San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) could take a historic step by giving preference to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) contractors in bidding.

The public transit system's board will vote Sept. 14 to give qualified LGBT contractors a five percent bid preference over small business prime contractors through a change to its small business program.

BART said LGBT businesses still face barriers in the market – particularly in the construction industry – and hoped to welcome LGBT businesses as part of the effort to rebuild the system.

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BART Board Chair Rebecca Saltzman said, “BART has a track record of prioritizing local, small, disadvantaged and women-owned businesses and this change will be a natural extension of those efforts.”

“As an agency, we want to do everything we can to make commissioning more inclusive.”

To qualify for the proposed new policy, an LGBT contractor would need to be certified as a small business by either the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce or the California Public Utilities Commission, as well as the California Department of General Services.

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Metro Atlanta residents are dealing with water pipes freezing and bursting.

The issue is impacting everyone, from homes to high-rises.

Many plumbing companies are working non-stop, responding to situation after situation.

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“These exterior walls are the ones that’s going to get the coldest. So as you can see right here, you got a busted pipe,” Adrian Gonzalez with Roto-Rooter told Channel 2 Action News’ Larry Spruill.

This is just one of the situations that Gonzalez said his crews have been dealing with.

“As you can see, the ceiling just collapsed,” said Gonzalez.

The recent sub-freezing temperatures have been causing a lot of issues around the metro area when it comes to pipes.

“Oh my gosh, I would say Friday night is when everything started to kick off. Saturday and especially, yesterday on Christmas, it’s been crazy busy,” Gonzalez said.

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Channel 2 has reported on broken pipes across the metro Atlanta area over the last couple of days, from Fairburn to Downtown Atlanta, where many apartments and businesses flooded.

“We’ve had busted pipes, everywhere. I’ve been doing this for about 20 years, I’ve been working here in Atlanta for 12 years and I’ve never seen it like this before,” Gonzalez said.

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Gonzalez said there are ways you can prevent this from happening.

“One of the most common ways, and it’s really simple, is if you leave your faucets dripping overnight, so that you can have some water constantly flowing through the pipes,” Gonzalez said. “They also sell these covers that you put on the outside spigots to protect the spigots from freezing up.”

IN OTHER NEWS:

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SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — With two kids attending school from home, Simonia Clifton saw her energy bill skyrocket during the pandemic.

Clifton said her bill was “Between $75 and $100 more than usual and that just kind of made it difficult to budget, especially having lost my job from COVID and being on unemployment at the same time.”

She began cutting back elsewhere in order to cover her family’s growing energy costs, including on running heat.

RELATED: PG&E customers could be hit with rate hike of more than $760 over 2 years

Clifton isn’t alone, according to the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey from last July through this August, which measures the pandemic’s social and economic impact.

The ABC7 News data team analyzed the survey’s findings for San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley and found that one-fifth of households reduced or forwent basic necessities, such as food or medicine, to pay an energy bill.

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These struggles didn’t fall equally on all residents. Race and ethnicity, education level, income, and households with children all played a factor in higher percentages.

Forty-seven percent of those who identified as Hispanic or Latino reduced or forwent basic necessities, such as food or medicine, to pay an energy bill. Thirty-seven percent of individuals surveyed who identified as Black also forwent basic necessities to pay an energy bill. More than half of those who have less than a high school education faced the same circumstances, along with almost a third of households with children under 18.

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Dennis Osmer, the executive director of the Central Coast and San Francisco Peninsula Energy Services, said the situation could become worse with the moratorium on power shutoffs ending.

“I think it adds numbers to those numbers, this is a lot worse in its effect,” he said.

Help exists. Arthur Higgins receives assistance from the low income home energy assistance program.

“The program made all of the difference in the world. It kept the power on. They made my house more energy efficient,” Higgins said.

Households with a member who lost employment income in the previous month were more than three times as likely to be unable to pay their energy bills as those without income loss.

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Gabriela Sandoval, the director of Race & Equity Policy with The Utility Reform Network (TURN) said, “We went into the pandemic with customers owing in California about $500 million and we know that right now the big four utility company customers owe about $2 billion .”

The big four includes PG&E customers here in the Bay Area, making up approximately $900 million of that debt, according to Sandoval.

By email, a PG&E Spokesperson told ABC7 News customers who are having difficulty paying their bills can be put on a payment plan or possibly qualify for the CARE program which offers a monthly discount of 20% or more on gas and electricity. The Family Electric Rate Assistance Program offers a monthly discount of 18% on electricity only.

“It’s stunning to look at how these costs have increased and the impact on the people who can least afford it is really heartbreaking,” Osmer said.

If you’re on the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live

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Sometimes transit planning and the state of streets get so ridiculous, one doesn’t know whether to—as the saying goes—laugh or cry.

Los Angeles-based comedian George Coffey decided laughing was better. That’s why he built the website and social media feed “Local Metro.” Streetsblog first became aware of his work after seeing a tweet about a new subway being planned that would be ten stories below the surface. The reason: “After feedback from multiple local businesses that Metro construction may inconvenience them, we’ve completed a new design for the central Downtown station! Building 300 feet below ground ensures the least disruption while adding less than 15 minutes to each rider’s travel time.”

As with most good satire, the plan for this fictional subway wasn’t far off from reality: several readers of the tweet took it seriously and were outraged by the proposal to build so deep because one or two local business owners “were still uncomfortable with the possibility of losing street parking for three weeks.”

Streetsblog thought it’d be fun to have a virtual sit down with Coffey and find out what inspired him to start the site, what it says about real transit, and how he became a transit nerd in the first place.

***

Streetsblog: So I assume the 300-foot-deep subway is a spoof of VTA’s ridiculous BART extension plans?

George Coffey: That is what it’s parodying, yes. Although once I tweeted it, people responded about a proposed subway in Seattle that’s also ridiculously deep. But yes, it’s a parody of the San Jose extension.

SB: It seems you started with a real rendering of it in fact?

GC: It’s based on a real rendering with four or five escalators.

SB: So you’re based in Los Angeles. Why are you picking on a Bay Area project?

GC: The Bay Area transit systems provide a lot of material. And it’s the place in America with the most NIMBY people trying to mess with everything. With the whole BART San Jose extension there’s just a lot there. I also ended up following a lot of YIMBY housing people with my personal account and their activism points out flaws in zoning around transit and flaws with the frequency of service.

SB: I’m assuming you’re a transit nerd.

GC: Yeah, I’m a little bit of a transit nerd.

Transit spoofer George Coffey

SB: Just a little bit? You run a whole site dedicated to making fun of it.

GC: I had the idea in my head for a couple of years. At some point I just had too many ideas and jokes not to do it. Okay, yeah, now that I’m running the account I guess I’ve earned the credit of “transit nerd.”

SB: Where did you first begin to suspect you had this affection?

GC: I grew up riding the T. My dad worked in Boston and my grandparents lived there. I used to collect the little punch tickets.

SB: Punch tickets?

GC: Yeah, from the Boston-area transit systems. Each conductor had his own ticket puncher that made a unique shape. So I used to collect them to see how many symbols of the little punch-things you’d get. So I always enjoyed it.

SB: That is meta transit nerd status. Do you still ride now?

GC: I do.

SB: What’s your commute?

GC: About an hour and a half across LA. I take one bus down Cesar Chavez, then the Purple line to Wilshire and Western, then the 720 bus to Beverly Hills.

SB: That doesn’t sound fun.

GC: I’ve been reading lots of books. It’s almost an hour by car too, but it’s way more stressful to drive down the 10, so mentally it ends up being pretty even.

SB: So why make fun of it?

GC: I am pro-transit and I want it to get better. So I intentionally try to ridicule things that are clearly bad moves by a transit agency. Or sometimes I stick to things that are obviously absurd.

Northbound B trains are delayed while we take a train with a mechanical problem upstate to live on a farm

— Local Metro (@GoLocalMetro) February 6, 2022

SB: So you have standards?

GC: I’m not going to ridicule a bus operator.

SB: You have a thread and video on your site that’s got to be inspired by the Los Angeles airport Rube Goldberg transit connection plan. What is it going to be, three different vehicles and over an hour to get to Union Station, where you can catch a fourth mode to hopefully finally get home?

GC: I was more inspired by how LAX transit is now. I think what they’re working on will be more reasonable than having the audacity to call the Green Line station nearest the airport the “aviation station.”

SB: Right, where you wait around for a bus under a freeway with your luggage to travel the last couple of miles to the terminals.

GC: So I was making fun of their first try. But yes, the new try is also pretty ridiculous, considering you still won’t be able to take a single train to Union Station from the airport.

SB: I like your video about it (which I’ll embed in the interview) about the train to the train to the train to the bus to Lot B to the other bus to the terminals.

SB: You also like to poke fun at transit systems and their customer-last perspective. You did a video about a new line that was cheap to build because it has no stops. Is there a transit system you’re picking on in particular with that?

GC: That’s inspired by real promotional videos you’ll see for new transit lines, where they’ll try to claim they’re reinventing the wheel or doing something really innovative or revolutionizing transit.

SB: Instead of just building a God-damn train or bus line that works for riders?

G.C. Right. They should just be sticking to old standbys. So that was based on just thinking about what would be the most ridiculous thing they could do technically, which would be a line with no stops.

SB: It does save money—as does making people get off BART in the middle of a freeway to change to a cheaper BART at a transfer station that has no entrances or exits.

GC: Right.

SB: You also go off about the lack of customer service, like when agencies randomly cancel bus and rail services and the poor announcements about it. The quips on your site are so close to what really happens. I’m thinking of the frequent shutdowns of the Muni subway. Did you have Muni in mind for that?

We’re hearing concerns about the 6 week subway shutdown. Rest assured after intensive construction, there will be no difference in appearance or service

— Local Metro (@GoLocalMetro) August 7, 2022

GC: It almost doesn’t matter.

SB: Right, one of your tweets had people responding as if you’re lampooning Philadelphia, or Boston, or Washington. It really didn’t seem to matter.

GC: When I tweet something with one specific agency in mind, people always think it’s about their metro, wherever they’re from.

SB: That says something about the status of transit in the US You also go off about bike lanes on the site.

GC: That’s definitely something I like to parody because I don’t think painted bike lanes are taking things seriously. Just look at the whole Sixth Street bridge debacle in LA, all because they didn’t think they should close the bike lanes in with Jersey barriers and in the first week cars crashed and spun out into both bike lanes.

The west side bike path will be closed for 2 years for no discernable reason

— Local Metro (@GoLocalMetro) April 19, 2022

GC: I once posted something about how our city’s bike lanes are delineated by some of the thickest paint in the country. And what are sharrows? What is that? Is that a request that you try not to run over bikes? Which also implies you are allowed to be mean to bikers on other roads?

SB: Sharrows are a city’s way of telling cyclists to go f’ themselves.

GC: I’m sure Sharrows were originally pitched as a clever innovation.

SB: Ha! No doubt they were. So we’re just about out of time. Any final thoughts?

GC: Probably the most fun, wildest thing I’ve ever experienced on transit was taking a bus back from West Hollywood on a Saturday night and everybody was still having a great time, partying on the bus on the way home. I want to reiterate that I’m pro-transit. Everyone who follows the account is also pro-transit. I make fun of it because I want it to be better.

This interview was edited with a rusty machete.

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2021-12-13

After adding over 700,000 new cases throughout the last week, the US now has more than 48.9 million confirmed cases of COVID-19. There have been more than 780,000 COVID-19-related deaths — the highest death toll of any country.

New cases continue to rise at a faster rate. In the past week, there were an average of 1,508.3 daily new coronavirus cases per 100,000 Americans — an increase from the week prior, when there were an average of 0.8 daily new coronavirus cases per 100,000 people.

While COVID-19 has spread to nearly every part of the country, cities continue to be the sites of major outbreaks. Experts agree that the virus is more likely to spread in group settings where large numbers of people routinely have close contact with one another, such as colleges, nursing homes, bars, and restaurants. Metropolitan areas with a high degree of connectivity between different neighborhoods and a large population may be particularly at-risk.

The San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA, metro area consists of Alameda County, Contra Costa County, San Francisco County, and two other counties. In the past week, there were an average of 0.3 new coronavirus cases every day per 100,000 San Francisco residents, less than the national figure. The metro area’s average daily case growth in the most recent week is essentially unchanged from the week prior, when there were an average of 0.1 daily new cases per 100,000 San Francisco residents.

The spread of coronavirus depends on a variety of factors and can vary even between neighboring counties. Within the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley metro area, COVID-19 is growing the slowest in San Francisco County. There were an average of 661.2 new cases per day per 100,000 residents in San Francisco County during the past week, the least of the five counties in San Francisco with available data.

Case growth in the San Francisco metro area is relatively uniform at the county level. In Contra Costa County, for example, there were an average of 936.5 new cases per day per 100,000 residents in the past week — the most of any county in San Francisco yet relatively in line with the case growth rate in San Francisco County.

Just as San Francisco County has the slowest case growth in the San Francisco area, it also has the lowest incidence of cases overall. As of December 9, there were a total of 6,566.9 confirmed cases per 100,000 residents in San Francisco County, the fewest of the five counties in the metro area. For comparison, the US has so far reported 15,085.6 cases per 100,000 Americans nationwide.

The post These Are The Counties In The San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA Metro Space The place COVID-19 Is Rising The Slowest appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

2022-01-05

As the omicron variant spreads, new daily cases of COVID-19 have hit new highs in the United States. To date, 53,506,483 Americans have been infected with the virus — and 816,686 have died as a result. On a per capita basis, the US has one of the highest known infection rates in the world.

In the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward metropolitan area, located in California, a total of 389,364 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 8,332 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — below the national rate of 16,354 cases per 100,000 people.

The lower than average per capita COVID-19 infection rate across San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward is being driven by one area in particular.

The broader San Francisco metro area comprises five counties or county equivalents — and of them, San Francisco County in California has the fewest COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 64,830 infections in San Francisco County, or 7,451 for every 100,000 people.

Not only does San Francisco County have the lowest per capita infection rate in the San Francisco metro area, it also has a relatively low per capita fatality rate.

There have been a total of 78 coronavirus-related deaths for every 100,000 people in San Francisco County, below the 89 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of Jan. 3, 2022.

The post These Are The Counties In The San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA Metro Space With The Least COVID-19 appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

2022-01-19

As the omicron variant spreads, new daily cases of COVID-19 have hit new highs in the United States. To date, 62,973,416 Americans have been infected with the virus — and 839,043 have died as a result. On a per capita basis, the US has one of the highest known infection rates in the world.

In the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward metropolitan area, located in California, a total of 504,458 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 10,795 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — below the national rate of 19,248 cases per 100,000 people.

The lower than average per capita COVID-19 infection rate across San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward is being driven by one area in particular.

The broader San Francisco metro area comprises five counties or county equivalents — and of them, Marin County in California has the fewest COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 25,388 infections in Marin County, or 9,754 for every 100,000 people.

Although Marin County has the lowest per capita infection rate in the San Francisco metro area, its per capita fatality rate is disproportionately high.

There have been a total of 96 coronavirus-related deaths for every 100,000 people in Marin County, above the 89 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of Jan. 14, 2022.

The post These Are The Counties In The San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA Metro Space With The Least COVID-19 appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

2022-02-07

After adding over 2,974,000 new cases throughout the last week, the US now has more than 74.7 million confirmed cases of COVID-19. There have been more than 880,000 COVID-19-related deaths — the highest death toll of any country.

New cases continue to rise, albeit at a slowing rate. In the past week, there were an average of 165.5 daily new coronavirus cases per 100,000 Americans — a decrease from the week prior, when there were an average of 235.2 daily new coronavirus cases per 100,000 people.

While COVID-19 has spread to nearly every part of the country, cities continue to be the sites of major outbreaks. Experts agree that the virus is more likely to spread in group settings where large numbers of people routinely have close contact with one another, such as colleges, nursing homes, bars, and restaurants. Metropolitan areas with a high degree of connectivity between different neighborhoods and a large population may be particularly at-risk.

The San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA, metro area consists of Alameda County, Contra Costa County, San Francisco County, and two other counties. In the past week, there were an average of 200.2 new coronavirus cases every day per 100,000 San Francisco residents, greater than the national figure. The metro area’s average daily case growth in the most recent week is a decrease from the week prior, when there were an average of 256.4 daily new cases per 100,000 San Francisco residents.

The spread of coronavirus depends on a variety of factors and can vary even between neighboring counties. Within the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley metro area, COVID-19 is growing the slowest in Marin County. There were an average of 166.5 new cases per day per 100,000 residents in Marin County during the past week, the least of the five counties in San Francisco with available data.

Case growth in the San Francisco metro area is relatively uniform at the county level. In San Mateo County, for example, there were an average of 227.4 new cases per day per 100,000 residents in the past week — the most of any county in San Francisco yet relatively in line with the case growth rate in Marin County.

Just as Marin County has the slowest case growth in the San Francisco area, it also has the lowest incidence of cases overall. As of February 3, there were a total of 13,074.8 confirmed cases per 100,000 residents in Marin County, the fewest of the five counties in the metro area. For comparison, the US has so far reported 23,032.9 cases per 100,000 Americans nationwide.

The post These Are The Counties In The San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA Metro Space The place COVID-19 Is Rising The Slowest appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

The median home selling price in San Diego rose 14.3% in January 2022 to $764,000, bringing the city’s pricelessness index — a ratio of home selling price to median household income — to 8.1, according to OJO Labs.

Though San Francisco still has the most expensive housing stock of any subway in the U.S., a 4.2% annualized decline in home selling prices in January put San Francisco’s unaffordable value for the first time since OJO Labs began recording the data pushed below 8 in July 2021, according to Patrick Kearns, director of storytelling at OJO Labs. In January 2022, San Francisco’s unaffordability score fell to 7.9 from 9.2 last month.

Other least affordable subways are Los Angeles; Handy, AL; Pensacola, FL; and Boise, ID round out the top five. According to data from OJO Labs real estate search site Movoto by OJO, Austin, TX saw the largest increase in home prices of any metro area in the United States, with home prices rising 35.5% year over year.

On the other hand, Green Bay-Appleton, WI, in terms of homes sold, continued to be the cheapest of the nation’s top 50 metro areas. The median price for a home sold in Green Bay-Appleton was $149,900, an increase of 11.9% over the previous year as of Jan.

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Highest-earning zip codes in San Francisco metro area

The 2020 median household income in the US was $67,521, a decrease of 2.9% from the 2019 median of $69,560, according to the US Census’s annual analysis of income and poverty in the US COVID-19 in 2020 drastically altered income and poverty levels, along with consumer habits and job opportunities—the fallout of which continues today.

Stacker compiled a list of the highest-earning zip codes in San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA using data from the US Census Bureau. Zip codes were mapped to city using Simple Maps. Counties are ranked by 2019 5-year estimate median household income.

Education levels and occupation mightily contribute to salaries, but where a worker lives can give a boost to employees across the board—or result in diminished earnings. It’s not just a location’s tax rates and cost of living, either. According to a Brookings study, simple geography is responsible for a large variation in earnings: Sebring, Florida, for example, has the low median earning of just $26,000, while the metro area of ​​San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara in California boasts a median earning figure of $65,000. The same study found that overall workers in the top-earning 30 locations across the US earn an average of 37% more than the workers in the bottom 30 locations.

Silicon Valley boasts a workforce that Sebring, Florida, simply can’t. In addition to powerhouse hubs like Silicon…

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