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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


Act Locally (and Regionally): A New Leader for Muni

Urbanist Article
Last month, SPUR board member Jeffrey Tumlin stepped into a new role as director of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. The former director of strategy at Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates had a brief stint as interim director of the Oakland Department of Transportation, but this is his first time managing a public agency. SPUR asked him some questions about the opportunities (and challenges) ahead.

To Achieve Seamless Transit, We Must Change What and How We Build

News /
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission has made some big improvements to its methodology for assessing transportation proposals and deciding which ones to recommend for funding. What’s more, the improved tool provides a useful diagnostic for how project funding and planning in the Bay Area needs to change. SPUR offers three key observations on what this new perspective means for the next generation of transportation investments.

Driving Change

Policy Brief
The Fair Value Commuting Demonstration project addresses a challenge that has plagued cities for decades: Too many people drive alone to work, creating traffic, wasting time and productivity, and degrading air quality and safety. Four Silicon Valley cities tested a package of strategies and technologies to tackle the issue. SPUR provided independent research to help assess the results and determine next steps.

SPUR Comments on proposed spatial layout for Diridon Station

Advocacy Letter
SPUR weighs in on the proposed spatial layout for Diridon Station at the City of San Jose City Council meeting. SPUR supports the staff recommendation on: elevated station platforms, creating two concourses with four entrances, the revised concept for the northern segment that shifts the stations platform south, maintaining the existing corridor to the South and not creating a rail viaduct structure over I-28-/87 interchange.

SPUR Support Letter for DISC Spatial Layout Recommendation

Advocacy Letter
SPUR weighs in on the proposed spatial layout for the San Jose Diridon Station. SPUR supports the staff recommendation on: elevated station platforms, creating two concourses with four entrances, the revised concept for the northern segment that shifts the stations platform south, and maintaining the existing corridor to the South and not creating a rail viaduct structure over the I-28-/87 interchange.