This is an important Bloomburg City Lab Perspective. You can read it here.
News
BART’s new San Jose Station
Our Friends in the South Bay now have a new Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station in north San Jose that will make it easier to travel to Marin and Sonoma Counties without having to drive. Brryessa Station is located at 1620 Berryessa Rd, San Jose.
BART, of course, operates throughout the Bay Area. BART’s Green Line will take you directly to the Embarcadero Station one block from the Golden Gate Ferry Terminal. A fun ride on the ferry to Larkspur and a short ride on the Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit’s (SMART) shuttle takes you to the Larkspur SMART Station.
Or you can enjoy a short walk or bike ride to the SMART station on the connected pathway.
Bikes are permitted on BART, the ferry and SMART. Marin and Sonoma Counties have many off-road bike paths if you are a bicycle enthusiast. Check out EcoRing’s Partner lodging for a place to stay overnight: https://ecoring.org/lodging/
If you live in Sonoma or Marin Counties, you can reverse the route as I did recently to bike the Penitencia Creek Trail to Alm Rock.
The trail starts at the Berryessa Station, a good example of integrating pathways into the transit system.
It is always best to plan your trip in advance. The schedules for the SMART train and the Larkspur Ferry are coordinated for most trips: https://www.sonomamarintrain.org/schedules-fares The SMART schedules even show the ferry connections. BART, the Golden Gate Ferry and SMART all use the clipper card which makes transfers easy. Just tap on and tap off. Seniors are free on SMART! If you are taking your bike, both the Embarcadero BART Station and the Barreyessa Station have elevators large enough for bikes.
Incidentally the new BART cars are much nicer that the old ones. The have much better bike space and more comfortable seating.
And remember, if you travel without your car, you will save money and fight climate change. Enjoy!
More Sections of SMART Pathway!
Reopening of SMART Pathway Section
and
Ground Breaking for New SMART Pathway Section
On October 22, 2022 Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the reopening of a 1.7 mile section of the SMART Pathway from Payran St. to Southpoint Blvd. in Petaluma. The pathway was closed shortly after it was constructed in April 2022 due ironically to construction on additional lanes on the Highway 101 bridge over the pathway. The new lanes will add more cars to the traffic while the pathway is intended to encourage alternate means of travel.
SMART Board Chair and Sonoma County Supervisor David Rabbit kicked off the ceremony with a short encouraging speech followed by an equally upbeat speech by SMART Board Vice-Chair Barbara Pahr who also serves on the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District which runs ferries on the San Francisco Bay. Board member Lucan also participated and Petaluma Council Member Kevin McDonnell also weighed in with a few comments. After the speaches, Mayor McDonnell together with SMART Board members Damon Conoley and David Rabbit cut the ribbon across the trail with a giant pair of scissors. The crowd of about fifty adults and children then rode and walked the wonderful new pathway.
Also celebarated was the start of construction of an additional ssegment linking Payron St to Lakeville Blvd. This segment is expected to be completed by end of fall, 2022.
Fossil Fuel Air Pollution Kills One in Five
Summary by Mel Barnard
EcoRing is passionate about being outdoors and appreciating the natural beauty around us. Part of eco-tourism is keeping the air outdoors clean and healthy. New research from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) shows that air pollution from fossil fuels is responsible for nearly one in five deaths worldwide. Burning fossil fuels causes human exposure to fine particulate matter. This fine matter killed about 8.7 million deaths globally in 2018, about the same number of people living in New York City — making it more lethal than HIV, tuberculosis and malaria combined. Not included in that number is the deaths caused by long-term exposure to smog.
The highest toll of deaths from air pollution come from China and India, but we see hard-hit areas in high urban areas in the US Northeast and Midwest. Air pollution can be a silent killer, and one we don’t think about that often. It is important to reduce our harm by decreasing our fossil fuel emissions and its subsequent particulate dispersal so our outdoors stay clean.
Read more here.
Ad Agencies Step Away From Oil and Gas
Summary by Mel Barnard
Oil and Gas advertisements are becoming more and more untenable to the public. Literal weeks after Chevron released a commercial that boasted about their ‘ever-cleaner energy’, a refinery of theirs leaked 600 gallons of petroleum and water into the San Francisco Bay. Greenpeace USA and other environmental groups filed a complaint against Chevron with the Federal Trade Commission. According to the complaint, Chevron has consistently misrepresented its image to appear, “climate-friendly and racial justice-oriented, while its business operations overwhelmingly rely on climate-polluting fossil fuels, which disproportionately harm communities of color.”
As a result of these complaints and similar critiques across the industry, ad agencies are being forced to step away from fossil fuel clientele. This is from pressure from environmental advocates all over the world, from pushback against team sponsorships to putting climate warning labels on street ads. Democratic officials have filed lawsuits over the past 18 months in 6 different states to accuse Exxon of deceiving the public about climate change.
Oil and gas companies still wield a tremendous amount of power and the allure of a good paycheck keeps many advertisers on their side. However, there is hope that the moral pulse of environmental advocacy will move advertisers away from fossil fuel completely.