Fair payment: To prevent BART fare evaders from jumping the fare gates, the transit agency last week began replacing the present fare gates within the Civic Center station concourse with latest ones. The latest gates are positioned on the north end of the concourse and are closest to the Seventh Street entrance. The project is predicted to take several weeks, but the corporate says they’re evasion-proof. The station's other two fare gates will remain open during installation work. Once the brand new gates are installed, BART will replace all remaining old fare gates on the station. In April, staff successfully installed a brand new fare gate on the elevator entrance on the Civic Center station platform.

Help is on the way in which: Drivers stranded on Bay Area highways receive help from the Highway Service Patrola free service provided by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. More than 100 drivers from 11 towing firms cover 25 precincts within the Bay Area. The teams help drivers with mechanical problems, flat tires, vehicles which have run out of gas, and people with overheated engines and dead batteries. They also assist police in clearing the scene. The teams are on the highways every weekday morning and evening during rush hours, and in select areas with heavy traffic on weekends. Last yr, the teams helped over 65,000 people, with a mean response time of lower than 12 minutes.

Cleantech collaboration: EV Maritime, a New Zealand electric ferry development and technology company, has been awarded the Angel Island/Tiburon Ferry to impress two existing vessels and construct a 3rd latest plug-in hybrid vessel. The hybrid vessel can be designed and constructed by EV Maritime, with electrical integration handled by Bay Area company ZeroMar. The ferries will operate between Tiburon and Angel Island, in addition to for personal charters, whale watching, and sunset cruises. Angel Island State Park is the biggest natural island in San Francisco Bay and a well-liked destination for mountain climbing, biking, and picnicking.

Rolling fun: The BARTmobile, It's the 700-pound, eight-seat fiberglass automotive with a smiling face on the front's birthday, and the agency is inviting the Bay Area to have a good time on the Orinda BART station on Saturday, July 27, between 1 and 4 p.m. For twenty years, the BARTmobile has been a staple at local events and parades. To have a good time the occasion, BART may have a DJ on site, offer carnival games, face painting, free cupcakes and kettle corn, and free rides on the BARTmobile. BART will host other events all year long, including Sound Tracks – free live music by local artists in non-fare areas of the stations.

Excitement about electrification: Starting August 11, Caltrain will offer limited weekend service with its latest electric trains. On September 21, Caltrain will implement a brand new schedule and offer all-electric service seven days every week north of San Jose's Diridon station. Over the roughly six weeks between those two dates, diesel trains can be regularly replaced with electric trains. With the support of state and federal funds, the Caltrain electrification project is replacing the whole aging diesel fleet with state-of-the-art electric trains, making it the primary diesel-to-electric conversion within the country in a generation. The express service allows commuters to travel between San Francisco and San Jose in under an hour and offers reliable Wi-Fi, restrooms, air-con and power sources. Caltrain says the brand new trains will improve service by 20% because they’ll speed up and decelerate much faster than diesel trains.

Originally published: July 21, 2024 at 6:30 am

Melinda French Gates said Monday she’s going to step down as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which she has co-chaired since 2000.

As a part of her separation agreement from her former husband Bill Gates, French Gates said she would receive an extra $12.5 billion for her charitable work. French Gates said she plans to focus her donations on groups that concentrate on women and families.

“This is not a decision I made lightly,” she said in a press release Posted on X. “I am immensely proud of the foundation that Bill and I have built together and the extraordinary work it is doing to address inequalities around the world.”

French Gates said she plans to go away the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on June 7 and can share more about her future charitable plans within the near future.

The organization will change its name to the Gates Foundation and Bill Gates will change into sole chairman, the inspiration's CEO Mark Suzman announced Monday.

“I'm sorry to see Melinda go, but I'm sure she will have a great impact on her future philanthropic work,” Bill Gates also wrote in a separate statement on Monday Posted on X.

“Looking forward, I remain fully committed to the Foundation’s work across all of our strategies and seizing the opportunities we have to continue to improve the lives of millions of people around the world,” he wrote.

French Gates' departure had been announced for several years. Bill Gates and French Gates announced their divorce in May 2021. They said on the time that they might give themselves a form of probationary period until 2023 to work out whether or not they could proceed to work together to oversee their massive nonprofit foundation.

Suzman resigned in July 2021 Emergency plan “To ensure the continuity of the foundation’s work.”

“If either decides after two years that they can no longer work together as co-chair, French Gates will step down as co-chair and trustee,” Suzman said.

Gates will retain control and essentially buy French Gates out of the inspiration, Suzman said on the time. French Gates would receive “personal resources” from Gates for her own philanthropic work — resources that may be “entirely separate from the endowment of the foundation.”

French Gates also founded Pivotal Ventures in 2015, a separate charity focused on removing barriers for minorities and girls within the United States. She donated $1 billion to the organization in 2019.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation didn’t immediately reply to CNN's request for comment.

This is a developing story and shall be updated.