1.
Benicia, California
–
Benicia is a waterside city in Solano County, California, United States. It served as the capital for nearly thirteen months from 1853 to 1854. The population was 26,997 at the 2010 census, the city is located in the San Francisco Bay Area along the north bank of the Carquinez Strait. Benicia is just east of Vallejo and across the strait from Martinez, elizabeth Patterson has served as Mayor of Benicia since 2007. The town is divided into four areas, the East Side, the West Side, Southampton, most of the towns older homes are on the east and west sides. Southampton contains primarily single-family housing developments and condominiums, most of which were built between 1970 and 2000. The East Side includes the Benicia Arsenal, a former United States Army armory, the Arsenal is home to several historic landmark buildings such as The Clock Tower, the Camel Barn, and the Jefferson Street Mansion. The industrial park lies to the northeast of the areas of the city. The Benicia State Recreation Area is on the far west edge of the city, the main retail area in Benicia is First Street, which attracts out-of-town antique and boutique shoppers and those seeking small-town, historic charm. In 1987 Benicia was selected to participate in the California Main Street Program, connections to Benicia include Interstate 680 from Martinez to the south and Cordelia Junction to the north, and Interstate 780, Columbus Parkway, and other local roads from Vallejo to the west. Amtrak also runs past the city north towards Sacramento, but the nearest train station lies in Martinez across the Carquinez Strait, Railroad tracks carrying Amtrak and Union Pacific Railroad lines cross the strait alongside the Benicia–Martinez Bridge. The City of Benicia was founded on May 19,1847, by Dr. Robert Semple, Thomas O. Larkin and it was named for the Generals wife, Francisca Benicia Carillo de Vallejo. The General intended that the city be named Francisca after his wife, vallejos second given name was used instead. In his memoirs, William Tecumseh Sherman contended that Benicia was the best natural site for a city in the region. Benicia was the site selected to serve as the California state capital. Soon after the legislature was moved to the courthouse in Sacramento, the restored capitol is part of the Benicia Capitol State Historic Park, and is the only building remaining of the states early capitols, which were in San Jose and Vallejo. Benicia was also the county seat of Solano County until 1858, the original campus of Mills College was founded in Benicia in 1852 as the Young Ladies Seminary, and was the first womens college west of the Rockies. Before moving to Oakland in 1871, it was located on West I Street, on June 5,1889, the legendary prize fight between James J. Corbett and Joe Choynski was held on a barge off the coast of Benicia
2.
Contra Costa County, California
–
Contra Costa County is a county in the state of California in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 1,049,025, the name is Spanish for opposite coast, referring to its position on the other side of the bay from San Francisco. Contra Costa County is included in the San Francisco–Oakland–Hayward, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area and it occupies the northern portion of the East Bay region and is primarily suburban. In the northern part of the county, significant coal and sand deposits were formed in even earlier geologic eras, other areas of the county have ridges exposing ancient but intact seashells, embedded in sandstone layers alternating with limestone. Layers of volcanic ash ejected from geologically recent but now extinct volcanoes, compacted and now tilted by compressive forces, may be seen at the site of some road excavations. This county is an agglomeration of several distinct geologic terranes, as is most of the greater San Francisco Bay Area, younger deposits at middle altitudes include pillow lavas, the product of undersea volcanic eruptions. There is an extensive but little recorded human history pre-European settlement in this area, the earliest definitively established occupation by modern man appears to have occurred six to ten thousand years ago. However, there may have been human presence far earlier, at least as far as non–settling populations are concerned, extensive trading from tribe to tribe transferred exotic materials such as obsidian throughout the region from far distant Californian tribes. Unlike the nomadic Native American of the Great Plains it appears that these tribes did not incorporate warfare into their culture but were generally cooperative. Within these cultures the concept of individual or collective land ownership was nonexistent, early European settlers in the region, however, did not record much about the culture of the natives. Most of what is known comes from preserved contemporaneous and excavated artifacts. Although there were no missions established within this county, Spanish influence here was direct and extensive, in 1821 Mexico gained independence from Spain. Mission lands extended throughout the Bay Area, including portions of Contra Costa County, between 1836 and 1846, during the era when California was a province of independent Mexico, the following 15 land grants were made in Contra Costa County. Rough surveying was based on a map, or diseño, measured by streams, shorelines, and/or horseman who marked it with rope, lands outside rancho grants were designated el sobrante, as in surplus or excess, and considered common lands. The law required the construction of a house within a year, fences were not required and were forbidden where they might interfere with roads or trails. Locally a large family required roughly 2000 head of cattle and two leagues of land to live comfortably. Foreign entrepreneurs came to the area to provide goods that Mexico couldn’t, Rancho Canada de los Vaqueros was granted to Francisco Alviso, Antonio Higuera, and Manuel Miranda. Two ranchos, both called Rancho San Ramon, were granted by the Mexican government in the San Ramon Valley, in 1833, Bartolome Pacheco and Mariano Castro shared the two square league Rancho San Ramon
3.
National Express
–
It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE250 Index. In 1972 the state owned National Bus Company decided to bring together the scheduled services operated by its bus operating companies in the United Kingdom under one brand. Sir Frederick Wood, a prominent businessman and industrialist, was asked to oversee the creation of new business model. Initially branded as National, the National Express brand was first used in 1974, with the privatisation of the National Bus Company in the 1980s, National Express was subject to a management buyout in March 1988. The management team began to diversify, and in 1989 purchased Crosville Wales, a new management team took over the company in July 1991, with the backing of mid-market private equity firm, ECI Partners. The new team refocused the group on its activities and sold Crosville Wales to British Bus. In October 1991 it purchased Speedlink, an operator of services between Gatwick and Heathrow Airports. In December 1992 National Express Group plc was floated on the London Stock Exchange, in 1993 Scottish Citylink, Eurolines and East Midlands Airport were acquired. In April 1995 National Express purchased West Midlands Travel, the council owned bus network of Birmingham. This began the family of Travel. Bournemouth Airport was acquired in April 1995, in April 1996 National Express commenced operating its first UK rail franchises, Gatwick Express and Midland Mainline. Other franchises won in 1997 were Silverlink, Central Trains and ScotRail, to comply with a Competition Commission ruling on it winning the ScotRail franchise, National Express sold the Scottish Citylink operation to Metroline in August 1998. In February 1997 Taybus Public Transport was acquired and rebranded Travel Dundee, in February 1999 Robinson Bus Service was purchased followed in August 1999 by Durham Transportation. These acquisitions placed National Express as one of the top three United States school bus operators, in May 1999 National Express purchased Australias largest private bus operator, National Bus Company. National Bus Company had bus operations in Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth, Westbus also had a London coach operation. In August 1999 National Express won the M>Train, M>Tram and V/Line Passenger rail franchises in the Australian state of Victoria, in January 2000, National Express expanded into the American market by acquiring ATC, a public transportation operator. In July 2000 Prism Rail was purchased adding the c2c, Wales & Borders, Wessex Trains, in December 2002 National Express handed in its Victoria rail franchises having been unable to renegotiate financial terms with the State Government. In February 2004 the London bus operations of Connex were purchased and rebranded Travel London, in April 2004 National Express East Anglia commenced operating the Greater Anglia rail franchise
4.
Public transport
–
Public transport modes include city buses, trolleybuses, trams and passenger trains, rapid transit and ferries. Public transport between cities is dominated by airlines, coaches, and intercity rail, high-speed rail networks are being developed in many parts of the world. Most public transport runs to a timetable, with the most frequent services running to a headway. Share taxis offer services in many parts of the world. Paratransit is sometimes used in areas of low demand and for people who need a door-to-door service, there are distinct differences in urban public transit between Asia, North America, and Europe. In Asia, mass transit operations are run by profit-driven privately owned and publicly traded mass transit. In North America, mass transit operations are run by municipal transit authorities. In Europe, mass transit operations are run by both state-owned and private companies. Public transport services can be profit-driven by use of pay-by-the-distance fares or funded by government subsidies in which flat rate fares are charged to each passenger. Services can be profitable through high ridership numbers and high farebox recovery ratios, or can be regulated. Fully subsidized, zero-fare services operate in some towns and cities, for geographical, historical and economic reasons, there are differences internationally regarding use and extent of public transport. It has 3,400 members from 92 countries, conveyances designed for public hire are as old as the first ferries, and the earliest public transport was water transport, on land people walked or rode an animal. Ferries appear in Greek mythology—corpses in ancient Greece were buried with a coin underneath their tongue to pay the ferryman Charon to take them to Hades, the omnibus was introduced to London in July 1829. The first passenger railway opened in 1806, it ran between Swansea and Mumbles in southwest Wales in the United Kingdom. In 1825 George Stephenson built the Locomotion for the Stockton and Darlington Railway in northeast England, the usability of different types of public transport, and its overall appeal, can be measured by seven criteria, although they overlap somewhat. These are speed, comfort, safety, cost, proximity, speed is calculated from total journey time including transfers. Proximity means how far passengers have to walk or otherwise travel before they can begin the public transport leg of their journey, timeliness is how long they have to wait for the vehicle. Directness records how far a journey using public transport deviates from the shortest route, an airline provides scheduled service with aircraft between airports
5.
Gillig Phantom
–
The Gillig Phantom is a high-floor bus that was produced from 1980 to 2008 by the Gillig Corporation in Hayward, California. The successor to the Gillig Transit Coach, the production of the Phantom marked the transition of bus production from yellow school buses to transit buses. While a few examples of the Phantom were produced as a bus, most were sold in the latter configuration, as of 2016. The Phantom is the first transit bus assembled entirely by Gillig, from 2005 onward, only the 102-inch-wide version was available due to stricter emissions and accessibility requirements. A liquefied natural gas fueled version was produced beginning in 1992, a diesel-electric hybrid powered version was sold from 1996 to 2006, MTA in New York purchased a Gillig Phantom hybrid demo bus as well as diesels for MTA Long Island bus. The Phantom was available with a rear door or a wide rear door. Initially, the rear door option consisted of two narrow doors, but this was reduced to one wide door by the 1990s. Most Phantoms transit authorities opted for the rear door. The Phantom could be ordered with dual headlights or quad headlights, Phantoms could be ordered with the wheelchair lift in either the front door or rear door. Those with the lift in the door had a slightly wider rear door to accommodate the lift. Most Phantoms were ordered with the lift in the front door. A rare option for the Phantom was a rear window, monterey-Salinas Transit and King County Metro are the only two transit authorities known to have ordered Phantoms with a rear window. Another rare option was windows that did not open, theBus in Honolulu, Hawaii ordered their 1995-2003 Phantoms that way. Sound Transits 2008 Phantoms also had windows that didnt open, the Gillig Phantom is also available with luggage racks on the top for the baggage for the suburban version. Production of the Phantom ended in September 2008, with some of the last buses going to Sound Transit, with the Phantom discontinued, Gillig produces only low-floor buses. There is also trolley bus version used on the Seattle King Metro Service, in 1986, Gillig introduced a school bus variant of the Phantom, the successor to the Transit Coach, the Phantom School Bus was the first all-new school bus from Gillig in 42 years. Although well received by its operators, sales dropped off in the late 1980s, aside from the obvious school bus yellow color scheme and warning lights, Phantom school buses were distinguished from the standard Phantom by several exterior design features. As it was the maximum approved width at the time for the type, additionally, they were equipped with dual vertical windshields, a rear window, left-side emergency exit door, and single curbside door
6.
Walnut Creek, California
–
Walnut Creek is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States, located 16 miles east of the city of Oakland in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Its active downtown neighborhood features hundred-year-old buildings and extensive high-end retail establishments, restaurants, as of 2014, the citys total estimated population is 67,673. Diablo, and the Tactan at Danville and Walnut Creek, on San Ramon Creek, todays Walnut Creek is located amidst the earlier site of four Mexican land grants. One of these land grants – measuring 18,000 acres – belonged to Juana Sanchez de Pacheco, Ygnacio Sibrian, one of the grandsons, created the first roofed home in the valley in about 1850. The grant was called Rancho Arroyo de Las Nueces y Bolbones, named after the principal waterway, the Arroyo de las Nueces was named for the occurrence in the valley of the native species of walnut tree, the California Walnut. With the coming of American settlers following the Mexican-American War, a settlement called The Corners emerged, named because it was the place where roads from Pacheco. The site of this first American settlement is today at the intersection of Mt. Diablo Boulevard. The first town settler was William Slusher, who built a dwelling on the bank of Walnut Creek, in the year 1855, Milo Hough of Lafayette built the hotel named Walnut Creek House in the corners. A blacksmith shop and a store soon joined the hotel, two decades later, the community changed its name from The Corners to Walnut Creek. In December 1862 a United States Post Office was established, the downtown street patterns laid out in 1871–1872 by pioneer Homer Shuey on a portion of one of his familys large cattle ranches are still present today. Walnut Creek began to grow with the arrival of Southern Pacific Railroad service in 1891, on October 21,1914, the town and the surrounding area of 500 acres ), were incorporated as the 8th city in Contra Costa County. A branch line of the Southern Pacific railroad ran through Walnut Creek until the late 1970s, the East Bay Regional Park Districts Iron Horse Trail, used by walkers, runners and bikers, runs over what were portions of that branch line. The mainline of the Sacramento Northern Railway passed through Walnut Creek, today, the Pittsburg/Bay Point – SFO Line line of the Bay Area Rapid Transit serves Walnut Creek with a station adjacent to Highway 680. Walnut Creek is located at 37°54′23″N 122°03′54″W, portions lie in both the San Ramon Valley and the Ygnacio Valley below the western slopes of Mount Diablo. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 19.8 sq mi,0.06 percent of which is water. Walnut Creek owns more open space per capita than any community in the state of California. In 1974, Walnut Creek voters approved a $6.7 million bond measure that allowed the city to purchase 1,800 acres of undeveloped hillsides, ridge lines, and park sites. Walnut Creek owns parts of Lime Ridge Open Space, Shell Ridge Open Space, Acalanes Ridge Open Space, the East Bay Regional Park District operates Diablo Foothills Regional Park and Castle Rock Regional Recreation Area, both in Walnut Creek
7.
Pleasant Hill, California
–
Pleasant Hill is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States, in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. The population was 33,152 at the 2010 census, according to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 7.1 square miles. Pleasant Hill has a landscape with some valleys and rolling hills. In undisturbed wilderness, oak woodlands and mixed woods can be found and it is located in the central East San Francisco Bay. Winter daytime temperatures tend to be in the fifties and sixties, on very rare occasions, the temperatures can reach the one hundred degree range during extreme heat waves. Freezing in winter is rare, but it does happen, summer fog is occasional but winter fog is very common. This area began to be developed more in the 1920s, as agricultural land was subdivided for housing. Monument Boulevard was named after the Soldiers Memorial Monument to commemorate soldiers of the Great War and it was erected on December 11,1927. The monument depicts one black and three white soldiers and it is 45 feet tall, constructed of formed concrete, and weighs 150 tons. In 1954 the monument was moved to its current site at Boyd Road, developed largely in the years following World War II, this area did not have a post office until 1948. On February 21,1967, Century 21 Theaters opened an 895-seat dome theater between Monument Boulevard and Hookston Road, visible from the freeway after it was constructed, the futuristic dome-topped cinema became an iconic landmark for the newly incorporated city. The theater was designed by prolific Bay Area architect Vincent G. Raney and it had a distinctive 50-foot-high domed ceiling and oversized curved screen. The theater was built to showcase the Cinerama widescreen process developed in the 1950s. The screen was later updated to standard flat-screen, in 1973, four additional single-screen auditoriums were added to the front of the building. Renamed as Century 5 Theatres, it continued to be known familiarly as the Dome, the city hall of Pleasant Hill, completed in the late 20th century, has won several awards for architectural design. For most of its history, Pleasant Hill did not have a true downtown or Main Street, in 1991, the city began planning the redevelopment of the area around the intersection of Monument and Contra Costa boulevards. In July 2000, Downtown Pleasant Hill finally opened, the privately owned and operated outdoor shopping center was designed to resemble a typical small Main Street. Starting in 2003, CinéArts operated the former Century 5 Theatres, screening primarily independent, due to changes in viewing habits, as many people screened movies at home, business continued to decline
8.
Bay Area Rapid Transit
–
Bay Area Rapid Transit is a public transportation system serving the San Francisco Bay Area. The rapid transit elevated and subway system connects San Francisco with cities in Alameda, Contra Costa, BART operates 5 routes on 104 miles of track connecting 45 stations, plus a 3. 2-mile automated guideway transit line to the Oakland International Airport which adds an additional station. A spur line in eastern Contra Costa County will utilize other rail technologies, with an average of 433,000 weekday passengers and 128.5 million annual passengers in fiscal year 2016, BART is the fifth-busiest heavy rail rapid transit system in the United States. The systems acronym is pronounced Bart, like the name, BART is operated by the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, formed in 1957. As of 2017, it is being expanded to San Jose with the consecutive Warm Springs, some of the Bay Area Rapid Transit Systems current coverage area was once served by an electrified streetcar and suburban train system called the Key System. This early 20th-century system once had regular trans-bay traffic across the deck of the Bay Bridge. By the mid-1950s, that system had been dismantled in favor of highway travel, a new rapid-transit system was proposed to take the place of the Key System during the late 1940s, and formal planning for it began in the 1950s. Some funding was secured for the BART system in 1959, passenger service began on September 11,1972, initially just between MacArthur and Fremont. All nine Bay Area counties were involved in the planning and envisioned to be connected by BART, before the system began revenue service, serious problems in the design and operation of the Automatic Train Control system were observed. Three engineers working for BART, Max Blankenzee, Robert Bruder, BART management was dismissive of their concerns, so the three took the issue to the board of directors. All but two of the directors voted in February 1972 to support management and reject the safety concerns, management retaliated against the engineers, firing them in March 1972. The IEEE later filed the first amicus brief in its history to support the engineers. The California Society of Professional Engineers reported to the California State Senate in June 1972 that there were serious safety risks with the ATC. Legislative analyst A. Alan Post, opened an investigation immediately, an ATC failure caused the train to run off the end of the elevated track and crash to the ground, injuring four people on-board, and drawing national and international attention. The “Fremont Flyer” led to a redesign of the train controls. The California State Public Utilities Commission imposed stringent oversight over train operations, the legislative analyst issued the first of three “Post Reports” in November 1972. The report was “sharply critical” of BART, finding that the ATC system was unreliable, the ATC program was mismanaged, and “no solution was in sight. ”The report accused BART of paying excessive fees for engineering services. BART’s general manager called the indictment of safety in the Post Report “not only disappointing, telephone calls were placed manually between stations, instead
9.
San Francisco
–
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations, the California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856, after three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines, San Francisco is also the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, as of 2016, San Francisco is ranked high on world liveability rankings. The earliest archaeological evidence of habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7,1846, during the Mexican–American War, montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers, with their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships, saloons and hotels, many were left to rot, by 1851 the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to create new land, buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850 and the U. S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate, silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush
10.
California
–
California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
11.
United States
–
Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
12.
AC Transit
–
AC Transit is an Oakland-based public transit agency serving the western portions of Alameda and Contra Costa counties in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. AC Transit also operates Transbay routes across San Francisco Bay to San Francisco and selected areas in San Mateo, AC Transit is constituted as a special district under California law. It is governed by seven elected members and it is not a part of or under the control of Alameda or Contra Costa counties or any local jurisdictions. Buses operate out of three operating divisions, Emeryville, East Oakland, and Hayward, the Operations Control Center is located in Emeryville. The Richmond operating division closed in 2011, the District is the public successor to the privately owned Key System. The Districts bus lines also serve parts of some other East Bay communities, including Milpitas, Pinole, most routes connect with regional train service, primarily BART, in addition to ACE and Amtrak, including the Capitol Corridor. While most AC Transit service consists of lines throughout the East Bay. Most of these run across the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge to connect communities as distant as El Sobrante, Bus service is also provided across the San Mateo and Dumbarton bridges to the south. AC Transits primary hubs include BART stations, major shopping centers, and points of interest, most routes serve and/or terminate at BART stations, providing convenience for transit users. The hubs include, See also AC Transits page on fares and passes or AC Transits page on bus fares, on July 1,2014, AC Transit introduced a Day Pass, designed for customers taking more than two local buses in a day. The pass is good for unlimited rides on local routes from 3,01 a. m. to 3,00 a. m. Customers can obtain a Day Pass in one of two ways, Using Clipper, Customers keep cash value on their card. Once fares equalling the Day Pass price have been deducted, the Day Pass automatically activates, on subsequent rides, the card is tagged but no additional fare is deducted. On-Board, Customers deposit the amount in the farebox and request a Day Pass from the bus operator. On subsequent rides, the pass is swiped at the farebox, AC Transit fares are structured to promote the use of Clipper. Not only are local bus rides cheaper, but certain interagency transfers and day passes are easier to obtain, monthly passes are only available on Clipper. Local BART-to-bus transfer, $0.25 cash discount to and from BART with paper transfer issued at BART, applied as $0.50 Clipper discount on bus trip away from BART only. To transfer from AC Transit to another bus agency without Clipper, to transfer from another bus agency to AC Transit without Clipper, ask the other bus driver for a transfer. Notes, All fares are in USD,1 Issued upon request when full price is paid
United States
