Photo of Muni bus driving down Geary in SF

Taking Muni's Vitals

Data show the agency performs well compared with peers across the country

Illustration of a crane stacking cargo containers that say "sound fiscal policy," "structural change" and "economic growth"

Balancing Oakland's Budget

Closing the city’s structural deficit to move toward fiscal solvency and economic growth

photo looking down San Francisco's Market Street toward downtown

Reinventing Downtown

A new model to revitalize San Francisco’s urban center

photo of San Francisco with orange skies from wildfire smoke in September 2020

Shared Risk, Shared Resilience

New governance structures for community wildfire resilience

Building storefronts in downtown San Jose

Getting In on the Ground Floor

Activation strategies for downtown San José

photo of San Francisco City Hall with a construction crane in the foreground

Charter for Change

Empowering San Francisco’s government through charter reform

Should We Plan for Sprawl?

News /
Work on Senate Bill 375, California's anti-sprawl legislation, continued last month with a joint meeting of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and Association of Bay Area Governments. The question at hand: Should MTC and ABAG approve a set of five alternative growth scenarios to further analyze? Each scenario includes a set of assumptions about where growth will go, what will be spent on transportation in the region's urban core vs. at its edge, and what tools will be used to change travel behavior and development.

SPUR Weighs in on Regional Growth Scenarios

Advocacy Letter /
In a letter to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission on June 21, 2011, SPUR recommended that the scenarios for the Bay Area's Sustainable Communities Strategy/Regional Transportation Plan support more concentrated growth patterns.

4 BART Stations, 1,000 New Residences, 0 Added Footprint

News /
Photo by Karen Chapple Accessory dwelling units — better known as cottages, in-law apartments or granny flats — could provide an estimated 1,000 new residences near selected BART stations, research by UC Berkeley Professor Karen Chapple shows.ADUs diversify and increase the housing stock without enlarging a neighborhood's footprint, while allowing senior citizens to find a smaller dwelling without leaving their neighborhood, or college graduates…

The Numbers: 96% of U.S. Transportation Energy Comes from Oil

News /
A recent editorial by the Regional Plan Association cites this sobering stat (from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) to make the argument for a higher tax on gasoline as a way to both reduce carbon emissions and raise revenues in a time of huge fiscal shortfalls. Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy recently included a three-cent-per-gallon increase in the gasoline tax in his…

7 Phone Apps That Can Make Cities Better

News /
One of the greatest allures of a smart phone is the time it saves at the bus stop. Having real-time transit info and nearby stop locations at your fingertips makes city living just a little easier. But popular transit apps are just the beginning. Increasingly, smart phone technology is fundamentally changing the way we physically experience our cities.We have written before about SFMTA’s SFpark…