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Transportation

Our goal: Make walking, biking, taking transit and carpooling the default options for getting around

SPUR’s Five-Year Priorities:


Improve the region’s transit network, and the institutions that run it, so that all people have fast, reliable access to their city and region.

Make it faster, easier, more dignified and less expensive to get around without a car.

Leverage transportation investments to build great neighborhoods and connect people to opportunity.

 

​​ Read our policy agenda

SPUR Report

A Regional Transit Coordinator for the Bay Area

The Bay Area’s two dozen different transit services would be easier for riders to use if they functioned like a single network. This type of coordination is complex, but that’s not why it hasn’t been done. The real reason is that it’s not anyone’s responsibility.

SPUR Report

More for Less

Around the world, building major transit projects is notoriously difficult. Yet the Bay Area has an especially poor track record: Major projects here take decades from start to finish, and our project costs rank among the highest in the world. SPUR offers policy proposals that will save time, save money and add up to a reliable, integrated and frequent network that works better for everyone.

SPUR Report

Value Driven

Roads and parking are expensive to build, but they’re mostly free for drivers to use as much as they’d like. This kind of free access imposes serious costs on others: traffic, climate change, air pollution, and heart and lung disease. SPUR’s new report Value Driven shines a light on the invisible costs of driving and offers five pioneering strategies to address them.

SPUR Report

The Future of Transportation

Will the rise of new mobility services like Uber and bike sharing help reduce car use, climate emissions and demand for parking? Or will they lead to greater inequality and yet more reliance on cars? SPUR proposes how private services can work together with public transportation to function as a seamless network and provide access for people of all incomes, races, ages and abilities.

SPUR Report

Seamless Transit

The Bay Area’s prosperity is threatened by fragmentation in the public transit system: Riders and decision-makers contend with more than two dozen transit operators. Despite significant spending on building and maintaining transit, overall ridership has not been growing in our region. How can we get more benefit from our transit investments?

SPUR Report

Caltrain Corridor Vision Plan

The Caltrain Corridor, home of the Silicon Valley innovation economy, holds much of the Bay Area’s promise and opportunity, but its transportation system is breaking down. Along this corridor — which includes Hwy 101 and Caltrain rail service from San Francisco to San Jose — the typical methods of getting around have become untenable.

Updates and Events


Regional Coalition urges MTC-ABAG Planning Committee to retain TOC Compliance Requirements

Advocacy Letter
On October 13th, MTC staff presented to the MTC-ABAG Planning Committee proposed actions to amend funding conditioning for transit rail extension projects from complying with the TOC Policy. Our coalition expressed concern with the proposed amendments that would delay or lower thresholds for compliance - weakening the policy in the process and undermining its purpose of helping the region achieve its goals under Plan Bay Area. We are particularly concerned that the proposed changes could significantly undermine the climate and equity goals of the policy.

The Benefits of Making Roads Work for Transit: Q&A with Jonathon Kass

News /
Bus riders and other road transit users often don’t get a fair shake when it comes to transportation investments. Making Roads Work for Transit , a recent SPUR report, describes the multiple challenges a typical Bay Area bus trip can entail and argues that continuing to privilege convenience for cars is jeopardizing equity and climate goals — as well as transit’s fiscal sustainability. It lays out a roadmap to greenlight transit-friendly roadway design and operations.

Making Roads Work for Transit

SPUR Report
Currently, transit delays and unreliability can make riding the bus a nonstarter for those who have other options for getting around. Growing segregation of the transit system is inequitable, unsustainable, and inefficient. Giving transit vehicles priority on Bay Area roads can deliver the speed and reliability improvements needed to get more people on buses and out of cars. SPUR offers 16 recommendations for aligning the interests of transit agencies and local jurisdictions to greenlight these improvements.

Who Will Be Helped and Harmed by a Proposed Toll Increase for Bay Area Bridges?

News /
The California legislature is considering a temporary toll increase on seven bridges in the Bay Area to avoid severe transit service cuts. The proposed increase has understandably sparked concern about equity. SPUR's deep dive found that most bridge drivers have higher incomes than most transit riders. Because protections can be implemented for people with low incomes who must drive, there’s no reason to let transit collapse. That outcome that would be the least equitable of all.

Delivering on Transit-Oriented Communities in San José: Local Implications of a Regional Policy

News /
How will the Bay Area’s new Transit-Oriented Communities Policy affect existing city plans, including plans not compliant with all of the policy’s requirements? SPUR explored what this regional policy means for a proposed BART station and a light-rail corridor in San José, including how housing and transit advocates think they can use it to advance their goals and how the city has begun to consider its implications for ongoing planning efforts.