SPUR Transportation Policy Area Header

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


SPUR Advocates for Peer Review and Design changes for BART Phase II

Advocacy Letter
SPUR believes BART to Silicon Valley Phase II is a critical project to the region and SPUR is invested in its success. At the same time, we are concerned about VTA's current project design, particularly for the downtown San Jose station and Diridon station. SPUR lays out design changes that could make for a better project and recommends an independent peer review of design alternatives, assumptions, and organizational capacity.

How to Make California’s Budget Surplus a Good Deal for the Climate

News /
California is dangerously behind on cutting carbon emissions, but this year’s budget surplus can be a weapon in the fight to address climate change, with Governor Newsom announcing plans to spend $37 billion over the next six years on climate resilience. Here are SPUR’s suggestions for how to focus those resources on eliminating fossil fuels in buildings, securing safe and abundant water, ending car dependence, improving transit, building affordable housing where we need it and more.

SPUR Supports Car-Free JFK Drive

Advocacy Letter
SPUR has sent a letter to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors urging them to make JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park permanently car-free.

SPUR Joins More Than 20 Organizations to Oppose SB 1410

Advocacy Letter
SB 1410 would mandate the revision of the Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) based methodology to analyze transportation impacts under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) that was carefully developed over many years pursuant to SB 743 (2013).

SPUR Supports AB 1778

Advocacy Letter
SPUR supports AB 1778, which would require the Department of Transportation to consult the California Healthy Places Index (HPI) prior to the start of highway widening, highway extensions and interchange expansion projects that would facilitate vehicular travel projects to determine if the project area meets the approved HPI score or be denied funding permits and personnel time.