Watch out! The days of AC Transit’s cozy relationship with Belgian bus maker Van Hool are numbered, at least if a group of organized “Van Hell”-haters succeeds in staging its day of action at the entrance of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, 8th and Oak streets in Oakland, at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow.

The event is being organized by Joyce Roy, who only managed to rally a handful of mostly elderly and disabled riders, along with a bus driver, to speak to the AC Transit board recently against the buses for their shaky Read the rest of this entry »

I was gratified to see that the Metropolitan Transportation Commission had launched a new service called Predict-a-trip. If you’re planning to drive from Fairfield to San Jose, this collection of algorithms at www.511.org will use the collective experience of FasTrak electronic toll tag users to estimate how long your trip will take using several different routes. You can also ask it for current driving times, just like you can when you dial 511 on your mobile phone.

Just what we need, another tool to make driving easier.

I say that because today I gave up Read the rest of this entry »

I’m told that today this blog will be linked to the outside world after a two-week trial, so welcome, inaugural readers.

The point: to provide an outlet for Bay Area transportation stuff that crosses my path, but isn’t necessarily “a story” in the traditional sense. I’ll also drop in comments from readers and ad-lib from time-to-time about my own commuting tribulations.

In an area with such diverse ways to move around as the Bay Area, this kind of stuff is ridiculously easy to come by. In my short time here, I’ve found there is no limit to my fellow commuters’ appetite for transportation news.

Read the rest of this entry »

There is nothing so sweet in this chaotic autopolis we suffer through as a home-grown solution to a seemingly intractable problem.

Most of the time, we need cash (and I will be just as quick to argue this). We need thousands for studies, millions for new buses and billions for a new bridge.

But the Bay Area is home to one of the thriftiest transportation solutions known to Western Civilization, if you don’t include walking.
Read the rest of this entry »