Transporation Daily News May 15

Infrastructure:

 

Transbay Joint Powers Authority Board Awards Contract to Pelli Clarke Pelli -- The Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA) Board of Directors today unanimously approved a professional services agreement with Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects to design the new landmark Transbay Transit Center in downtown San Francisco. Business Wire 5/15/08

 

Water:

 

Rusting Mothball Fleet Polluting NorCal Waters -- More than seventy ships that once served our country are now just rusting away, polluting Northern California waterways. Everyone agrees that's a problem, but is the plan to dismantle them dead in the water? Some fishermen in the waters surrounding the fleet worry that the pollution could be working its way into fisheries and up the food chain. CBS 5 5/14/08

 

Carquinez fuel minor, but crewman nixes 2nd breath test -- A gasoline spill at a refinery wharf has been downgraded to a few gallons, but the chief of the tugboat that hit the structure has refused additional alcohol testing, the Coast Guard said today. Only five to 10 gallons of gasoline spilled into the Carquinez Strait today after a tugboat crashed into a Martinez refinery wharf, according to the Calfiornia Department of Fish & Game. SJ Mercury 5/14/08

 

Mass transportation:

 

*Bay Area traffic bottleneck report is mixed -- Bay Area traffic congestion got better - and worse - in 2007, according to an annual report released Wednesday morning by state and regional transportation officials. The annual congestion report, prepared by Caltrans and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, found that traffic delays on some of the Bay Area's most backed-up freeways decreased last year, but regionwide congestion reached the highest level since 2000. SF Chronicle 5/15/08

 

Traffic congestion at eight-year high -- Traffic congestion on Bay Area freeways in 2007 hit its highest level since peaking in 2000, transportation officials announced Wednesday, but tie-ups diminished on some of the area's busiest corridors. Motorists on the region's freeways collectively endured 161,700 average weekday hours of delay during morning and afternoon commutes. That number was exceeded only during the dot-com boom at the beginning of the decade, when there was 177,600 hours of delay. SJ Mercury 5/14/08

 

*Transportation budget will hit public transit -- The governor's plan calls for spending $13.8 billion on transportation next fiscal year - a decrease of less than 1 percent from his January budget. But the latest plan would take $1.4 billion from gasoline and diesel fuel sales tax revenue that ordinarily would go to public transportation and put it in the general fund. SF Chronicle 5/15/08

 

Emissions:

 

*Effort to cut diesel pollution -- The governor's revised proposal is a one-time transaction that would take $48.7 million from the Air Quality Improvement Fund to help refit heavy equipment and vehicles that pollute heavily. SF Chronicle 5/15/08