Transportation Daily News June 30

Transit and infrastructure:

 

Honesty can cost in auto policies -- Will Californians lie to save money? Apparently. New legislation takes aim at an honor system, of sorts, perhaps one of the few remaining in which millions of dollars are at stake. The measure targets a process in which state law requires car insurance premiums to be based partly on motorists' estimates of how far they will drive each year. Jim Sanders in the Sacramento Bee -- 6/30/08

 

Can we make biking safer? -- All too often, there is a deadly intimacy between drivers and bicyclists on crowded urban roadways. But Saturday in downtown San Jose, bicyclists and transportation planners came together at a town hall meeting on how to solve what sponsors called "our bicycle safety crisis." It was part brainstorming session, part dispatches from the front lines of public policy in the Bay Area and in Sacramento Patrick May in the San Jose Mercury -- 6/29/08

 

Hands-free cellphone use while driving won't make the roads safer, studies show. Why? Brain overload. -- California will put findings to the test with a hands-free cellphone law that takes effect July 1. Melissa Healy in the Los Angeles Times -- 6/28/08

 

*Caltrans won't back bus rule -- After sparking the ire of parents, school officials, transit agencies and members of Congress, the state's transportation agency has backed away from supporting a federal rule proposal to ban public transit trips tailored for schoolchildren. Erik N. Nelson in the Contra Costa Times -- 6/28/08

 

Air travel:

 

The Obese Should Have to Pay More For Airline Tickets -- It is indisputable that heavy people are more expensive to fly. A study concluded that the 10 pounds Americans gained on average during the 1990s required an additional 350 million gallons of fuel a year. But as much as the airlines could use the revenue, it's highly unlikely they will start charging passengers by weight, according to a spokesman for the Air Transport Association. Newsweek July

 

Emissions:

 

Valley's smoky air is a pollution lesson -- Weather experts and longtime residents are familiar with inversions, which keep air – and smoke – trapped in the Sacramento Valley. Over the years, the Valley has experienced other lingering phenomena, high pressure systems yielding stagnant air. Sacramento Bee 6/29/08

 

Tourism:

 

*Gas prices, economy cast doubt on Tahoe summer vacation season -- As the traditional Lake Tahoe vacation season arrives, signs here along the popular deep-blue lake point to another challenging summer for hotels and tourism businesses — perhaps not in the number of visitors, but in the amount they spend.  CC Times 6/27/08

 

Ports and shipping:

 

*Port labor bargaining continues -- A six-year labor contract covering more than 20,000 West Coast dockworkers is set to expire Tuesday, but both sides anticipate negotiations continuing without disruption past the deadline.  The positive tone of negotiations is a welcome sign for the slumping U.S. economy, since the $1.2 trillion in cargo handled by those ports represents about 11 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product.  And neither side wants a replay of the bitter, 10-day lockout in 2002 that caused an estimated $15 billion in economic losses. Press Telegram 6/28/08