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• India issued, then rescinded, an arrest warrant for Vijay Mallya, owner of Marinscope newspapers. His airline, Kingfisher, bounced $1.9 million worth of checks; the warrant was withdrawn when Kingfisher agreed to pay the outstanding bills.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: Dusk

It's national Dump the Pump Day! Leave the car at home and take transit to work.

Driving to work costs you and Marin a ridiculous amount of time and money while degrading the environment. Switching to transit means you'll have time to work on the bus or ferry and don't have to worry about traffic. Switching to a bike means you can cancel that gym membership, and anytime you walk to or from a bus stop you're making yourself healthier.

This year GGT and Marin Transit have made it easy to find a way to your job without 511.org (though the app is still handy). Google Maps has integrated the two agencies into its transit directions system, so you can figure out how to get where you need to go.

If you're already at work, don't worry; just take the bus tomorrow. Let us know how your commute goes in the comments.

Marin County

• Tam Valley's Evergreen sidewalk will be built. A judge threw out a lawsuit to stop the project, arguing that because the suit had come after construction had begun it wasn't timely. Neighbors, though, have vowed to continue the fight. (IJ, @scottalonso, MV Herald)
• It's now legal to rent your home, or part of your home, for less than 30 days in Sausalito. The council voted to lift the prohibition in anticipation of the America's Cup, but don't get too comfortable. Participating homeowners need to pay for a $238 permit and collect the 12% transient occupancy tax, and the law expires in October, 2013. (Marinscope)
• Sausalito resubmitted its draft housing element to the state with only minor tweaks and a letter addressing HCD's criticism of the plan. Sausalito's plan had been rejected by the state for a number of reasons, including over reliance on second units and liveabords. (Marinscope)
• San Anselmo is pondering whether to ban chain restaurants and shops from downtown or anywhere in the town, but the existence of local chain High Tech Burrito has thrown the plans a bit of a curveball. (Patch)
• SF Public Press has a wonderful series on Plan Bay Area and smart growth in general. So far the series has tackled local resistance to Plan Bay Area, reviews Forum's conversation on the plan, and why smart growth actually is a good idea. Despite a half-bungled report on carrying capacity, the whole series is a must-read. If you can't find a dead tree copy of the quarterly around, you can either wait for the slow drip of news online or just get it hand-delivered by the postman for $4. (SF Public Press, KQED)
• Critics of Plan Bay Area ignore history when declaring Marin doesn't grow, ignore environmentalism when declaring Marin must not grow, and ignore facts when declaring it a conspiracy at the highest levels. (Pacific Sun)
• GGT's @GoldenGateBus account tweeted about a bus service disruption caused by the Pier 29 fire. Though the tweet didn't include a link to the site that actually described which stops were effected, it's a good start and hopefully a sign of things to come. Great job, GGT! (Twitter, SFGate, GGT)
• Go see West End at tomorrow's Culture Crawl from 5pm-8pm. The neighborhood's merchants see far less traffic than downtown San Rafael just over the hill, though the neighborhood is far from dull. (IJ)
• And...: An unwalkable bit of south Novato is set to become home to 12-14 affordable housing units. (NBBJ) ... County supervisors passed a $473 million budget for the year. An unallocated chunk of $22 million will be divvied up in coming weeks. (IJ) ... It looks like San Rafael will pass a budget without cutting the Street Crimes Unit. (IJ)

The Greater Marin

• Plans for a car-free Market Street are chugging along in San Francisco under the aegis of Better Market Street. The plan would close Market from Embarcadero all the way down to Octavia, improving transit travel times and pedestrian and bicycle safety. If approved, expected opening date would be 2016. (SFist)
• Apartments are booming in downtown Windsor with 1,200 units on track to open over the next five years. The rapid pace of development near its future SMART station has left some wondering whether the city can absorb such growth, and whether it even ought to allow it. (Press-Democrat)
• Sacramento's light rail now reaches its riverfront, part of a major redevelopment plan for the capital's central neighborhoods. The city's step is to get it over the river, though there's no telling when the money will come in. (Sacramento Bee)
• The next phase of the American Dreamwill not look like the last 50 years of sprawl as people finally learn what Marin knew so long ago: that the heart of a place is its downtown, not its shopping mall. (NYT)
• The problems facing cities are as old as cities themselves. Ancient Rome had traffic jams, restrictions on freight travel within the city, noise pollution, slumlords, sky-high rents and poets to document it all. (The Iris via Planetizen)
• A 10-story development in downtown Santa Rosa got another permit extension as developers continue to face financial problems. (Press-Democrat)

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

Mid-Week Links: Good Times

Local techno/transit geek Eric Fischer wrote a program to approximate travel routes from geotagged Twitter posts, revealing the desire lines of area.  Looks like he forgot Marin is there, but apparently we don't have a whole lot of Twits to track anyway.

Marin

• Glad that's over with: The RepealSMART effort failed to meet its minimum signature requirements and will not be on the next ballot.  This frees SMART to use $171 million it had in escrow, although the effort may return for November. (Press Democrat)
• Then again...: Whistlestop has filed suit against SMART over the loss of its parking spaces and the effective loss of its building.  SMART and San Rafael are reportedly willing to strike a deal to solve the problem, but there are no details yet. (IJ)
• Novato will give up its affordable housing oversight role to Marin Housing Authority, as it cannot afford the administrative costs without redevelopment funds. (IJ)
• Today, Novato will unveil a model of its new downtown offices, which are proceeding despite newly-elected Councilmember Eric Lucan's opposition. (IJ)
• The Marin History Museum has received an anonymous 1 to 1, $50,000 matching gift pledge to restore the Boyd House.  If you care at all about Marin's history, and about San Rafael's old housing stock, this is your time to donate. (IJ)
• The Muir Woods Shuttle, aka the 66 bus, is slated for a fare hike, but the exact details aren't known yet.  A $5 round-trip fare, complete with bus day pass, is the likely outcome. (IJ)
• SMART and California High-Speed Rail are getting their knocks, sometimes deservedly so, but they're nothing new: BART faced similar criticism before it opened, and Marin lost out as a result. (IJ)
• Marin will upgrade its library lobbies into "market places" for its most popular material. I've always figured, though - if Border's died because people treated it like a library with a coffee shop, why not get coffee shops in the libraries? (IJ)
• San Quentin, currently zoned for 1,500 new homes, could get "priority status" in order to deflect ABAG mandates elsewhere in Marin.  It doesn't change the fact that adding 1,500 homes at San Quentin is, to put it mildly, a little daft. (IJ)
• Marin tweaked its zoning rules, adding an exemption from affordable housing requirements for some unincorporated communities, including Strawberry. Other changes were made to permitting and smart growth planning areas. (Pacific Sun)
• Sausalito will include some of their harbor docks as affordable housing in their Draft Housing Element, as live-aboards pay significantly less rent than their land-lubbing fellow Sausalitans. (IJ)

The Greater Marin

• Windsor has approved their downtown station-area plan, although they won't see any train service until after 2015. (Press Democrat)
• The House and Senate are moving forward with their respective Transportation Reauthorization bills.  Activists, including myself,  aren't so keen on the House version. (The Hill, Streetsblog)
• Nationally, the number of renters has grown significantly, while the number of homeowners has declined, meaning cities are likely well-equipped for the demand.  (Atlantic Cities)
• The BART extension to Livermore is giving voice to an existential question facing the system: should it expand ever outward, or should it keep what it already has?
• Mountain View rejected bus rapid transit because it would have taken up left-turn lanes.  This is a step back for the city's efforts to put moving people, not cars, first.

And...: A beautiful new subway in Kazakhstan. (Architizer)... One Bay Area falls flat in San Ramon, too. (San Ramon Express)... Stockton Street survived just fine without any parking for a week. (Streetsblog)