It pays to go for a bike ride sometimes if you want to see the fastest bike racers in the world in action.  I did that Wednesday to get a glimpse of the pro racers riding on a rural road as they they traveled from Livermore to San Jose in the Amgen Tour of California. Read the rest of this entry »

All aboard! Amtrak chugged into the public arena of cell phone disputes Sunday when an Oakland-to-Portland train was halted temporarily so a passenger could be booted off and arrested after a dispute over her loud cell phone use. Read the rest of this entry »

Two BART board members used Bike to Work Day Thursday as the opportunity to  call for the rapid transit system to drop its ban on bicyclists using escalators to reach train station platforms. Robert Raburn and Tom Radulovich rejected BART’s contention that the restriction is necessary for safety and crowding reasons. Read the rest of this entry »

BART has announced three more East Bay appearances of its mobile seat lab for the public to drop in and evaluate alternative designs and materials for new seats to go in new train cars. They are in Pleasant Hall,  Pittsburg and Union City. Read the rest of this entry »

BART invites the public to test out alternative seat sizes and surfaces for the BART train car of the future from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday at San Francisco State University, Caesar Chavez student center, 1600 Holloway Ave.  Drop by the mobile seat lab,  sit in some seats and tell BART your preferences. Read the rest of this entry »

A family-oriented train celebration for National Train Day will be held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at the Amtrak station, 601 Marina Vista Ave., Martinez . Vendors will give children train-related key chains, pencils, and paper hats, and a model train display will be set up. Read the rest of this entry »

A regional planning effort to rein in greenhouse gases produced in the Bay Area makes a stop in Concord from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday with a public workshop at the Concord Senior Center, 2727 Parkside Circle. Come if you want to discuss a state-mandated effort at marrying transportation and land use planning to cut pollution that warms the earth. Read the rest of this entry »

 Spare the Air warm season has arrived in the Bay Area. From now until mid-October, the public will be asked to ride public transit more and drive autos less on days with unhealthy smog concentrations in the air.   Read the rest of this entry »

Extra police eyes are watching over BART  following the death of Osama bin Laden. Several Bay Area police departments have voluntarily supplied officers to help BART provide heightened security at train stations and parking lots, the transit agency reported this afternoon. Read the rest of this entry »

BART and its train operators are at odds over a district edict barring the operators from bringing their sons and daughters into train cabs last Thursday during bring your child to work day.  Is this a common sense safety rule? Or is BART management operating too rigidly in limiting what its employees can do on the day aimed at exposing children to their parent’s careers?  Read the rest of this entry »