End-Week Links: Traffic Zen

Traffic calming is a wonderful concept.  Given the recent deaths and injuries around Marin caused by drivers hitting pedestrian, it may be time for cities up and down 101 to take a look at calming traffic.

Marin

Crazy times at SMART this week.  While supporters rallied last Thursday in Santa Rosa, something odd was underfoot at the agency.  Finance director David Heath was dismissed by the Board “without cause“, but is on paid leave until December 23.  That this occurred just as the Board completed authorization of $191 million in bonds and about $8 million in construction contracts is incredibly suspicious.  Typically political scandals involve the offending official to resign rather than get fired, although blatant dismissal without cause is typically illegal.  Let’s hope more details will come to light as time goes on. (Rally at IJ, Press Democrat)

• The Commuter Times has been sold.  The weekly tabloid will begin publishing again this week. (IJ)
• The public comment period has been extended for the Drakes Bay Oyster Co. special use permit. (IJ)
• Conflict has erupted in one San Anselmo neighborhood over privacy, FAR, and home expansion. (San Anselmo-Fairfax Patch)
• With the recent passage of desegregation/affordable housing measures by the Marin County Board of Supervisors, the combustable topic of race has entered the affordable housing debate.  Perhaps it should be left out entirely. (Novato Patch)
• Despite repeal efforts, controversy and scandal, San Rafael is moving forward with a much-needed look at its Civic Center SMART station. (Mill Valley Herald)
• Sharrows have been completed on South Eliseo Drive, a popular commuting route. (MCBC)

The Greater Marin

• The City of Napa continues its efforts to centralize and improve its downtown experience.  The first thing it will do is traffic calming, changing its one-way streets to two-way as part of a 400-page draft Downtown Specific Plan. (Napa Valley Register)
• Market Urbanism’s Emily Washington reviews The Gated City, a fascinating book about how rising housing costs prices out the poor from the most productive our society has: the city.  She concludes that the book makes some excellent points in describing the problem but that its solutions, but is left feeling pessimistic.  “none of [the presented solutions] seem politically viable” to her. (Market Urbanism)
• Congress is about to kill the federal high speed rail program, which will pose yet another problem for California’s HSR plan. (NPR)
• How many parking spaces are there in a city?  One intrepid doctoral candidate found out.