sun. On a personal note, I am quite saddened by the loss.  It's my favorite breakfast spot in Marin and I haven't found anyplace better in DC. Since I can't make it to the closing, eat some bangers and scrambled eggs for me and I'll buy you a beer at the next happy hour. (IJ, Pacific Sun)

• Just as regulatory hurdles were cleared, Lucasfilm formerly withdrew its Grady Ranch proposal, beginning a mad scramble around the North Bay to woo what a few Marin activists said would constitute the Hollywoodization of Lucas Valley. (IJ, San Rafael Patch)
• For Earth Day, San Rafael promoted recycling, energy efficiency, and electric cars, but remains entirely silent on walking or biking.  Perhaps next year they'll install a bike rack or two downtown? (IJ)
• Travel on the Golden Gate Bridge is going to be terrible next week.  Not only is Doyle Drive closing, but Occupy SF plans to close the bridge on Tuesday. (SFist)
• SMART is exploring a station near the Sonoma County Airport, which would be at their planned maintenance facility on Airport Boulevard.  Details are still sketchy, to say the least, but it would certainly make the airport a more attractive option for Marinites. (Press-Democrat)
• SMART has approved a more sustainable pension plan for future employees than what it has now, remedying one of the Grand Jury's principal gripes about the system. (Press-Democrat)
• The Board of Supervisors has formally requested an audit of Plan Bay Area growth projections, saying that the job growth numbers just don't seem realistic. (IJ)
• Larkspur and MTC are looking for a few good souls to fill out their boards.  MTC has four vacancies on their Policy Advisory Council, while Larkspur has openings on the Planning Commission, Parks & Rec Commission, and the Heritage Preservation Board. Take a look to see if you want get involved. (IJ, PR Newswire)

The Greater Marin

• When you make a great place you're making great people habitat, and that's good for the environment and all the natural habitat we need to protect.  New Urbanism is a New Environmentalism. (NRDC Switchboard)
• The headaches caused by private bus companies in San Francisco are starting to get noticed, and the city may start to regulate. (SFBG)
• Electric bikes can dramatically expand the reach and audience of bicycling.  In spread-out and hilly Marin, the electric assist can be a life-saver for the unfit. (Clarendon Patch)
• Sonoma County faces a $120 million road maintenance backlog and only $4.5 million per year to fix it.  Though the county is looking for new revenues, perhaps it could spend less money on widening 101 instead. (Press-Democrat)
• California will soon get $100 million in new electric car charging infrastructure, part of a settlement with energy companies related to the state's 2001 energy crisis.  (Chronicle)

Mid-Week Links: Get a Car

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/37566785 w=620&h=349] There's a major threat to walkable living, transit, biking, and even our highways brewing in the House of Representatives in the form of a terribly written transportation reauthorization bill, HR 7.  Although we know Congresswoman Woolsey is firmly against the plan as written, it's important to keep in mind what is happening on Capitol Hill.

Marin County

• Novato cracked down on unsafe driving this past weekend, resulting in 44 citations.  It's a good move for a city that has seen a number of pedestrian accidents in the past few months. (IJ)
• County planners have approved the Grady Ranch development in Lucas Valley and, unless opponents appeal to the Board of Supervisors, the project will go ahead as planned. (IJ)
• West Marin may help the county satisfy some of its affordable housing requirements by allowing ranches and farms to build workforce and owner housing on-site, cutting down driving commutes into the region. (IJ)
• SMART ceremonially broke ground on its transit system, marking the beginning of real construction and the culmination of years of work. (Patch)
• San Rafael's Ritter Center expansion is on hold pending an appeal by Gerstle Park residents. The expansion would be a medical center housed in a temporary building, though Ritter says they will look for a new when it lease expires in 2015. (IJ)
• West End is apparently a quirky place for the young and hip to shop in San Rafael, not to say that it doesn't have challenges: auto-oriented businesses on the north side of Fourth, the half-dead Yardbirds strip mall, too-wide streets, lack of continuity with downtown, and an anti-development bias keep the neighborhood from really thriving. (Reporter, New Pointer)
• Albert Park and the San Rafael Pacifics are go thanks to a judge's ruling against Gerstle Park opponents of the planned baseball field who had sought to block the team. (IJ)

The Greater Marin

• MTC has rejected political appeals of projects that do not meet its required cost-benefit floor, putting common sense above more narrow local interest. (TransForm)
• Intuition is correct: parking minimums encourage driving, and I think it's high time for Marin to abandon the unscientific minimums posthaste.  (The Atlantic Cities)
• The Americas Cup has downsized its plans for San Francisco and will not renovate Piers 30 and 32 after all thanks to regulatory issues.  Still, the Cup is a great excuse for the City to invest in its waterfront and should be a strong incentive for Sausalito to do the same. (SFist, SPUR)
• Bicyclists like the same routes drivers do, and for the same reasons. I suspect that making it safer for bikers to use main roads would do more for cycling mode share than shunting them onto side roads.  In other words, bike lanes belong just where planners may not want to put them: Sir Francis Drake, Delong, and Fourth Street. (The City Fix)
• Luxury car drivers, take note: you may be driving like a jerk and not even notice it. (SFist)
• In case you missed Smart Growth America's webinar on sustainable communities, they have their materials up for perusal. (SGA)