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News clippings related to transit, mobility and quality of life
MoveNews #95 for the week of April 4, 2010
Regional
Planners will push trolley project
San Diego Union Tribune, March 20, 2010
Despite recent cuts to San Diego's public transit system, regional planners are moving forward with a proposed 11-mile trolley line from the Old Town Transit Center to UCSD or the University Towne Centre. The Mid-Coast Corridor Transit Project would cost $1.2 billion and could be completed as early as 2015, said officials at the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), which pays for and plans transit projects.
SANDAG had spent $32.1 million on the project as of December. It intends to seek funding from the Federal Transit Administration for half of the initiative, though the federal money is uncertain because Mid-Coast must compete with other transit projects nationwide.
California
RT votes to reduce bus, rail service 22 percent
Sacramento Bee, March 29, 1020
Facing the worst financial hole in its 37-year history, the Sacramento Regional Transit board voted Monday to reduce bus and rail service 22 percent ... Twenty-eight of the agency's 91 weekday bus routes will be eliminated. A dozen other buses will run less frequently days and weekends. Some will be shut down on weekends.
Popular comment:
"So we have no public transportation for folks to get to work nor students or the disabled to get around but BY DAMN WE ARE GOING TO HAVE A NEW BASKETBALL STADIUM ! Someone in this city has their head lodged where the sun doesn't shine."
-- TheCheshireCat
National
Transit ridership declines 4% nationwide
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 15, 2010
Public transit ridership fell nearly 4 percent in the U.S. last year after a record-breaking 2008, and advocates' hopes for a rebound this year are clouded by a continuing series of fare increases and deep service cuts across the nation.
Legal Handbook for the New Starts Process
Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, March 22, 2010
TCRP Legal Research Digest 30: Legal Handbook for the New Starts Process presents a comprehensive overview of the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) New Starts project development process and the legal issues associated with it. The purpose of this Handbook is to provide information to transit attorneys on the FTAs New Starts process. The report should be useful not only for transit attorneys and managers, but also for legislators, civic leaders, and local transit supporters interested in the overall New Starts process.
Local governments are increasingly encouraging or even requiring LEED certification in new development, which is nice, but most continue to require generous minimum parking supply, which contradicts their goals. Average car-owning apartment dwellers generate more greenhouse gases by driving than by heating, cooling, lighting, and otherwise operating their home. Inefficient transportation policies not only increase energy consumption and pollution emissions, they also exacerbate other costs and problems: traffic congestion, traffic accidents, roadway costs, inadequate accessibility for non-drivers, and sprawl. Described differently, more efficient transportation and parking policies are far more important than LEED certification in acheiving true sustainability.
Fast Facts
Since 1990, total emissions associated with the transportation sector have increased from 150 to 182 million metric tons of CO2 equivalents (MMT CO2e), an increasing share of the state's overall climate change emissions. This trend must be reversed to achieve AB 32 (Global Warming Act of 2006) goals and dramatically reduce emissions from transportation to reach California's 2050 goal.
Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics
MoveNews #95 was edited by Carolyn Chase and published by Move San Diego, Inc. as a service to our members. You may subscribe, unsubscribe, or send article suggestions by sending an email request to: info@movesandiego.org
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