UC Berkeley Institute of Transportation Studies

Don’t let the enthusiasm of the early adopters fool you: Electric vehicles have a long way to go before taking hold in the mainstream.

A new plan to reduce bumper-to-bumper traffic at Interstate 80 and Central Avenue in Richmond would close an on-ramp at certain hours, block some left turns, add three traffic signals and create a new road. The two-part, $19 million plan would relieve congestion along the busy artery for about 15 years, said Amin AbuAmara, project manager with the Contra Costa Transportation Authority.

According to Luke Schneider, chief technology officer for Zipcar, the device also has implications for fleet management and car sharing, affecting how vehicle networks operate and how consumers interact with organizations that offer alternatives to personal vehicle ownership — from transit agencies to

Novato has sent a letter of complaint to Caltrans about an 1,800-square-foot flower arrangement sponsored by Toyota that some consider an illegal billboard along Highway 101. City Manager Michael Frank said he wrote a letter opposing the flower bed installed last month by Greenroad Media, a Southern California company that plans to lease the space and others around the state to advertisers.

The proposed BART extension to Livermore should include an underground downtown site and a station along Vasco Road, the city Planning Commission decided Tuesday night. he seven-member panel voted unanimously to support the city staff's recommendation, which calls for a subway station along Portola Avenue and a second ground-level station near the existing Altamont Commuter Express portal and national laboratories, rather than any elevated structures along Interstate 580.

The housing cap in Pleasanton is just one of the more egregious examples of policies that have resulted in a large and growing imbalance between the number of jobs created in the Bay Area and the number of homes built for the new employees...This problem has been especially bad on the Peninsula, which as part of Silicon Valley has created an enormous number of jobs but has provided far less than its fair share of homes.

When President Barack Obama finishes reforming the nation's health care system, he might want to rectify the zany and volatile way that transit operates in the Bay Area. Exhibit No. 1 is last week's announcement that the Peninsula commuter rail line, Caltrain, is going broke — short $30 million of its $97 million yearly budget. Its managers say they might cut night, midday and weekend service, including popular trains to San Francisco Giants games.

With or without Caltrain, the California High-Speed Rail Authority still plans to run its bullet trains between San Jose and San Francisco, state planners said Monday. Rail authority Deputy Director Jeff Barker said although there are plenty of benefits to sharing the corridor with Caltrain, the state can still build its high-speed railroad should Caltrain shut down or drastically cut its operations, as officials warned last week....For two years, Caltrain and the rail authority planned to share electrified tracks from San Francisco to San Jose, likely with two new tracks accommodating the

It's official: Your driving costs are going up. The average cost of owning and operating a sedan in the USA rose 4.8% this year to 56.6 cents per mile, or $8,487 per year, a study out today by auto club AAA finds. Rising gas prices are primarily responsible for the increased costs and also are lowering the resale or trade-in value of cars that don't get good gas mileage.

Many transit advocates agree that bus rapid transit (BRT) can provide high-quality, efficient transportation at a fraction of the cost of rail. However, a common concern about BRT is that routes are not as permanent as tracks – in theory, they could be moved if land use patterns change – so BRT has a limited ability to attract transit-oriented development. But recent research shows that BRT can spur development around its lines and stations.