Transportation
A $5.5 million effort to cut air pollution from the Bay Area’s ferry system appears to be paying off. The San Francisco Bay Area Water Emergency Transporation Authority, a regional transit agency operating the bay’s ferry service, says emissions from four newly converted San Francisco Bay Ferry vessels are down substantially. Nitrogen oxide and hydrocarbon emissions are 73% lower, and particulate matter emissions are down by even more on the four vessels, said Thomas Hall, SF Bay Ferry spokesperson. These…
BART will roll out a “reimagined” service Monday, meaning Richmond residents should see much shorter wait times and newer trains. Richmond riders will have a train to San Francisco they can jump on every 10 minutes, said BART spokesperson Chris Filippi. “The time transfers are key to this, and we really think it’s going to be a big difference for our riders, especially those in Richmond.” Richmond resident William Lemont Dennis, a fashion design entrepreneur, welcomes the new trains because…
Andrew Guzman was late for work nearly every other day last winter. During the monthslong deluge that soaked the Bay Area, his train to the downtown Berkeley BART station was often delayed. Frustrated, he clocked in late to work shift after shift.
The biggest problem last winter was that wet weather led to wheel spots or wheel flats, which can occur during braking and force a car out of service. Though wheel spots occurred more frequently on the newer Fleet of the Future cars, the root cause of last season’s problems wasn’t the cars themselves, but the complexity of BART’s control system, Allison said. BART has corrected the control system errors which caused wheel spots.
However, BART‘s project to replace the 50-year-old, unpredictable control system software is still a decade off. BART and its riders are depending on the transit system’s short-term fixes to avoid another chaotic season. Riders need reliable service just as BART, after years of declining ridership and revenue, needs to keep those riders scanning their clipper cards this winter.
As the price of gas increased in recent years, the 70-mile round trip from Richmond that Oscar Alcocer makes every Saturday to pick up his child in Walnut Creek became unaffordable in his 1995 Jeep Wrangler. Alcocer cut his costs last year by switching to an electric vehicle when Charge Up Contra Costa, an electric car-share program, launched in Civic Center Plaza. The weekly visits were going smoothly, until recently, said Alcocer, a 41-year-old engineer at an aerospace company. “One…
Viva Millan-Alioto has six children, two of whom have special needs and qualify for transportation to and from school in the West Contra Costa Unified School District. But a bus driver shortage has stressed the system, making the service less reliable. Millan-Alioto has had to get on the phone with school officials to ensure pickups, or do the driving herself. “You have to be very active to get things done,” she said. As with the teacher shortage, the school bus…
It’s Bridge Week in Richmond and through Saturday, people can attend events that showcase the proposed Richmond Greenway Bridge over 23rd Street, a project that would close the Greenway trail’s remaining gap, providing an uninterrupted 17-mile biking and walking path from Berkeley to Marin County. The proposal grew out of the Richmond Greenway Gap Study, which was funded by a $280,000 grant from the California Department of Transportation. “It’s going to blow everyone’s minds. It’s going to be really cool!,”…
With more bay shoreline than any other city in the Bay Area, it’s natural that Richmond has had a long association with ferries. Before the Bay Bridge was built, the ferry from Richmond to San Francisco was the most direct way to commute back and forth to the city. Richmond’s original ferry service stopped in the 1950s, and besides a short-lived ferry in the 1990s, Richmond did not see another ferry until San Francisco Bay Ferry launched its Richmond Ferry…
Richmond has launched a bike-sharing program with Bolt that will enable people to rent bikes at six stations across the city, with more to come in August.
A veteran longshoreman reflects on the state of union labor on the Bay Area waterfront.