Bay Area

The new Transbay Transit Center opens next month in San Francisco. It’s meant to connect buses from the East Bay with MUNI, Caltrain, and High-Speed Rail. The only problem? The tunnel connecting Caltrain to the transit center hasn’t been built yet. The tunnel will be less than miles long, but building it will cost $4 billion dollars, on top of the $2.2 billion already spent on the transit center.

This story originally aired in 2015.

All week long, we've been playing this sound, and asking you to guess what exactly it is and where exactly in the Bay Area we recorded it.

The votes are in — or, most of them anyway, with some mailed-in ballots yet to be counted. And California voters have weighed in on state and local propositions as well as many elected offices.

Regional Measure 3 would increase the tolls on all Bay Area bridges — except the Golden Gate.

Under this plan, the tolls at every bridge would go up by $3 over the next seven years. So if you’re used to paying $6 to cross the Bay Bridge during rush hour — surprise! Next year it would cost $7. And by 2025 — $9.

The Farm Bill. It sounds like a bill that deals with … well, farming. But the Farm Bill that’s up for renewal and being debated in Congress right now actually deals with a lot more.

When I'm King

By Angelo Castro, E.R. Taylor Elementary School

When I'm king, I would want a queen, by my side when I'm having a hard time...

On this edition of Your Call, UC Berkeley geography professor emeritus Richard Walker discusses his new book, Pictures of a Gone City: Tech and the Dark Side of Prosperity in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The Loving Sky is always in our memories

It always has a special place in my life

like the love we have for our family and friends

It will last for eternity

because the loving sky's abundance is ever lasting

(music: Younger Than Yesterday by Real Estate)

Yo Le Voy A Los Chivas

By Lizbeth Leon, Glassbrook Elementary School

Yo le voy a los Chivas 

Y tambien mis amigos y amigas

Juntos jugamos futbol

Y nos gusta meter un goal

I am

By Juan Jimenez, Glassbrook Elementary School

I am from the United States

My parents are from a state in Mexico

I am happiness and joyfulness

On this edition of Your Call, we’ll speak with a sports journalist and athletes about how the #metoo movement has rocked the sports world.

Gymnasts, swimmers, basketball players – athletes across the sports world – have come forward with revelations about sexual assault and abuse they have suffered over the course of their careers. What institutions and practices in the sports world protect perpetrators? And how can those power structures be dismantled?

Guests:

Artist Beatrice Thomas performs in drag as soulful death-metal diva Black Benatar at Drag Queen Story Time at the San Francisco Public Library — and all over the Bay.

She’ll be hosting Black Benatar’s Black Magic Cabaret as part of So Soul San Francisco at Brava Theater this week.

By Santos Dzib, Sanchez Elementary School

Brown feels like a sugary chocolate cake melting in your mouth. 

Brown smells like wet mud after it rains. 

The Stars

By Wendy Sanchez Colaj, E.R. Taylor Elementary School

The stars twinkle twinkle twinkle

All throughout the night they are so bright...

My Heart is made of cotton candy

You can hear the sound of waves

I’ll bring my heart everywhere

To the Sun

Moon

and family

The sun is light

the moon is dark

and my family is life

On this edition of Your Call, we're celebrating National Poetry Month by speaking with two young poets and the senior program manager from Youth Speaks, a San Francisco based organization that teaches young poets how to use their words to express themselves, shape their place in the world, and build community.

My Color: Violet

By Kevin Dzib, Sanchez Elementary 

Violet looks like a gecko crawling through the rainforest. ...

Imagine 

By Rae'vyn Twine, E.R. Taylor Elementary School

Imagine you are sitting on a cloud 

with no loud sounds 

My Passion

By Oliver Williams, Sunnyside Elementary School...

When I'm King

By Ilyas Abdolcader, E.R. Taylor Elementary School

I'll be staring down at my town

While wearing my beautiful crown

Humble will be our game

Our town will have no shame

We'll have nothing sloppy

I make negative things things not exist

No homeless on our list

Happyness

By Pamela N. Alvarez Sosa, Junipero Serra

Happyness is when you have a lot of joy.

It's when your mom comes back from Mexico.

It's when you go somewhere for the first time.

On this edition of Your Call, we’re speaking with local youth about the changes they want to see.

Ever since California declared itself a so-called ‘sanctuary state’ by passing SB54 late last year, the tension between the federal government and local officials over immigration issues has been mounting.

Our immigration reporter, Ninna Gaensler-Debs, catches us up on what’s been happening in this stand-off between California and the Trump administration, and also gives us a sense of some perspectives from south of the border.

Click the audio player above to listen to the full story

Micia Mosely joins Joseph Pace for a conversation about how to speak with Bay Area youth - and adults - about race.  

When theater artist Sarita Ocón started working as an actor in the Bay Area, she felt like something was missing, especially for a new generation of female, queer, and gender-expansive artists of color in the Bay Area.

This week on Open Air, KALW’s radio magazine for the Bay Area Performing Arts, host David Latulippe talks with Liss Fain, artistic director of San Francisco based dance company Liss Fain Dance, about the premiere of ‘I Don’t Know and I Never Will’, an evening-length immersive performance installation, based on the verbatim text of letters from a college boyfriend.

What if a bicyclist could turn a traffic light from red to green — just by having the right app in their pocket? Or what if a driverless car could take you to the hospital?

More than two dozen journalists and support staff at the East Bay Times and San Jose Mercury News are out of work this week.

On this week’s Open Air, KALW’s radio magazine for the performing arts in the Bay Area, host David Latulippe meets with virtuoso organist Cameron Carpenter, who performs at SF Jazz’s Miner Auditorium on his digital custom-built International Touring Organ, a one-of-a-kind electronic instrument and elaborate speaker system that brings the pipe organ tradition into the 21st century.

Cameron's interview was edited for inclusion in the full show, above.  Here is the full interview, in 2 parts: