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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


How Updating CEQA Can Keep Sustainable Transportation Projects on Track: Q&A with Laura Tolkoff

News /
The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is intended to protect people and places from the environmental impacts of new development and infrastructure. But it has not been designed to protect against a rapidly warming climate, and ironically, it has sometimes been used to block projects aimed at doing so. SPUR Transportation Policy Director Laura Tolkoff recently testified before a state committee on possible reforms to the law.

How California Can Help Transit Survive — and Thrive

News /
Public transit is an essential service for millions of Californians, yet as one-time federal COVID-19 relief funds dry up, many transit agencies are facing a fiscal crisis. The state’s largest and most fare-dependent operators could see severe service cuts and a spiraling decline. SPUR is leading a coalition urging the state to provide necessary funding to keep buses and trains running as agencies work to transition to a sustainable business model.

SPUR calls on state budget leaders to help avoid a transit fiscal cliff

Advocacy Letter
SPUR calls on State Budget Leaders to help the state's public transit systems and avoid looming cuts to critical transit service that millions of Californians rely upon and that is foundational to our state's climate strategy. In addition, we urge the state to restore at-risk commitments to clean transportation from the FY22-23 budget.

Housing Advocates to State: Transit-Oriented Communities Don't Work Without Transit

Advocacy Letter
SPUR and other housing advocates request the state take action to protect public transit, which provides an essential mobility option for residents of infill housing developments across California. Left unaddressed, transit's fiscal cliff will harm the state's most vulnerable residents and undermine the production of infill housing.

SPUR Sponsors Bill to Increase Shared Parking (AB 894 - Friedman)

Advocacy Letter
SPUR is sponsoring a bill to require that agencies allow land owners and managers to share underutilized parking and to count such shared parking toward meeting parking requirements. The bill would also require new developments and parking lots funded by public agencies to evaluate shared parking options. If passed, this bill will reduce a common circumstance of costly parking being required in situations where other parking is available nearby.