Infrastructure Weak

*Finally* an article about e-bikes/e-motos that actually explains the distinction and makes reasonably policy prescriptions.

velo.outsideonline.com/ebike/ebike-...

Environmental documents and preliminary designs for High-Speed Rail between Los Angeles and Anaheim are out. They call for electrifying two tracks owned by BNSF, proving freight railroads are no obstacle to a public agency with teeth. SoCal could chose to implement this early to #ElectrifyMetrolink

Excerpt from the same article. Highlighted by me: "a source told him that part of the higher price was due to Caltrans' insisting on narrowing the San Pablo Avenue sidewalks in order to create wider travel lanes," Full excerpt: "Prinz told The Oaklandside he was shocked by the agency’s estimate that construction on the bike and bus lanes in Oakland wouldn’t begin until 2030 and asked about what factors drove the higher price. He said that a source told him that part of the higher price was due to Caltrans’ insisting on narrowing the San Pablo Avenue sidewalks in order to create wider travel lanes, but he said ACTC and Caltrans haven’t confirmed that. The Oaklandside reached out to both agencies about this claim and have not yet heard back."

And, if this kind of lane-widening mentality is what prevails at Caltrans, shouldn't we fix that by having them hire a bunch more people to deliver better bike & transit projects? When do we get Woke Caltrans?

Excerpt from the same article. Highlighted by me: "Caltrans needed a more rigorous environmental and geometric approval process" Full excerpt: "Agencies didn’t want buses and bikes sharing space, communities didn’t want mixing zones, disability advocates didn’t want bike-pedestrian mixing, businesses needed certain loading accommodations, more lighting needed on side streets, bus lane intrusion countermeasures were needed, and Caltrans needed a more rigorous environmental and geometric approval process, Dentel-Post said at the meeting, which also included staff from Oakland’s transportation department."

On a Caltrans-owned road, why did we put Caltrans in the role of gatekeeper and make the local agency find a consultant to do the design? Why doesn't Caltrans have people & designs ready to meet its rigorous standards in-house?

We have hundreds of California four-lane roads to upgrade to meet our mode shift goals.

1) Why does a local agency like ACTC have to lead design for these projects, when that'll mean it's always their first time?

2) Why are we making them design concrete mixes and traffic circles from scratch?

San Pablo Avenue bike and bus lane project delayed as price balloons to $250M Alameda County says the lengthier, costlier plan will result in a “more robust, safer, long-term project” where San Pablo passes through Oakland. 

Alameda County says the lengthier, costlier plan will result in a “more robust, safer, long-term project” where San Pablo passes through Oakland.

Ah, there it is again - it depends on the context of the line in the network, which needs to be pre-planned to inform infrastructure decisions. Thanks, another lens on how bottom-up per-line/per-project planning doesn't work is helpful.

My train car is full of a 5th-grade class heading to the museum. Teachers are coaching them toward getting off the train. "Put your bags on!" "(echoing) I have put my bag on!"

I've been wrestling lately with what the appropriate goal should be for on-street transit priority in a densifying, road-dieting context:

• A speed floor?
• Faster than current, even when it's a stroad getting lane reduction?
• Or just way faster than cars are, post-diet?

What's the average speed this thing moves?

The urban context that creates this kind of performance is pretty alien to me.

Kinda think we need a state or national commission on safe street fire access design. If details could be agreed upon for acceptable gates/diverters like this one, it would be transformational.

with the good news about clipper 2.0, I think it's time we seriously consider what it would mean to create direct platform to platform transfers between @bart.gov and @sfmta.bsky.social muni metro on market street. here's my thoughts on how to achieve this

🧵

Tesla brings back 'Mad Max' 'Full Self-Driving' mode that ignores speed limits Tesla has brought back its 'Mad Max' mode for 'Full Self-Driving (Supervised) that ignores speed limits amid several investigations.

Love to share the road with cars programmed to blast past speed limits

The @dailycal.bsky.social is a student newspaper, so I won't blame them for missing hard-hitting questions such as "Do you plan to provide orogenesis?" in yesterday's interviews with the sfbabc.org.

A robot is only an OTA away from a behavior change, good, bad, or weird.

Waymo robots have always violated some traffic laws. For >year they have been getting noticeably more aggressive as I've shown in a variety of videos. Apparently, on purpose per Ludwick who's been on this project for 15 years.

#berkmtg Update: Berkeley city council will adopt the 26 foot clearance rule & fire dept veto on street design — which it surprisingly adopted in 2008 but never enforced — but will refer the code to a committee for tailoring and stakeholder input. Which is a win-win for fire dept and traffic safety

Big housing news in San Francisco today: the Board of Supervisors (their equivalent of City Council) votes to upzone the entire western half of the city. Currently much of the westside is houses. Commercial streets get a height boost.

Diagrams & maps below from sfplanning.org/sites/defaul...

Bus stopped at El Cerrito Plaza station

Starting next week, riding this bus and most other buses to BART will be FREE!

Clipper 2 rolls out on December 10, including free and low cost transfers between all transit agencies.

Riders will automatically receive discounts up to $2.85 when transferring within a two hour window.

Bad journalism has real-life consequences.

I’m confused what makes this project more special than any other greenfield project (save the fact it’s financed by people like Marc Andreesen)

Google Street View screenshot: A three-level concrete metro station over an urban one-way street. At ground level, a busy tram stop with platform doors, street vendors, and trees. A tall brick building is also visible.

Google Street View screenshot: A busy intersection of two small streets under the metro station's canopy of concrete. The ample sidewalk space is bustling with pedestrians and street vendor stalls.

Google Street View screenshot: View down a one-lane street underneath the metro viaduct. The street is much wider than the vehicle roadway, framed by mid-rise mixed-use buildings with businesses at street level. The streetscape features benches, street trees, a bike share station, a two-way cycleway, and ample pedestrian space beneath and across the metro viaduct.

Google Street View screenshot: View down a narrow commercial street opening to a small plaza in front of an entrance to the elevated metro station. Lined with planters acting as bollards, the sole vehicle lane turns at the corner to avoid the plaza. Pedestrians, a cyclist, and some street vendors are using the plaza.

so much conventional wisdom that stifles anglo cities' urbanity can be disproven with a quick look around San Antonio station, the towering concrete beating heart of Medellín's metro 🇨🇴

have a look yourself—my screenshots can't do it justice. maps.app.goo.gl/qTvxQ67Qeonw...

@sfgov.sf.gov's housing plan made big promises to add capacity for new homes by upzoning large parts of the City previously closed off to new development. The Family Zoning Plan fails to fulfill these promises. CalHDF is ready to litigate (a thread): 1/6

Seven-segment vehicles tempt me like the light rail devil

Anyway, good, rider-focused transit infrastructure design treats the schedule and travel time as the product. The Central Subway overall is a great example of what'll keep happening until we reorient projects around that priority.

It must have been obvious at some stage of the design, via a render, that these things were not going to be worth their cost. But somehow they stayed in, despite all the headlines about cost. Perhaps cutting a "feature" was seen as unconscionable, whether or not that feature was going to be good.

Photo taken across the same mezzanine, showing a larger 2 by 3 grid of six similar floor window panes. These are in front of an elevator, and behind the glass guardrail that separates the free and the paid area. From this angle we cannot see what's below the window. We can, however, see the modern metal ceiling of the mezzanine, which reveals that this window is not a skylight letting in any sort of natural light.

Photo from the platform below the floor window in the previous photo. There are two floor windows on top of each other, to account for a mechanical floor between the platform and mezzanine, and the lower window itself is high above the platform between perforated metal-clad walls. Therefore, the view of the mezzanine above is distant and cloudy, with no detail apparent - just some white light. Down below the windows, in the foreground, a public art ribbon of many circular mirrors provides plenty enough intrigue to look up at.

This is the best one in the station, and it's pretty much only good for setting up a trick shot photo with a friend, provided you know it's here.

Photo looking down at a brightly-lit white speckled terrazzo floor, within which is embedded a thick, segmented glass window, surrounded by black plastic trim, rubber gaskets, and sealant. The glass is cloudy or dirty, but you can see a yellow utility guardrail through it, which provides the context that you are looking down onto a plain, empty concrete floor on the level below.

View down another floor window. Here, nothing but blackness can be seen below. The off-kilter angle of this snapshot photo reveals that there is a line of similar skylights down the bright hallway of this long mezzanine. The wall is exposed concrete piles.

I know I missed the grievance-posting period when SF's Central Subway opened, but I'm still not over these mezzanine floor windows that look down on nothing but a concrete mechanical floor.

Montreal's New Rail Line Is the Future - Macleans.ca Canada has forgotten how to build fast, cheap transit. A new megaproject has the fix.

US public transit advocates: Don't just envy Europe. Start by envying Canada.

Great piece on Montreal's remarkably cheap new rapid transit system.

macleans.ca/society/mont...

The code goes so far that clever design can't fix it. The key provision in question requires 26 feet of unobstructed/curbless width - that needs to be made flexible.

The Fire Department vs. Traffic Safety Advocates Street safety advocates are butting heads with fire officials. Swift fire response does not have to come at the cost of lives on the roadway.

New post: a week of hectic back and forth with fire officials and city council over Berkeley street festivals brings out into the open a conflict in city halls across USA. Fire depts opposition to traffic calming and safety measures. Is there a solution?

darrellowens.substack.com/p/the-fire-d...