November 2017

With the remaining days of the year quickly winding down, Congress has a very short window to address a legislative pileup.

Congress has not yet reached agreement on spending levels for government agencies, with the current extension ending on December 8.  There is likely to be an extension for another few weeks or even until early January.   Negotiations have been challenging, as they include spending levels as well as a resolution to the end of the DACA immigration policy for young people—so a government shutdown is not out of the picture.

When I was growing up, I thought we’d all be zooming around the skies, by now, in our automated bubble vehicles - like the Jetsons. Turns out, I wasn’t too far off.

Though not for flying around in the blue yonder, automated vehicles (AV) are in our very, very near future. Already, there are actual demonstration AVs on public roads - can you imagine a car or bus without a steering wheel? Vehicles like these are being tested now.

As the weather began to warm in spring 2017, something else was heating up too – the Safe Routes Partnership’s new Safe Routes to School Launch Program!  With five cities participating in the 2017 pilot year, the intensive program helped communities move to a new level of safety and support for students walking and biking to school.  The Safe Routes to School Launch Program is a joint project of the Safe Routes Partnership (Safe Routes Partnership) and UC Berkeley Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (SafeTREC), designe