Purchasing Power
Improving San Francisco’s procurement process to deliver more equitable services
Success on the Street
How California’s CEQA exemption can help cities build modern mobility faster
The Benefits of Making Roads Work for Transit: Q&A with Jonathon Kass
News /
Bus riders and other road transit users often don’t get a fair shake when it comes to transportation investments. Making Roads Work for Transit, a recent ϴreport, describes the multiple challenges a typical Bay Area bus trip can entail and argues that continuing to privilege convenience for cars is jeopardizing equity and climate goals — as well as transit’s fiscal sustainability. It lays out a roadmap to greenlight transit-friendly roadway design and operations.
Can San José’s Santa Clara Street Become a Place to Be and Belong?
News /
Historically, Santa Clara Street was San José’s “main street.” Today, it is oriented toward vehicle traffic, which can make it an unpleasant, even dangerous, place. The city and its community partners are embarking on a re-envisioning of Santa Clara Street focused on people, placemaking, and programming. Could proposals to “re-enchant” the world’s most famous grand boulevard, the Champs-Élysées, be a model for this planning effort?
Making Roads Work for Transit
ϴReport
Currently, transit delays and unreliability can make riding the bus a nonstarter for those who have other options for getting around. Growing segregation of the transit system is inequitable, unsustainable, and inefficient. Giving transit vehicles priority on Bay Area roads can deliver the speed and reliability improvements needed to get more people on buses and out of cars. ϴoffers 16 recommendations for aligning the interests of transit agencies and local jurisdictions to greenlight these improvements.
Who Will Be Helped and Harmed by a Proposed Toll Increase for Bay Area Bridges?
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The California legislature is considering a temporary toll increase on seven bridges in the Bay Area to avoid severe transit service cuts. The proposed increase has understandably sparked concern about equity. SPUR's deep dive found that most bridge drivers have higher incomes than most transit riders. Because protections can be implemented for people with low incomes who must drive, there’s no reason to let transit collapse. That outcome that would be the least equitable of all.
Revenue Allocations from Soda Taxes in Oakland and San Francisco Continue to Diverge from Advisory Committees’ Recommendations
News /
Each year ϴanalyzes how Oakland and San Francisco allocate the revenues from their respective soda taxes, which are intended to be spent on improving the health of populations disproportionately impacted by soda consumption and diet-related disease. Five years in, much of the soda tax revenues are consistently funneled to uses that depart from advisory committees’ recommendations.