Why is a heat pump more labor intensive to install than a natural gas heater? www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti... www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/dotg...

City residents have a problem, does a study, finds its own rules are the problem, then votes to change the rules. www.danvillesanramon.com/news/2026/04...

California State Route 24 is a "scenic highway". Any apartment you want to build in Lafayette or Orinda is potentially subject to CEQA suit for the "visual impacts" it might cause to CA 24 drivers

1. 140 apartments proposed for 4 acre San Ramon shopping center 2. after NIMBY pushback, proposal lowered to 40 single family homes 3. Project is approved, NIMBY's sue anyway 4. Judge dismisses lawsuit, city and developer entitled to recover legal fees www.danvillesanramon.com/courts/2026/...

There it is

Why doesn’t California build more condos?

Allison Arieff writes in the Chron about the National Single Stair Design Competition from LCI and @eastbayforeveryone.bsky.social ahead of Wednesday’s Assembly Housing committee hearing on AB 2252 (Alex Lee). www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/arti...

BART is planning changes for platform assignments at Daly City that will balance headways and enable more cross platform transfers at Bay Fair and MacArthur. bart.legistar.com/LegislationD...

It's sadly predictable that dangerous street designs kill people. Yet cities feel the need to wait for a body count before taking fixing their mistakes. Latest example is Hayward, where 3 pedestrians were killed in the last 10 days. www.eastbaytimes.com/2026/04/17/a...

Tonight:

A California study found condo developers pay 3-4x more for liability insurance than rental builders — because 80-85% of projects get sued. This can add up to $18,300 per condo in added costs, pricing middle-income buyers out of for-sale housing. cayimby.org/blog/the-leg...

Tabling at the Oakland Joiners Activity Fair today for @eastbayforeveryone.bsky.social. Ready to chat Connect Bay Area, Oakland General Plan and @holz-bau.bsky.social thought to all comers. luma.com/guntbzt0

A stat that surprised me, but perhaps shouldn't have, when I was reading YIMBY stuff is that homelessness is correlated with housing prices. I guess this is surprising because you tend to assume it can't be as simple as price. And price isn't the only thing, but it turns out to matter.

Artemis II splashing down exactly when predicted, to the minute, after traveling like 700,000 miles is why we need dedicated bus lanes tbqh.

when my partner & I were looking for insurance on our new house, we talked with three insurance brokers only one of them told us "you're going to need more coverage than the standard model tells you, it hasn't kept up with construction costs" looked into it, he was right, so we went with him!

Seems bad

Love it! Great to see AC Transit leadership doing the best they can to run a tight ship -- but if we want to stop cuts to bus service in the East Bay (and save transit throughout the Bay) we need to pass the @connectbayarea.bsky.social measure! So come help gather signatures luma.com/connectbayar...

A few blocks away, AC Transit Board will be discussing potential service cuts and fare hikes before even considering operational efficiencies outlined by MTC. mtc.ca.gov/sites/defaul... bsky.app/profile/geor...

Required reading for anyone interested in California insurance policy www.cawildfirefund.com/sites/wildfi...

Walnut Creek's Shadelands residents are opposing the construction of 422 new townhomes, largely because of traffic concerns. Converting an office park to townhomes will take about 400 cars off the road at peak times every weekday.

Today:

A week from today:

hey this could be us

Hot take from Ned: renters are humans

Join us Wednesday April 8th in downtown Oakland (or over zoom) for our monthly meeting. Note the 6pm time! We'll be discussing various ways to get involved and the Oakland General plan update. Click through for details:

If you think the current traffic level on suburban stroads is bad wait until half of the cars on the road are kids getting individually chauffered around with no driver, commuters sleeping in a bed/telework pod with no steering wheel, etc. www.worksinprogress.news/p/its-time-t...

Why do we want things to cast shade upon other things in the city? Because even though it's 65 and cloudy in Berkeley today, this bus stop is 130°. It is too hot to stand here and wait for the bus.

A survey of 400 Bay Area parents found that 31% of parents who live less than 2 miles to school drive their 10-14 year old kid to school because of Stranger Danger and 2% drive because of Traffic Concerns: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Send this to the PDF appreciators in your life

Join us at Oakland's Snow Park on Saturday April 4 at 1pm for a signature gathering training followed by signature gathering. We got to save transit! All details at the link:

Good story on pedestrian safety that bizarrely does not mention speed cameras or red light cameras or driver behavior www.mercurynews.com/2026/03/24/s...

It's wild to think that insurance as we know it today might not existing in California in 10 years, and yet it remains a somewhat fringe policy area. calmatters.org/commentary/2...

California’s Construction defect reform bill (AB 1903, Wicks) is live. It’s been a journey but we’re finally here. Please let me know if you have any questions: leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTe...

Last week three schools in SRVUSD were recognized as California Distinguished Schools. This week - teacher layoffs and budget cuts due to declining enrollment. Alamo/Danville/SR desperately need more homes. www.danvillesanramon.com/education/20...

God Angry After New Construction Blocks View Of Creation https://theonion.com/god-angry-after-new-construction-blocks-view-of-creation/

they mad

A Middle Housing project soon to start construction in the backyard of a Maybeck home in North Berkeley! Shockingly its condos which we dont get much of. Very beautiful design claiming homage to Julia Morgan. (Could use color tho). No opposition from n'hood. 6 units.

Haven’t had a chance to fully review it, but Oakland released its General Plan Update draft framework yesterday. Comment period runs through April 23. www.oaklandca.gov/Planning-Bui...

In Walnut Creek alone there have been at least 12 people killed in crashes since 2021. This included 5 pedestrians & 6 drivers, 3 of whom were teen drivers killed in solo crashes in just 2024-2025. Why aren’t you responding to THIS crisis!!!

This quote displays why single lane road diets are so beneficial for safety. On multi-lane roads, many people feel obligated to match the behavior of the worst drivers around them. But on single-lane roads people are forced to think for themselves & the best/safest driver sets the standard.

CEQA reforms that help build environmentally and fiscally sustainable cities are good and necessary. This ballot measure would just put the finger on the scale to lower the costs of building sprawl. If anything this would make it harder to densify our cities.

Thanks to the important CEQA reform passed last year, the @calchamber.bsky.social BACA measure does nothing for the infill housing we need. What it does do is streamline everything from sprawl detached housing to highways to data centers. Read more: eastbayforeveryone.org/2026/03/05/s...

The kicker is that the report says dual stair adds 12.5% to the cost of units. For the cost of a $800,000 unit, $100,000 is simply for the extra stair.

Street safety is our goal in Berkeley, that's why we let this guy drive his monster truck down the bike route to school every day. And yes, there is a guy driving this truck in this photo, he can't see anything because he drives with his seat leaned all the way back.

CAL FIRE report about single-stair is out. It recommends just one additional story (four stories) be considered now, and notes "near unanimous" opposition by fire departments surveyed. 34c031f8-c9fd-4018-8c5a-4159cdff6b0d-cdn-endpoint.azureedge.net/-/media/calf...

I feel bad for people who not only have to compete to buy a house with people their own age, but also against those people’s parents www.wsj.com/economy/hous...

New meta-analysis of 26 published studies concludes that AVs will lead people to use cars a lot more — which would thicken congestion and worsen pollution (even if AVs are electric). "AV deployment is anticipated to lead to an overall increase in Vehicle Miles Traveled." doi.org/10.1016/j.tb...

Need to bring this energy to every bus in North America, and not just about the signals

Heck yeah

Vacancies in my building in my tony neighborhood have increasingly been filled by families that are lower income or even on vouchers as new housing downtown has lured upper-middle income families and singles away. Before the building boom, wealthier people would line up to get in my older apt.