SPUR 2019 Annual Report
June 24, 2019Since 1910, SPUR has been facilitating a conversation about the future of cities. This year, with the launch of the SPUR Regional Strategy, we are starting a conversation about the Bay Area of 2070. Our annual report takes a look at everything we got done in the last year — and what we hope to make happen over the next 50.
Solving the Bay Area’s Fare Policy Problem
May 23, 2019Each of the Bay Area’s transit operators sets its own policy for determining the fares it will charge. This creates customer confusion, inhibits people from using more than one transit service and undermines the investments the region is making in new infrastructure and technology. SPUR offers recommendations for how operators can streamline and integrate their fares to help the region realize the promise of transit.
What’s Next for Housing Now That SB 50 Has Been Deferred to 2020?
May 22, 2019Earlier this month, controversial state zoning bill SB 50 was denied a committee hearing, meaning the state legislature won't pass it in 2019. But the push to increase housing supply goes on. Quite a number of other housing bills are still under consideration, and SPUR is supporting many of them.
A Field Guide to California Urbanism
May 16, 2019California might be the most mythologized landscape in existence, from the glossy pools and palm trees of reality TV to the neurosis-inducing freeways and subidivisions of film and literature. But little has been said about urbanism as one of the state’s contributions to the world. A Bay Area writer launches a project to catalog the phenomenon that is California urbanism, one trope at a time.
Policy Proposal: Jump-Start Development Near Transit with Temporary TOD
May 16, 2019The passage of Assembly Bill 2923 means Bay Area cities must change their zoning to accommodate development on land that BART owns around its stations. Long-term plans for building housing will take time. In the short term, using the methods of tactical urbanism could give development near stations a jump start while allowing them to grow and change over time.