City officials unveiled plans Tuesday for a major overhaul of San Francisco's Municipal Railway transit system that, if enacted, would eliminate some bus lines and truncate, expand or reroute many others. The changes - aimed at improving reliability, speeding travel times and providing more frequent service - are based on an 18-month analysis of transit ridership trends and traffic patterns in San Francisco. The plan would be the first significant restructuring of Muni routes in two decades and comes amid high public frustration with the system. SF Chronicle 2/27/08
For nearly two decades, the main plan in the works was the futuristic MagLev train that would zip riders between Las Vegas and Los Angeles in well under two hours, hurtling across the wide-open desert at up to 300 mph.But a delay in federal funds needed for planning the public-private venture has suddenly given traction to a cheaper diesel-electric alternative dubbed DesertXpress. The dueling plans are competing for a big piece of the tourism industry: Ten million Southern Californians make the 250-plus-mile drive to Las Vegas each year. The vast majority take an increasingly clogged Interstate 15 that can slow to a crawl and make the drive an ordeal of five hours or more. AP 2/25/08
BART's top fiscal watchdog wants Bay Area transit officials to sever ties with the company struggling to develop the TransLink system - a regional effort to allow riders to use one fare card on more than two dozen transit systems. It was revealed this week that yet another deadline to get TransLink running on BART, San Francisco's Municipal Railway and Caltrain has been pushed back.Scott Schroeder, BART's controller-treasurer, made his plea to abandon the deal with ERG Ltd. - the company in charge of designing and implementing TransLink - after the city of Sydney canceled a similar contract with the company last month. SF Chronicle 2/27/08
The Port of Oakland is developing two truck-related emission reduction regulations, which it plans to consider this spring. The Maritime Air Quality Improvement Plan has the goal of reducing 85 percent of port-related emissions by 2020. Many of the plan's proposals call for highly restrictive truck measures such as requiring all trucks entering the port to be compliant with 2007 diesel truck emission standards by 2011. Landline Magazine 2/25/08
Northern California airports faired well and poorly in a survey of misery conducted by US News and World Reports, released February 11. SFO was one of the worst airports rated, with over 24% of flights leaving late, but San Jose International was ranked best airport (least 'miserable') by the report. Triangle Business Journal 2/26/08
A Environmental Protection Agency official warned her boss, EPA chief Stephen Johnson, that if he denied California's bid to enforce its own tailpipe emissions rules, the agency's credibility "will be irreparably damaged" and Johnson would have to think about resigning. Margot Oge, the head of EPA's office of transportation and air quality, also told Johnson in an Oct. 17 memo that "there is no legal or technical justification for denying this," despite "alternative interpretations that have been suggested by the automakers." CC Times 2/27/08
Some officials at the Environmental Protection Agency were so worried their boss would deny California permission to implement its own global-warming law that they worked with a former EPA chief to try to persuade the current administrator to grant the state's request. That unusual effort was revealed by documents released Tuesday by congressional investigators probing whether EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson was swayed by political pressure when he decided not to allow California to enact vehicle emission standards stricter than the federal government's. LA Times 2/27/08
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