SPUR Publications

What if the Bay Area’s two dozen transit systems had the same maps, fares and schedules? What if they were designed to function as a network? Could transit be faster and easier for more people to use? Currently, coordinating these services isn’t anyone’s job. A new SPUR report recommends establishing a single institution to coordinate transit operations across a cohesive regional network.

This year, SPUR’s Voter Guide provided Bay Area voters with analysis and recommendations on 35 local, regional and state measures. Now that the dust has settled, a historic election in a historic year has produced a number of critical local wins in the Bay Area, despite some significant defeats.

Taxes are more than revenue-raising tools: They reflect our collective sense of fairness and shared values. But most sales taxes are regressive, which means they hit low-income households hardest. A new SPUR report argues that a sales tax credit or similar cash benefit could address these impacts and advance a more just tax code and a more equitable region.

For most people in the Bay Area, getting somewhere means driving. It's the default option because it is most often easier and cheaper than any other option. But driving imposes serious costs on others: traffic, climate change, air pollution, and heart and lung disease. A new SPUR report shines a light on the invisible costs of driving and offers five strategies to address them.

SPUR is pleased to announce that Ronak Davé Okoye has joined the organization as Oakland director. SPUR Oakland Board Chair Dahlia Chazan says she’s excited to welcome Ronak to SPUR: “She’s an Oaklander who will be serving her community, bringing new ideas from other cities and from her experience helping government agencies really listen to the people they serve.”

Who determines how public spaces are used, and who gets to use them? SPUR’s weeklong symposium Ideas + Action 2020: Public Space brought people together from different cities to share their perspectives regarding equitable public spaces. A set of themes emerged: Building equitable public spaces requires a public and professional reckoning with power, safety and accessibility.

What could California do to limit climate change and clean the air if the state had $30 billion to spend in the next 10 years? Climate change policy leaders gathered to tackle this question at an October 1 convening organized by SPUR and Move LA. On the table is a potential ballot measure that could go before California voters in November 2022.

After decades of efforts to attract investment, downtown San José was experiencing a rare moment in the spotlight before COVID-19. Big project announcements from Google, Adobe and others seemed to put within reach San José’s decades-old aspiration to become a lively urban center. Now, as the pandemic drags on, residents are left to wonder how much of downtown’s previous momentum will carry through the crisis.

Leaders in Silicon Valley are looking at the innovations that might emerge in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. One thing is clear: This time, it won’t be an engineering solution. The Silicon Valley Recovery Roundtable, launched to help businesses safely reopen, realized that its goal was not to return to “normal” but to repair the systemic disparities that existed before the pandemic.

A new request for applications may not, on the face of it, seem like a big deal. But, when the California Department of Social Services posted its request for applications for the California Fruit and Vegetable EBT Integration Pilot Project in early September, it marked an important milestone in SPUR’s long-term goal of making healthy food incentives a permanent supplement to the CalFresh/SNAP program.

The Bay Area has underinvested in transit for decades. Today, in the midst of a pandemic, it’s hard to imagine how the region will catch up: Our major transit projects regularly take decades to build and rank among the most expensive in the world. SPUR’s latest report offers three big ideas for delivering transit projects in less time,for less money and with better public value.

SPUR partnered with AECOM to investigate what it would take to house everyone who wants to live in the Bay Area. We’ve published our research in a new report, Model Places: Envisioning a Future Bay Area With Room and Opportunity for Everyone .

John Stewart was a pillar of the real estate and affordable housing communities across California. Founder and chairman of the John Stewart Company, John was an entrepreneur who devoted his life to providing high quality, well-designed, well-managed affordable housing. Today the company manages over 420 projects with 33,000 units, housing 100,000 residents statewide, and is owner or general partner of a substantial number of these.