jamisonwieser:

I woke up this morning to a news report that the 15% of Californians would likely vote against the water bond based on the $11.1 billion price tag, though a majority would be willing to vote for a cheaper bond.

Likewise the study found a majority of Californians now oppose the $58 billion California High-Speed Rail project.

Both the water project and the High-speed rail line don’t seem that expensive to me given the importance of safe, clean drinking water and the alternative to high-speed rail is three times as much on roads that still couldn’t carry the capacity.

And that’s the thing that gets a lot of the opposition is about big numbers and not the actual merits, relative costs and the scale of these mega-projects.

High-speed rail service to Disneyland will be the end result of hundreds of interconnected projects. Many are already underway and will start paying off in other ways long before the last spike is driven.

Along the Peninsula, HSR will share the Caltrain corridor and this week the CA High-Speed Rail Authority approved its share of electrification funding.

The old diesel trains could be ditched by 2019 in favor of all-electric propulsion according to Caltrain’s Jayme Ackemann. …

Caltrain modernization, which boasts a cleaner approach to travel, will arrive a decade before high-speed rail service to Los Angeles becomes a reality.

Maybe we just need to reframe the costs for statewide projects. $0.058 trillion looks a lot smaller than $58 billion.

Environmentalists, to my perpetual astonishment, do not see the tremendous opportunities they have by simply staffing local boards. Want to stop a wetlands from being drained and filled for a parking lot? Volunteer on your conservation board and deny the damn permit. Want to create a sustainable city? Join your planning board and help write a 20-year comprehensive plan that creates smart growth in the downtown. Want to stop a Walmart from expanding? Change the local zoning by-laws to restrict lot size.

great post by michael (climateadaptation).

now let’s see if he talks about it again and implements better environmental policy.

122782:

Just the other day a cop told me “We are the police.  We trump everything.” when I asked about several police cars parked in a bike lane.

Hoping this cyclist gets the justice she deserves.

on another note about cops—not only do they park their cars in the bike lanes, on crosswalks, on lanes blocking traffic when there are more sensible places to park or pull over someone to write them a ticket, but even cops with bikes park them in a stupid way blocking people.

yesterday i was walking on shattuck just north of university ave., and a cop just kickstanded/kickstood(?) his bike almost on the middle of the sidewalk while writing a ticket or something to three homeless men. like wtf! you could’ve propped your bike right next to the wall and not impeded heavy foot traffic.

(via thegreenurbanist)

Here at the EBBC headquarter staff is checking in with partners and election officials to get the latest news on Measure B1.  As of this morning’s election results, Measure B1 has received 65.54% of the vote, just one percent shy of the 66.67% needed to pass.

But all is not lost! There still are sufficient absentee ballots to push Measure B1 past 2/3’s, and it’s going to take all of us thinking really happy thoughts! 

We are in contact with the Alameda County Registrar of Voters Office and they plan to provide a further count update this afternoon. We are hopeful that a significant majority of the remaining tens of thousands of absentee ballots to count are from the North County, where your outreach efforts have had a tremendous effect.

However, it could take weeks to know a final count. Thank you again for all your incredible work on the campaign. You have brought a wonderful sense of community and team building to EBBC that has already made us a stronger organization.