Transportation

Beginning on Monday, July 5th, the Monterey Trolley will start running an extra hour in the evenings, on weekends and on holidays through Labor Day.  Service will operate until 8:00 p.m.

The ride is free and MST says it's the best way to get around the city and avoid parking and traffic.

The route serves Downtown Monterey, Fisherman's Wharf, Cannery Row and the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

The Central Coast boasts some of the most beautiful biking trails around, but it's cyclists on the roadways that has legislators worried.

A new bill written by the same guy who banned cell phones while driving, is now cracking down on bicylists.

"How often am I on the phone? A lot, a lot."

But for Ron Johnson and Trevor Pilling-Miller they're already ahead of the curve, they say hands-free on two wheels is the way to go.

"Just press the button when the phone rings and you answer it," said Johnson.

"It's safe you can still have control of your bike and be looking around, actually holding your cell that's a distraction it's going to cause you to wipe it pretty bad or hit somebody else," said Pilling-Miller.

The bill would not only make it illegal to use a phone while riding a bike, but it would also increase the fines for drivers who still talk or text behind the wheel, and that's music to cyclists ears.

"I see them bei

Local bike shops have partnered with the Transportation Agency for Monterey County to offer discounted bicycle safety checks and minor tunes up between April 1st and May 16th to prepare bicyclists for a safe and fun bike week. The Monterey County Bike Week event, now in its 16th year, is a weeklong series of events promoting bicycling as a healthy transportation alternative that reduces traffic and air pollution. Bike Week occurs May 10-16th.

The bicycle assessment includes tire inflation, chain lubrication, safety checks and recommendations for a discounted price of $10. The evaluation generally takes ten to fifteen minutes.

Monterey-Salinas Transit (MST) is utilizing the popular social networking site to deliver real-time service alerts to passengers. Tweets will include important information about late trips on many commuter routes and all cancelled trips that may result from severe traffic congestion, roadwork, mechanical problems, or other emergency situations that may block area roadways.

"New technologies, including Wi-Fi enabled buses, Google Transit trip planning, and real-time bus arrival signage at our transit centers, have proven useful to our customers and now MST is excited to be able to utilize Twitter to deliver real-time information to passengers waiting at any of our bus stops in Monterey, Santa Cruz, and Santa Clara counties," said MST General Manger and CEO Carl Sedoryk. 

View MST's service alerts on Twitter by simply visiting www.twitter.com/mst_bus.