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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


Accelerating Sustainable Transportation in California

Policy Brief
To reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate pollution, California will need to build out the infrastructure to make walking, biking and riding transit the default ways to get around. Senate Bill 288, which expires this year, makes it faster to build commonsense sustainable transportation projects. SPUR recommends that the state extend and improve the law by passing SB 922. This brief provides background on SB 288 and describes the impact of the law, including case studies on projects built since it was passed.

SPUR Encourages a Regionally Coordinated Approach to Free and Reduced Transit Fare Programs in Upcoming State Budget

Advocacy Letter
SPUR participated in a joint letter from six San Francisco Bay Area groups highly engaged in supporting the recovery of the Bay Area's public transit system - SPUR, Seamless Bay Area, TransForm, Bay Area Council, Silicon Valley Leadership Group, and Joint Venture Silicon Valley - regarding potential funding for transit and fare programs in the upcoming budget, and the importance of encouraging regional coordination and fare integration to help rebuild transit ridership.

SPUR Supports AB 2206: More Flexible and Sustainable Commute Choices

Advocacy Letter
California's parking cash-out law requires certain employers who offer employees subsidized parking to offer those employees the option to take the cash subsidy instead of a parking space. This bill would require that lessors specify the value of parking to make it easier for employers to follow the parking cash-out law.

With a New Policy for Growth Near Transit, MTC Can Center Equity and Sustainability

News /
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission has put forth a promising proposal for a new regional transit-oriented communities policy that would support new housing at all income levels, new jobs, sustainable access to transit, and protection from displacement in transit-rich areas. In crafting the final policy, MTC’s commissioners must not only maintain the ambition of the current proposal but leverage the agency’s funding authority to ensure that the policy is implemented.