Just two weeks after disclosures that a Caltrans technician had falsified inspection data on agency construction projects, a federal report says that the worker and his boss stole goverment construction materials for a project at the supervisor’s personal property. The new report, disclosed by the Sacramento Bee, is fueling an East Bay lawmaker’s suspicions that there is a problem in the culture of a Caltrans section that does tests to assure the structural integrity of foundations of new bridges, walls and other projects. Read the rest of this entry »

A state Senate transportation committee on Tuesday offered an unusual forum to question whether Caltrans did enough quickly enough when it discovered one of its technicians had falsified inspection data on construction projects. State Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, asked whether the Caltrans culture built around hard data and orderly procedures was prepared to deal with a case when a renegade worker acted outside the norm. Read the rest of this entry »

Johannes Mehserle, the former BART police officer convicted of involuntary manslaughter for killing Oscar Grant in 2009, is back in the news as a federal civil trial begins Monday in San Francisco into allegations that he and four other BART police officers used excessive force in roughing up a train rider. The confrontation occurred at the BART Coliseum station in November 2008, seven weeks before Mehserle’s shooting of an unarmed Grant was caught on video and sent around the world via the Internet. Read the rest of this entry »

The workhorse of Bay Area bridges  – the Bay Bridge - turns 75 years old on Saturday without any big fuss.  A modest invitation-only celebration will be held Thursday morning on Treasure Island, but it is not open to the general public. Read the rest of this entry »

Caltrans contractors on Friday will install the 28th and last segment of the suspension span deck on the new Bay Bridge eastern span, reaching another milestone in the $6.3 billion project. Lifting into place the last deck segment enables contractors to push ahead with preparations to begin stringing cable for the self anchored suspension span later this year. Read the rest of this entry »

All BART trains will stop for one minute at 10:21 a.m. Thursday as part of the Great California ShakeOut, a statewide earthquake preparedness event. Read the rest of this entry »

It seems everywhere with bridge tolls has toll cheats. No wonder then that a trucker made headlines with his ruse to hook up a cable to flip over his license plate over to avoid an electronically collected $65 toll on the George Washington Bridge entering New York. Read the rest of this entry »

California bike safety advocates and critics of cameras that catch red-light runners were disappointed by the governor’s vetoes, but BART officials are pleased he signed a transit safety bill. Read the rest of this entry »

Linton Johnson, the all-purpose public voice of BART,  remains on leave more than a month since his public relations war with protesters put him even more under the spotlight.  Read the rest of this entry »

The BART and AC Transit board are ramping up efforts to redraw  boundaries of political districts from which the directors are elected. An AC Transit board committee meets a 4 p.m Tuesday in Oakland discuss the options. Read the rest of this entry »