Tonight at Planning Board, the Boatworks Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) will get its day in the sun. The plan, 242 housing units shoe horned on to an old industrial site with very little public open space and contrary to the General Plans goals for roadway design. (quick note to Planning Board, please, please, please [...]
In a little less than four weeks, AC Transit will be going through major service changes in Alameda and throughout the East Bay. One of the problems with reading maps that show all the lines, and much of AC Transit’s service area, is that figuring out which line goes where becomes more work than it should be. So I threw together some very low-tech graphics of what the new transit system will look like in four weeks:
There’s only one problem. There’s no stop on Main Street at Midway (see map for location…hint: it’s where the bullseye is). It turns out that after the community and schools came out and asked for the bus to run on Midway, AC Transit made the change and requested that the stops be put in. So far, so good. But it turns out that the City (Public Works in this case) refused because they had to be ADA compliant and therefore there was a cost associated with placing the new stop.
Did I miss the memo that the City Council had decided to disband the Transportation Commission last year? There hasn’t been a meeting since the special meeting in Mid-August, which wasn’t really a meeting either. And staff isn’t even bothering to list it on the City Calendar anymore.
For folks who have been following the BART/Oakland Airport Connector saga–whereby a half-billion glorified ski-lift keeps receiving more and more regional transportation money even as it is repeatedly shown that BART project and executive staff are presenting incorrect information about the projects benefits and are remarkably unaware of how out of date their information is–Wednesday [...]
At that moment, City Manager Ann Marie Gallant summed up the difference as “the problem is the intent and the initiative language are two different things, and we opted to go with what the initiative language says.”
Two of the things I’m hoping will be discussed at tonight’s council meeting are Fiscal Neutrality and Public Benefits. A lot has been made of a supposed “$500 million dollar shortfall” despite the fact that it’s a made up number that doesn’t withstand the smell test.
I attended the AC Transit service reduction workshop at Independence Plaza along with about 120 other folks. Someone called both the Fire Dept and the Police because the room was over capacity. The meeting went well: 30-minute presentation of what was happening, 60-minutes of discussion with planners.
On Saturday, Alamedans have one last chance to weigh in on proposed changes to AC Transit’s service. I’ve highlighted what I see as the pros and cons here. The end result is less bus service in Alameda, and no matter what anybody does, that’s where we will end up.
I thought it would be good to put together Alameda related commute options for tomorrow’s unexpected Bay Bridge closure. Though I’d imagine that everyone’s already come up with a plan since it was closed last Friday.
Alameda news and opinion
Mindfulness in the face of challenge.
