Many in the Bay Area find themselves without transportation as BART faces severe equipment issues that will shut down sections of the famous rail system indefinitely.
The Chronicle's Michael Cabanatuan reports: "A BART equipment problem that shut down a station and threatens to disrupt service for months has laid bare the transit agency’s big problem. The system that a booming Bay Area relies on is overwhelmed with more riders than anyone had ever predicted it would attract, and at the same time it’s struggling to replace its aging infrastructure."
"The dilemma was underscored when BART riders — including those who staggered off emergency buses, having finally made it to the closed-off Pittsburg/Bay Point Station — were met with an unusually blunt message from the transit agency’s headquarters on Twitter."
"BART was built to transport far fewer people, and much of our system has reached the end of its useful life. This is our reality,” read the Wednesday night tweet on the @SFBART account from Taylor Huckaby, a BART spokesman and social media specialist."
Meanwhile, California's water may be getting a new routing system that is believed to be even larger in scope than the English Channel's tunnel -- once it's built.
AP's Scott Smith and Ellen Knickmeyer in the OC Register: "Promoted by Gov. Jerry Brown, the $15.7 billion project would run giant twin pipes, each four stories high, underground for 35 miles and eventually pull thousands of gallons of water a second from the stretch along the Sacramento River where van Loben Sels farms to cities and farms to the south."
"In what all agree will be the decisive year for the project, Brown's plan — which is facing obstacles to environmental approval in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and mounting uncertainty over the financing — is splitting farmers and political leaders."
"In the delta, a land of tree-lined river banks, pear orchards and Gold Rush-era Victorian homes, signs saying, "Stop the Tunnels," hang on farm gates and shop walls. People fear the tunnels would let the state take too much water from the delta."
In Southern California, polution is as big a problem as ever. The EPA believes the South Coast Air Quality Management District's ineffectiveness at smog reduction is a large factor.
LAT's Tony Barboza reports: "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has rejected part of a smog-reduction plan by Southern California air quality regulators, saying it has failed to cut pollution from oil refineries and other big emissions sources as required by federal law."
"The EPA says an emissions-trading program administered by the South Coast Air Quality Management District has been ineffective in reducing smog-forming pollutants and has allowed some of the region’s largest-emitting facilities to avoid installing pollution control equipment."
"An excess of pollution credits trading at “artificially depressed” prices has resulted in a cap-and-trade program for smog-forming emissions that does not satisfy emissions control requirements under the federal Clean Air Act, according to a letter from Deborah Jordan, air division director for the U.S. EPA regional office in San Francisco."'
California and Big Tobacco are at a stalemate as this year's smoking bills have yet to advance to Governor Brown despite having already been passed.
The Bee's Jeremy B. White reports: "Politically potent tobacco bills have not advanced to Gov. Jerry Brown a week after California legislators passed them, for now delaying the tobacco industry’s strategy to exact revenge with a referendum campaign."
"As lawmakers rounded up votes for measures hailed by public health advocates as the toughest in years – including bills to raise the tobacco-buying age to 21, to regulate electronic cigarettes as tobacco products, and to allow cities and counties to place local tobacco tax increases on the ballot – tobacco industry lobbyists issued a pointed threat. "
Proposition 47 is failing to hit it's projected marks, earning $30 million for state rehabilitation programs as opposed to the expected $100 million that was previously suggested.
Annie Gilbertson reports in KPCC: "Proposition 47 has resulted in the release of more than 4,500 people from prison, but advocates warn the state may not deliver on the promise of increased drug rehabilitation and mental health funding."
"Why?"
"There's a serious disagreement in Sacramento over how much money the prison system saved because of the sentencing reform measure. The legislature will have to settle that dispute as budget talks continue through the spring. "
L.A.'s mayor has successfully established a non-profit program that uses private sector resources to fund civic programs.
LAT's Peter Jamison reports: "A nonprofit created by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to advance civic initiatives raised $14.6 million in its first full year of operation, less than a third of which it has spent, according to tax records filed recently with the federal government."
"The Mayor's Fund for Los Angeles, which Garcetti modeled on a similar nonprofit established by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, submitted its tax return last week for the fiscal year ended that ended in June."
"The tax return, along with the fund's annual report, show an enviable first year of fundraising for a startup organization in a region where competition for philanthropic dollars can be fierce."
It's Friday and time to pick our choice for the person who had the Worst Week in California, #WorstWeekinCA, and we've got a good one: Dave Hardt, BART's chief mechanical officer. With BART's trains idled and chaos everywhere in the system, it's safe to say Dave had a very bad week, indeed.
"The silver lining is that this is no longer intermittent. All of the cars are failing in the exact same way,” said Dave Hardt, BART’s chief mechanical officer. “The recovery of the fleet is going to take months. A lot of that is parts, some is elbow grease,” Hardt told the Chronicle.
