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A new pilot program is providing big discounts for low-income riders between ages 19 and 64. It includes a 50 percent discount for Caltrain, SF Muni, Ferry and Golden Gate Transit, and a 20 percent discount on BART.

The 18-month pilot, called Clipper START, is offering the discounts to riders whose household incomes are no more than twice the federal poverty level.

Clipper START was initiated by Bay Area transit agencies and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC). Caltrain says it supports riders who are most dependent on its system. While Caltrain ridership dropped dramatically during the COVID-19 shelter-in-place order, low-income riders continued to board Caltrain as frequently as they did prior to the pandemic, according to the transit agency, citing a COVID-19 rider survey.

In order to be eligible for the Clipper START program, applicants must go online and submit a copy of an Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card or Medi-Cal card, a county benefits eligibility letter, their Muni Lifeline card number or a copy of their last federal tax return to demonstrate their eligibility. Once approved, riders will receive a personalized Clipper card that must be loaded with cash value before use.

To learn more about the Clipper START program and to apply online, visit www.clipperstartcard.com.

The future of Caltrain is uncertain after the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday declined to support placing a sales tax measure on the November ballot to rescue the transit agency, which has been financially decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The proposed 1/8-cent sales tax, which would generate about $100 million for Caltrain, needed support from the elected boards in all three counties where its operates — San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara. Lack of support from San Francisco means the tax is a no-go. San Mateo County officials are none too pleased.

“Regrettably, the SF Board of Supervisors has just declined to introduce the lifeline @Caltrain tax measure, effectively killing this effort,” Tweeted San Mateo County Supervisor Dave Pine, who also serves as chair of the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board.

Caltrain receives 70 percent of its funding from fare box revenue and is the only Bay Area public transit system without a dedicated source of funding. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on ridership, the transit agency had pitched the tax as a way to increase service frequency, capacity and ridership and prevent mounting traffic congestion. Now, dedicated funding is also viewed as an emergency source of support for a transit agency that saw a 95-percent drop in ridership during the COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders.

State Assemblymember Kevin Mullin said every state legislator representing the three counties supports putting the sales tax measure on the November ballot and called the lack of support by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors “irresponsible.”

“@sfbos fails to act while the system is on life support, endangering commuter service for parochial reasons,” Mullin said.

The tax revenue is “incredibly important to the continued existence of Caltrain,” added Belmont Vice Mayor Charles Stone, who criticized San Francisco Supervisor Shamann Walton over his attendance record at transit board meetings.

“It’s really hard to have a conversation when the [San Francisco Board of Supervisors representative] on the Caltrain board leaves the meeting early,” Stone said.

Walton stated on social media he couldn’t support the tax measure without a commitment to give his city more representation of Caltrain’s governance.

“They say I am trying to hold the tax hostage, I say they are trying to extort San Francisco and Santa Clara County and use our tax dollars for their benefit and would continue to disregard SF’s concerns,” Walton said.

Former San Mateo Mayor Sue Lempert called the SF Board’s actions a “shocking surprise.”

“The ballot measure could be dead and Caltrain could be shut down for years unless you act now and demand they reconsider,” Lempert said. “[ Board President Norman Yee] and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors still can save the day by advancing the Caltrain ballot measure with a supermajority vote by July 31.”

She urged residents to email Yee demanding that voters be allowed to decide on the measure.

Meanwhile, Caltrain responded to San Francisco’s inaction with a call-to-action on Twitter: “Caltrain needs dedicated funding. Pass it on.”

Read more, worry less — the Redwood City Public Library is now “fine free.” The Library stopped charging overdue fines for late returns on Tuesday.

At its meeting Monday, the Redwood City Council unanimously voted to end charging overdue fines; any existing overdue fines on library accounts will be waived. However, the library will still charge for any lost items.

The new policy follows the path of San Mateo County Libraries, which went fine-free at its 12 locations last year. In 2016, the Peninsula Library System eliminated overdue fines for children and teens.

The fine-free movement has been building across the U.S., in part to increase access and community usage of libraries.

“Libraries that have eliminated daily overdue fines have seen increased community usage and have continued to receive returned materials in a timely fashion,” according to city officials.

Fines disproportionately impact low-income residents and people of color, the city added.

While fines will not accumulate for books, DVDs, CDs, audiobooks, and other materials checked out from the Redwood City Public Library, note that is not the case for all library items in the Peninsula Library System.

Customers are still expected to return library materials. Reminders will be sent out and Redwood City Public Library will charge replacement fees if the item is not returned.

California Highway Patrol (CHP) is set to conduct a pedestrian safety enforcement operation Monday, July 20 on Middlefield Road and Dumbarton Ave. in unincorporated Redwood City.

Plainclothes officers will be crossing the street during the operation while uniformed officers monitor the crosswalk for motorists and pedestrians who fail to yield right-of-way, according to the CHP.

It’s the latest CHP enforcement targeting heavily trafficked crosswalks in an effort to prevent traffic collisions. In July last year, a similar operation on Middlefield Road resulted in 34 citations.

“Since January 1, 2019, Redwood City Area CHP has investigated 23 collisions involving pedestrians including 21 traffic collisions resulting in injury and 1 fatal traffic collision,” according to the CHP.  “The CHP is committed to preventing these tragic deaths and is leading the effort with proactive enforcement and education programs.”

The program is funded by a California Office of Traffic Safety grant through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The pandemic has spawned coronavirus calves, corona jobs, corona dogs, corona boyfriends and as many new corona phenomena as there are corona walkers, and there are plenty out there.

Corona baby walkers, family walkers, joggers, runners, bicyclists, skateboarders, scooters and whatever those things are with three wheels and a handlebar stalk, every last one of them a unique corona story.

Mostly what there are not many of are facemasks, but that’s not news.

Wei Ping of San Mateo, however, is newsworthy.

She emigrated to Atlanta from Shanghai and was back in China visiting relatives when Covid-19 became epidemic there. “Go back to America!” they told her, so she returned to Atlanta. Quickly, the epidemic became pandemic. Her son-in-law and daughter, due with a second grandchild, brought her to San Mateo to shelter in place with them, where she’s been since March.

“I felt like the virus was chasing me!” she said. Every day she shadows four-year-old granddaughter Alexa around the sidewalks of San Mateo. Nowhere to go and nothing to do, the battle cry of the pandemic, they go home whenever Alexa tires of picking things off the ground, pointing at flowers and asking questions.

This story was originally published in the July edition of Climate Magazine. To view the magazine online, click on this link.

Belmont is a place of few sidewalks, where everyone competes for a share of whatever pavement is available. Walkers zigzag into the street around mailboxes, bushes, telephone poles and parked cars. Dogs, bikes, joggers, strollers and small, loose children on curvy, narrow roads make for slow travel. It’s stressful. No one wants to run over anybody. At least, drivers seem to be aware of the possibility.

Hill Country

It’s also hilly. Walkers shun the steepest parts, but two sojourners, Janet Campbell and Steve Waugh, neither of whom knew the other, said they took on the 42nd Avenue hill. It climbs 400 feet in less than a mile.

Campbell, a “hardly employed” singer with the San Francisco Opera, also takes on the Ralston hill up from Carlmont. She hasn’t been active and gained weight during shelter-in-place. Waugh, on the other hand, lost weight and gained good-looking calves.

“My legs are twice as big as before,” he said. “I got sick of people telling me I had chicken legs.”

Six miles a day is bound to bulk up the legs; however, Waugh’s small dog, Avinash, named for the Indian god of indestructibility, hardly has any. His black and white coat is so long it conceals them, so no report available on his calves, if dogs have calves.

“He loves it. I have a lot of time on my hands so I started walking. So it’s in my blood. Got to do it every day now. I’m gonna keep going.” Consequently, so does Avenish.

On the positive side, corona walkers are “friendlier” now, Waugh said. On the negative, “I’ve never seen so much dog feces in my life. People aren’t used to walking their dogs and don’t have the bags.”

An Ohio native with fond memories of friendly Midwesterners, he noted the fact that corona walkers have become much friendlier. Thus it should not have been a shock that he offered a handshake as he left. But it was a shock to obey the instinct to grab his hand.

“Shake hands? I’m not scared of it. Are you? I think I had it in February, anyway,” he said, as he and Avinash moved away.

Viral Knowledge

What? Just another virus experience. That and virus knowledge are plentiful. And also free.

Because Campbell agreed to talk with a stranger on a corona walk it can be reported that the largest opera company in the country, the Metropolitan of New York, is a cheapskate compared to the second-largest, the San Francisco Opera.

The Met took PPP money, the Payroll Protection Plan Congress enacted to keep furloughed and laid-off workers solvent, then fired its singers and musicians. The San Francisco Opera took the money and kept everyone on the payroll through July.

Thanks to that and Zoom, the opera and Campbell still are at work, but it has been difficult, she said.

How does a professional opera choir practice remotely through the Web when the notoriously balky app freezes and plays sound through tinny computer speakers?

“Forty-five of us are on a Zoom meeting and having our conductor waving away and the pianist being heard, but we’re muted.” she said. “We’re just singing with ourselves. We can’t hear anybody else, and neither can he.

“It’s kind of funny though. He’ll say, ‘Sopranos, you were late on that’ and I’m like, ‘How do you know? Watching our mouths?’ It’s funny, but it’s a strange paradigm.”

Campbell also experiences the other side because she teaches remote, private voice lessons.

She tried Zoom, then Facetime, but went back to Zoom because Facetime developed a lag. “Actually, Zoom has improved in just three months, dramatically.”

Still, it’s a pain. First she records the piano accompaniment and sends it to the student. The student downloads and sings to the accompaniment, first muted, then unmuted for the teacher.

“It takes a lot longer. I don’t know why, but one hour of personal interaction is really nice. I enjoy that social thing. “Versus one hour of Zoom,” Campbell added, “it seems like it takes three hours. After four lessons I’m just …”

As for walking, “I don’t know. I don’t feel self-conscious about it. I think some people do — and possibly me, walking around other peoples’ neighborhoods — but everybody’s out here. Kind of cool.”

A Dad and His Sons

Brian Chuck of San Carlos represents the bicycles-plus-kids-plus-work-from-home situation. He and sons Matthew, 5, and Joshua, 7, tried an early morning ride to avoid the heat of the afternoon and the late-day auto traffic.

“We have a younger brother so (mom) walks so it’s too hot for her,” Joshua said. So we always have to go in the night.”

“During the day,” father Brian said, “we’re working at home. It’s been a struggle.”

The trio showed signs of almost four months of intimate isolation — anticipating comments, correcting tiny details and, on the boys’ part, straining to establish distinctions that seemed important under only the most specialized circumstances.

Joshua: “My mom has to actually work in the night because she’s going to quit next week, which means she also has to take several phone calls and also do work at night and in the morning, which is why we’re tired all the time.”

Matthew: “I’m not even tired.”

Joshua: “When dad woke up, we had to actually wake him up.”

Brian: “Yes, I promised them if they could wake up early then we could go out for a morning ride … This is the first time in the morning. Normally the baby gets up six-ish …

Matthew: “This is your second time.”

Brian: “I haven’t gone in the morning. I know, I haven’t gone in the morning …”

Puppy Power

The 13-week-old Australian shepherd pup, Boomer, is corona dog. Brittany Ekleberry and her fiancé have worked from home since March. Halfway through quarantine they decided to get a puppy. As puppies do, Boomer goes all out, until he stops. When he runs out of gas, she takes him home and puts on her running gear. He’s up to frolicking, not cardio.

“We really don’t do much of anything these days except go grocery shopping and playing with him,” Ekleberry said. “He’s occupied a lot of our time.”

She made it sound like a good thing.

The corona boyfriend is Lisette Lugo’s.

“I would not have met him if this didn’t happen,” she said. “We had time. The whole world stopped … I’ve been widowed 25 years. I’ve raised my kids and said, ‘Oh, forget it. I’m going to meet someone during corona?’ “It kind of forced me to stop and get to know someone.”

That’s why she and next-door-neighbor and friend Holly Milligan only walk Monday through Friday mornings, which is the substitute for corona redoing their flower gardens which was a substitute for pre-corona workouts at the Yoga Health Center.

“She has a new corona boyfriend so I don’t see her on the weekends,” Milligan said.

She finished graduate school two days before the corona shutdown and is into corona job search.

“Zoom interviewing, and that’s been weird. I still wear a suit and everything. Actually, it’s not too bad. You get used to it. Work out on Zoom, do classes on Zoom. Everything’s kind of on there.”

Everything but a covid handshake. You can’t get those except on a corona walk.

White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci praised Gov. Gavin Newsom’s handling of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic during a virtual fireside chat with Stanford Medicine Dean Dr. Lloyd Minor on Monday.

The roughly 35-minute discussion steered clear of the political headlines of the day involving Dr. Fauci — namely reports that President Donald Trump’s administration is trying undermine him. But Fauci, America’s leading voice during the pandemic and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984, did offer commentary on the COVID-19 response by both the nation as a whole and California in particular.

“It is very clear, and you know this from countries around the world, that if you physically separate people to the point of not allowing the virus to transmit — and the only way to do that is by draconian means of essentially shutting down a country — we know that we can do that if we shut down,” Fauci said. “The Europeans have done it, people in Asia have done it. We did not shut down entirely, and that’s the reason why when we went up [in virus cases], we started to come down and then we plateaued at a level that was really quite high.”

Reopening in the U.S. has brought about surges in cases, which beckons the need to “drop back a few yards” in easing restrictions, Fauci said. He acknowledged the consequences of an economic shutdown, thus advocates for a gradual, phased-in approach.

“You don’t necessarily need to shut down again, but pull back a bit, and then proceed in a very prudent way of observing the guidelines of going step to step,” Fauci said.

When asked to grade the Bay Area’s pandemic response, Fauci declined, noting that grading would be “a little bit presumptuous” on his part. But he did have something positive to say about Gov. Newsom’s response, which has included a phased-in reopening approach. On Monday, Newsom rolled back the reopening timeline in response to a spike in cases.

“…I’ve worked with Governor Gavin Newsom throughout these entire few months, and he really has a handle on it, understands what he needs to do, and I believe is doing really a very good job, as are several of your mayors actually,” Fauci said.

The “$64,000 question” being debated right now, Fauci stated late in the interview, is whether the response to the coronavirus should have been dictated by the federal government or, as it is currently, handled by state governments. To that question, Fauci has “no firm answer.”

“There’s arguments back and forth, should the government provide resources, direction, guidance and then pull back and let the states do it? Or should they direct it federally? You could argue it on both sides,” he said. “We’re a big country. We have 50 states. We have 3,007 counties. So it really is an ongoing argument. And there are pros and cons of each approach.”

Fauci reiterated his confidence that “one or maybe more” vaccines for the virus will be available by the end of the year or beginning of 2021. He is also optimistic in the advancement of treatments for the virus, citing trials showing dexamethasone and remdesivir can significantly benefit patients with advanced disease.

What is really needed and we’re on the track of getting them, Fauci said, are interventions that can be given early in the course of disease to prevent people who are vulnerable from progressing to hospitalization.

“And those are direct antiviral drugs, convalescent plasma, hyperimmune globulin, monoclonal antibodies and a number of direct acting antiviral agents,” Fauci said. “I believe we are on a good track to get there reasonably soon.”

In the meantime, “physical distance, wearing a mask, avoiding crowds, washing hands — those things, as simple as they are, can turn it around,” Dr. Fauci said. “And I think we can do that. And that’s what we’ve got to do looking forward.”