On Tuesday, the Oakland-based Transportation and Land Use Coalition will join transit and environmental advocates in Sacramento for a day of lobbying.

The central message is that if ever there were a time to not suck the life out of gasoline sales tax receipts that state law earmarks for public transit, this is it.

This view is shared by a lot of people who don’t collect a per diem for hanging out in the Capitol Building, such as Bay Area transportation officials, people who worry about global warming and people who don’t own cars.

But this year, things appear to be different from last year, when that stash of transit money, swelled from rising gas prices, was too tempting a Read the rest of this entry »

At least once a weekend, I like to go to a local sit-down eatery and enjoy a copy of the Times. New York, LA, Contra Costa, it doesn’t matter. This Saturday, it was the LA version over shawarma at a Palestinian-run diner.

As much as I try to stay away from transportation stories on my days off, the op-ed piece by Metropolitan Transportation Agency chief Roger Snoble and Caltrans LA area director jumped out at me. Not the least because the last time I heard Snoble’s name, it was when outgoing Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez demanded his head on a platter for allegedly failing to fight hard enough for freight corridors bond money from the California Transportation Commission.

This was about another way of collecting money for transportation, with the advantage of not costing interest and, according to Snoble and Caltrans, a proven way of reducing congestion. It’s what they call “HOT,” or high-occupancy toll lanes around here, with the FasTrak-paid toll raised or lowered to keep traffic moving:

This isn’t some untested Read the rest of this entry »

I was struggling today to think of something to blog about, but thanks to the American Beverage Institute, I’m golden, like the translucent hue of a fine German lager.

I’m so used to receiving notices of the California Highway Patrol’s latest DUI crackdown, interspersed with the odd release on the governor’s highway safety conference or Mothers Against Drunk Driving effort to curb teen drinking that I found today’s e-mail from ABI quite, shall we say, refreshing.

Reading a header that made reference to something being “good for Lindsay Lohan,” I almost sent it to spam-heaven, but then I realized it was about ignition Read the rest of this entry »