Americans Will Pay More to Live Near Transit

Realtor Magazine : "Fifty-five percent of Americans say they are willing to pay more for their mortgage or rent in order to get to work and recreational activities without having to use a car, a new study of transit-oriented developments by the HNTB Corp revealed."

Car dependency leads to war on Islam #waronislam #autosprawl

Summary: US has $Trillions in auto, oil, and sprawl infrastructure. There is a lot of cheap oil left in northern Iraq. The US is betting on the KRG to deliver the oil, but debts are piling up. The local Sunni Muslims are fighting to keep it from being stolen. The US is bombing them and calling them terrorists.

U.S. Voters Approve Billions for Transit and Green Space

Urban Land Magazine: "The largest ballot measures were in California, where San Francisco Bay area voters approved $3.5 billion for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) regional transit system, while Los Angeles voters approved Measure M, a 0.5 percent sales tax increase that will generate an estimated $100 billion over 40 years, including $860 million a year for a big expansion of bus and rail transit."

70% vote for #publictransit measure in Los Angeles

Measure M: Angelenos vote to tax themselves for better public transit - Curbed LA: "A large majority of Los Angeles voters approved a permanent sales tax increase to fund a major expansion of the county’s public transit system.

Measure M required two-thirds of voters to approve it, and handily achieved this goal, with almost 70 percent voting yes."

UCSD cancels free buses, gets choked by cars

Transporting UCSD to A Better Future | UCSD Guardian: "Long forgotten by many is the university’s once-cherished Bus Zone program, which provided bus passes to UCSD students and staff free of charge for 45 years. The university used the money from parking passes, citations and visitor tickets to finance annual bus passes for faculty and staff, prompting many university employees to use public transportation rather than commuting to campus by car. In November 2014, however, Chancellor Khosla allowed for the cancellation of the Bus Zone program in a bid to save money. By bringing back the Bus Zone program, many university workers would return to riding public transportation as they had before the program’s end. This would, in turn, decrease demand for “A” and “B” parking permits, which would allow the parking office to increase the number of “S” spots, or at the very least return those that have been painted over to their original designations."

San Diego heating up. Why not stop using cars?

GreenBiz: "Hotter temperatures will negatively affect San Diego’s heat-exposed industries — including construction, agriculture and transportation — threatening $32 billion and 220,000 workers in the local economy, according to two new reports on health (PDF) and water (PDF) by The San Diego Foundation, in partnership with Climate Education Partners."

Ventura oil spill - one of the hidden costs of #autosprawl

LA Times: "The cause of the spill is under investigation by a team of state and federal agencies, according to Ventura County Fire Department Capt. Mike Lindbery. Investigators with the state Office of Spill Prevention also arrived to assess the site, an agency spokeswoman said.

Owned by Colorado-based Crimson Pipeline LLC, the 10-inch underground pipeline was installed in 1941 and is up to date on state and federal inspections, according to Kendall Klingler, a spokeswoman for the company."