Some updated slides from the Geary-19th subway project town hall today. 4 rail technology options for the project retained, "regional rail" is scrutinized due to capacity concerns, and plugging into BART via the current Market St Subway and Transbay Tube is off the table due to construction impacts.

The things I would do with a network empowered to distribute road safety PSAs on even awkwardly-unrelated government platforms...

Signature gathering for the regional transit funding measure is in full swing! There are 16 events across the Bay Area this weekend; you can find events in your area by using the Luma map and the tags on the event calendar: luma.com/connectbayarea

There is an emerging and worrying trend I've witnessed recently in YIMBY spaces where people are starting to show a willingness to embrace greenfield sprawl as a solution to our housing and affordability crises. As a reminder: sprawl is a distraction and a ponzi scheme. Nothing more.

VTA's 9am Friday board workshop will discuss how to program ~$260M/year in new, unobligated funding it will gain if the Connect Bay Area transit funding measure passes this November. The 51-page staff presentation makes a killer case for transit service and operation improvement as good government.

Underrated value of (e)bikes: because short trips are really fast and convenient, they tip the scales for shopping local.

I rode my bike on SPA for the fjrst time last Saturday and it was legit scary so i got off ASAP. Unfortunately because a one term councilmember blocked bike lanes there, Berkeley lost out for a generation.

How can we create a connected transit network with faster, more reliable service and get projects that improve transit done quicker and at a lower cost? Come to our upcoming event to learn how we can make progress on all these goals at once with a proven approach: "Service-led planning."

Asm. Alex Lee, who passed California's single-stair study bill in 2024, has a spot (placeholder) bill, AB 2252, to enact the reform. The state fire marshal was supposed to release their single-stair report almost two months ago, but has not. leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNa...

The immaturity of California’s homeowners and politicians is astounding. How many ways do they need to be told that wood-frame houses in the mountains are not insurable and no amount of politico-financial engineering can change that? The insurers are the only adults left in the room. Gift link:

San Pablo Ave is one of the most dangerous streets in the East Bay AND one of the most important for connecting to homes, jobs, retail. We need to make it safer by slowing down cars significantly. We need fewer and narrower car lanes, bus only lanes, protected bike lanes & improved intersections.

Yes it's gold medalist Alysa Liu promoting Muni's L-Taraval relaunch in 2024 ❤️ ❤️ 🚋 ⛸️ ❤️ ❤️

I plan to catch up on this YIMBY gubernatorial forum recording this weekend:

Nice video with aerial footage of Lyon's new T6 extension that clearly shows two key ingredients of French trams that make it difficult to replicate them here, unless we change the way we design streets: - accepting an extremely narrow single-lane street - accepting bending youtu.be/RMxHZDGYGc4?...

I'd be curious to get a picture of state spending on transportation - one big bucket: roads, highways, transit, bike & ped; ops and capital - and compare that to population. I think state transportation spending should be population-equitable, and I doubt it is.

Diving into TSP as a non-expert (I'm no traffic engineer) has been a wonderful journey into discovering how an apparently niche topic is deeply interwined with how we design streets and organize (or fail to) traffic patterns It seems mostly a tech problem, but it's really a planning and design one

At some point the “one size fits all” cliché becomes an argument against policymaking, period. If every single instance of a social problem is irreducibly unique and special, what’s the point of trying to address it in aggregate?

Living briefly in Lyon in 2016 is what made me realize how dynamic urban development (both transportation and urbanism) could be. I was there right after they'd achieved several key projects (like a lot of the Confluence) and...

A bad but universal metric of public transit reliability is the % of a line that is in its own lane. It is easy to create exclusive lanes where there is little delay, but not at the bottlenecks where they matter most. So this metric says nothing about speed or reliability.

North Americans: In a gridded city, every local street should be a through street Bologna: What about changing the direction of local streets at every block?

State budget trailer bills for the $590 million state loan to four Bay Area transit agencies (including BART) are eligible for floor votes today. BART would use loan funds only if a November transit funding ballot measure is successful or another reliable source of funding is provided to BART.

It's always fun learning about a new FRA regulatory limitation on passenger rail

✨ introducing… ✨ 🌇 Transportation for the Abundant Society 🚅 "Abundance" says our problem is artificial scarcity—especially housing. But you can’t build your way out if transportation policy still treats traffic flow as sacred. Transportation is the binding constraint. ssrn.com/abstract=538...

Michael Hobbes is back on a tear dunking on people with bad arguments about Intelligent Speed Assistance, and you love to see it! The technology exists to save tens of thousands of lives per year, and there is no good reason not to implement it.

coming up with a new idea called "driving like shit olympics". no more bland, unprovable statements like "california drivers are the WORST" allowed. whichever state wins every 4 years gets a moonshot-sized public transit investment to get those fuckers off the road

An example of how impacts of interventions can differ at individual and population levels, and are conditional on other events. Given a car hits you, the helmet helps. But mandating helmets could lower the # of bikes on the road & thus might increase the chance of getting hit in the first place.

“Many Puget Sound transit advocates have urged the legislature to go much further and grant Sound Transit its own permitting authority, a move that would significantly diminish the role local governments play in enabling transit projects.”

FY26 US govt spending bill that Congress just agreed to mostly funds agencies as in FY25, though it: —Reinforced DOGE’s 24% cut to HUD staff —Reduced resources for rail substantially, including recissions of $950m for high-speed rail grants —Reduced spending for transit, increased it for highways

For some additional context, FAIR plan liability is about 3x as much as the state’s unfunded pension liability.

For people with tech background concerned about the Clipper 2 upgrade/migration, check out the Cubic slides being presented today at Clipper Executive Board. Many of the problems are failures of basic scaling and QA missing predictable corner cases. mtc.legistar.com/LegislationD...

This is terrible… AND we’re so lucky to have AC Transit directors like @therealjeanwalsh.bsky.social and @sarahsyed.bsky.social who regularly ride buses, are directly aware of problems riders face, and seek to address them. All transit board members should ride transit!

While signature gathering to save transit throughout the Bay a person asked me why I was doing it. I explained the looming cuts and the importance of transit They said "yeah I get that, but shouldn't the government just raise taxes to fund transit? Why do you have to gather signatures?"

San Diego Unified School District has quietly embarked on a massive program to build educator housing. The focus has been on maximizing the number of units affordable to staff, not on deepest means-tested affordability. voiceofsandiego.org/2026/01/29/w...

So thrilled about this. We all fought so hard last year to make this happen. Amazing to have it finally come through

I haven’t seen any gubernatorial candidate come out strong for housing reform policies or plans to support transit which is a vital service and key to city economies which are where so much public revenue are generated. Field is bleak

The attacks on everyday people in the streets of Minneapolis betray the values of safe, thriving communities. These aren't isolated tragedies: they're the result of a system that treats public space as a battleground and our neighbors as expendable. Full statement at bikeeastbay.org/minneapolis-...

i always like doing this when i'm taking off from a city! metro vancouver's clusters of highrises trace the path of the skytrain (zoom in a little to see it clearly). a part of the reason more people ride transit in this region is a concerted effort to allow more people to live near it.

One thing that really strikes me about people who shallowly argue for trams in N-America is how little they realize that the way we manage traffic here will seldom produce the level of ease of access they experience in European trams and long for Example: accessibility of stops, Paris vs Toronto

What’s A Transportation Reformer’s Role In the Fight Against ICE Violence? - usa.streetsblog.org/2026/01/27/w...

This is how many sources of funding over about ten years to finance a 240 unit building of Affordable housing. We need to make it easier to finance and build all types of homes

I don't think we've discussed "hybrid mass timber" construction - metal-framed walls with mass timber decks. This new technique could replace wood-framed and concrete alike for residential projects between 4 and 11+ stories, with big climate and cost advantages.

Here's a video of the impossible. The UP Express has high platforms and level boarding for passengers. That is supposed make it impossible for mainline North American freight trains to pass. And yet, as this shows, CN freight trains roll past the high platform at Weston multiple times per week.

This weekend we took a big step in the right direction for getting posters up in communities across the Bay Area to help support the effort to save & improve transit. Help get posters up in more communities across the region. Download the poster file here www.savebayareatransit.com/home

The pro-transit, pro-housing lane in the race is up for grabs

This was a good time! We put up posters at bus & BART stops getting the word out and seeking volunteers for the Bay Area's regional transit measure. Signature gathering starts January 23rd! Sign up for volunteering opportunities: tinyurl.com/savebayareatransit

i will never get over this rebecca tiffany quote: the goal of yimbyism is a world where "every trans eighteen-year-old who is stuck living with unsupportive family [is] able to afford an apartment in a vibrant urban space with transit on a minimum wage job." www.liberalcurrents.com/feminism-wit...

Exciting that CAYIMBY is getting involved in transit project delivery state capacity and reform!

Want to help out in the lead up to the big launch? Join us tomorrow in Oakland and San Jose to put up posters about the regional measure and help get the word out to transit riders luma.com/savetransit?...

🚨 Save the date to save Bay Area transit: January 23rd! This is our all hands on deck moment: we’re kicking off signature gathering for the regional measure with a day of action across all five counties on the 23rd. luma.com/le1g7slf?tk=...

Rockridge BART Winter Sunset View Corridor Preservation Alliance