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cars approaching a toll plaza

Bridging the Gap

SPUR Report /
The Bay Area’s current system for collecting unpaid bridge tolls hurts hundreds of thousands of people across the region. This system disproportionately harms lower-income and working people by relying on punitive tools like fines, fees and car registration holds to promote toll payment. SPUR recommends steps to reduce the harms caused by the unpaid tolls system and begin to move toward an equitable tolling system.
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Integrating Food Into Healthcare

Policy Brief /
California is in the midst of overhauling its Medicaid program to better serve the 12 million low-income residents who rely on it for health care. This report explores the state’s capacity to provide one key aspect of the plan: medically supportive food and nutrition interventions such as food pharmacies, produce prescriptions, healthy groceries and medically tailored meals designed to prevent, reverse and treat chronic health conditions.
garden with native shrubs and flowers

Does the Bay Area Have the Water It Needs to Grow?

News /
Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a drought emergency, salmon are on the brink of extinction and rivers are choked with toxic algae because too much water is diverted for farms and cities. Does the Bay Area really have enough water to continue to grow? We found that the answer is yes — if the region adopts comprehensive water efficiency measures and smart land-use planning.
rendering of proposed transit-oriented development at Oakland's Lake Merritt BART station

The Bay Area Won’t Meet Its Goals Without a New Transit-Oriented Development Policy

News /
The crises that confronted the Bay Area before the COVID-19 pandemic have not gone away: inadequate and unaffordable housing, growing racial inequality and growing impacts from climate change. Building diverse communities with much more housing, services and jobs near transit is the best opportunity we have to tackle these challenges. The newly released Plan Bay Area 2050 charts a path to this future, but an outdated policy from 2005 is standing in the way.
Two Caltrain trains on passing tracks at Diridon Station

Caltrain Has Become a Regional Railroad — Now Its Governance Must Follow

News /
Regional transit coordination and integration are urgent priorities for Caltrain. As board members prepare for Caltrain’s October 22 special meeting on regional governance options, SPUR urges the agency to commit itself to open-minded engagement in regional transit governance discussions. Caltrain needs to consider new institutional models that would grow its capacity and enable greater regionalism.
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Water for a Growing Bay Area

SPUR Report /
The Bay Area is projected to add 2 million jobs and as many as 6.8 million people in the next 50 years. But can we add more jobs and build more housing without using more water? New research from SPUR and the Pacific Institute says yes. We can use the same amount of water — or even less — if we invest in efficiency measures, pursue compact land use and commit to better mechanisms to share water regionally.

SPUR Supports Strategies to Reduce Miles Driven in State's Mobile Source Strategy

Advocacy Letter /
SPUR joins with a ClimatePlan-led coalition in support of the strategies and recommendations to reduce Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) and the strategies that implement the Climate Action Plan for Transportation Infrastructure (CAPTI), in the California Air Resources Board's proposed Mobile Source Strategy (MSS).
Headshot of Sujata Srivastava

SPUR Welcomes Sujata Srivastava as San Francisco Director

News /
SPUR is pleased to announce that Sujata Srivastava has joined the organization as San Francisco director. “We’re so excited Sujata has joined SPUR,” says San Francisco Board Chair Ariane Hogan. “Her deep, practical experience in housing, urban planning and economic development policy is exactly what San Francisco needs as it faces tremendous hurdles to ensuring that the city is strong, welcoming and sustainable.”
Report cover

Guadalupe River Park: A Shared Future in Downtown San José

SPUR Report /
As downtown San José expands to the west, Guadalupe River Park is poised to become the center of downtown, and its health will become fundamental to the city’s success. Renewed support, enhanced stewardship and a sustainable funding stream will be needed to realize the park’s potential, so that this vital public space can become safer, cleaner and better used by all members of the community.

SPUR Urges the MTC to Adopt Changes to Their Unpaid Toll and Notification System

Advocacy Letter /
SPUR and a coalition of advocates, direct service providers, and local government agencies urges the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) to adopt a variety of changes to their unpaid toll and notification system. The current system harms lower income and working people, putting hundreds of thousands of Bay Area residents into debt every year. These fines and fees disproportionately fall on communities of color across the region.
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The Bigger Picture: Nine Ideas for a Connected San Francisco

SPUR Report /
Today San Francisco’s regional transit connections focus primarily on bringing commuters from the rest of the Bay Area into downtown. Many neighborhoods have poor access to regional transit service — and to each other. The fourth report in our Bigger Picture series proposes coordinated investments in San Francisco transportation that, together, could dramatically improve transportation access and connections to the region.
Laura Shipman

SPUR Welcomes Laura Shipman as Community Planning Policy Director

News /
SPUR is pleased to announce that Laura Shipman has joined the organization as community planning policy director. She brings a wealth of knowledge as a planner and urban designer with experience working in communities throughout the country. She looks forward to partnering with Bay Area communities to work toward lasting solutions to their most pressing needs.

SPUR Weighs in on San Francisco Housing Element Draft Goals

Advocacy Letter /
The San Francisco Housing Element is the City’s plan to accommodate housing over the next eight years. There are many aspects of the draft goals that we support, including the way that the goals center racial equity and also the inclusion of a goal to plan for half the city’s housing growth in wealthier neighborhoods with access to great amenities, called “High Opportunity Areas”.
Telegraph Avenue

How to Ensure Small Businesses Survive the Pandemic and Flourish in the Future

News /
Small businesses account for 99.8% of all of California’s businesses and employ 48.5% of the state’s employees. Small businesses of color, in particular, have become the foundation of entire economies. SPUR hosted a conversation with Ahmed Ali Bob of Square, Christina Bernardin of Boston Properties and Elisse Douglass of the Oakland Black Business Fund on the vital role of small businesses, particularly Black-owned and businesses of color.
Market Street, San Francisco

For Bay Area Transit, a Turning Point

News /
In the early months of the pandemic, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission convened a Blue Ribbon Transit Recovery Task Force to stabilize and reimagine public transit in the face of a severe financial crisis. This month, the task force released its Transit Transformation Action Plan with 27 actions to reimagine transit and set the stage for new legislation, commission policies, funding and governance changes in upcoming years.

SPUR Supports Expansion of Onsite Water Reuse in San Francisco

Advocacy Letter /
SPUR supports the proposed ordinance to expand San Francisco's reliance on onsite water reuse. The proposed ordinance lowers the minimum square footage for new buildings required to construct onsite water reuse systems.