Election Day, November 2026

When I walk over the Miller-Sweeney (a.k.a. Fruitvale) Bridge, or sit and eat a surprisingly reasonable pre-made poke bowl outside Alameda's Nob Hill, I'm reminded of the last chapter of These Truths — a one-volume history of the United States, by one of those sorts of writers who's so prolific it's scary.

Jill Lepore ends that fat book with an extended metaphor of the United States as a ship of state, sometimes sailing steady and sometimes being tossed in storms. (It's a reference to a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — whom people in Cambridge, Mass. are likely required by municipal code to reference at least once per annum.) After so many hundreds of pages of stories grounded in sources, which actually make for swift reading, I recall it being strange to end this history of the U.S. with instead an extended literary-ish metaphor. Then again, the book was published in 2018 — and how to explain the United States in 2018 under Donald Trump? Avoiding those daily incredulities by resorting to metaphors may have been as good as any other approach.

When I see the double-masted Kaisei foundered next to the supermarket's patio, that metaphor of the state-as-ship actually seems about right for the United States these days. The hull has clearly been breached, the ship has taken on water, it hasn't sunk 100%, we're nominally surrounded by containment booms, and many of us are still onboard... but after an initial foray to remove some gas tanks and a seemingly useless visit by a crane ship, no one has actually fixed the situation. The vessel is still broken and likely to only get worse.

Recently, however, salvage pumps have actually appeared. Maybe someone is ready to take responsibility for "dewatering" that ship.

Are enough voters in Michigan, Maine, Texas, Ohio, Kansas, Alaska, and/or Iowa also willing to serve as bilge pumps and begin to right this ship-of-state? Begin, since there will presumably be a lot of sh*t to pump out — problems at a national scale, problems which can't be solved in one election alone.

Here's hoping.

(Metaphor complete; the rest of this post will be more literal.)

Alameda's Measure L

While I can't help but read widely — and worry widely — this election cycle I've kept my own volunteering closer to home, focusing on Alameda's Measure L.

What I was aiming to turn into a series of explanatory posts on all the key aspects of the measure came out (after too many other competing uses of time) as two posts:

• "Alameda moves toward asking voters to improve our shared infrastructure"
• "Home field advantage: Hidden infrastructure under Krusi Park, and the flood protection we can build next with Measure L"

Alameda's Candidates

Best of luck to the candidates for Alameda Mayor, City Council, and School Board.

I lurked at one or two candidate forums, listened to a few others on my airbuds while shopping at Trader Joe's, started writing blog posts... and deleted those posts. In the interest of doing my part to build as big a tent as possible for Measure L's support, I decided not to use this blog as a forum to post about other elected roles in Alameda for this cycle. There'll be time enough to write about more local issues after a new mayor and two new councilmembers are seated.

Regional Transit

Let's end this blog post by getting back to Trump's first term in office, specifically the pandemic. Sorry, this is no fun, but it's important context for a timely point.

Beyond the sorrow of COVID-19 killing over a million Americans (and likely tens of millions worldwide), the pandemic has reshaped aspects of life in more subtle ways. That goes without saying — but it's also too easy to forget. These last six years combined both unexpected sudden changes and the more gradual waning and waxing of trends that always happens in our consumer-centered society. (Crew socks are now back in style? Guess I look on-trend again!) The net result is substantially more than six years of change that retailers, restaurants, employers, and schools are all having to navigate.

Public transit agencies are just one of many civic institutions finding a "new normal." With Trump back in office, that new normal no longer includes many previously critical federal grants. With some employers providing more flexible work routines while others continue to require strict schedules, that new normal involves riders spread around the clock. With more boob-tube streaming at home on weeknights but also more giant high-priced concerts, that new normal actually involves more ridership on weekends for many transit agencies. The list of changes goes on...

Finding a new normal for Bay Area transit requires time (just as it's continued to require time for private businesses to adapt) and requires funding (just as many major private sector organizations have borrowed large sums of money to retool how they package their offerings to their customers). A few other regions have already done this by raising public revenues: in New York City, an increased payroll tax; in Boston, an increased state tax on annual incomes above $1 million; in Philly, an increase of weed and gambling taxes going to cover public transit.

Measure RTM is the Bay Area's solution. It's a slight increase to sales tax across five Bay Area counties.

It's no coincidence that Alameda, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, and Contra Costa are also five of the core counties that banded together to jointly announce the country's first shelter-in-place order in March 2020. These are the counties that hold the vast majority of the Bay Area's population and the majority of the Bay Area's economic activity. While the other four Bay Area counties are lovely in their own ways, neither their politics, their land-use patterns, nor their transportation networks necessarily support the economic powerhouse at the core of the Bay Area.

To keep this going — to keep ourselves going — we need to keep BART and Caltrain open, we need to keep buses running to and from trains, and we need to continue to adapt the Bay Area's transit services to better meet present commute patterns, shopping patterns, and recreation patterns. (For more on regional-wide improvements to transit coordination, see MTC's Transit Transformation Action Plan as well as the Seamless Bay Area advocacy organization.)

Do I want to pay more in sales tax? No. Do I want to keep BART open past 9 p.m.? Yes! Do I want to be able to ride BART and work on my laptop each time my insurance says the nearest covered physical-therapy provider is in Fremont (rather than drive there in stop-and-go traffic on 880 estimated to significantly increase if transit service is cut)? Yes! Do I want the staff at Nob Hill who currently arrive at their workplace via the AC Transit 51A to still be able to get to work so they can sell me that surprisingly good poke bowl for my lunch? Yes! So stacking one "no" against those "yeses," I decided to vote yes on RTM.

Vote...

If you've actually read this far, you're likely the type who's already signed/sealed/delivered your ballot. Nonetheless, here is the obligatory link to Alameda County Registrar of Voters' list of vote centers that will be open today until 8 p.m. to receive your ballot or provide a replacement ballot.

... and wait

Alameda County has a history of taking its time to count votes. Ultimately, as long as the vote count is full and accurate (and unaffected by Trump's sound n' fury), that's all that matters. No one needs a fake horse race as we all watch returns "live."

That said, if you do want to see ballots being counted live, enjoy watching the County Registrar of Voters' live streams.