State fails to adequately address transit fiscal cliff

Terrifying tales of transit agency layoffs and service cuts, known as the fiscal cliff, loom as the consequences of the pandemic and the drop in ridership from the shift to working at home. The Legislature and Governor have responded to the frantic lobbying by kicking the can down the road. The East Bay Times responded with a powerful editorial, Why Newsom’s Bay Area transit bailout will likely fail.  Excerpts: Rather than directly address these problems, the new bailout plan from Sacramento doubles down on an oversight commission [MTC] that has failed since its establishment in 1970 to fulfill its state-mandated…

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Challenge to MTC’s funding of parking garage

In 2016, BART was under pressure from local residents to build another parking garage at the Dublin/Pleasanton BART station. TRANSDEF responded with a 2017 letter, challenging the environmental review.  BART decided in 2017 to not proceed with the project. Republican Assemblywoman Catharine Baker then cut a deal with the Brown Administration (reportedly in exchange for her vote on the Cap and Trade bill) to give a $20 million grant to the garage project. A grant was then dutifully made by the State Transportation Agency, CalSTA, from its Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program, which is funded by the GHG Cap…

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Santa Cruz County produces biased report prior to June ballot measure calling for removing the rail line

A small group of homeowners, bankrolled by a former Apple executive, has qualified their Greenway Initiative for the June ballot in Santa Cruz County. This group, whose motivation appears to be preventing trains from running near their homes, are seeking the public’s support for a measure that would eliminate the County’s policies calling for building a commuter rail system on the Santa Cruz Branch Line. It would instead tear out the tracks to build an extra-wide multi-use pathway they call the Greenway. TRANSDEF is committed to rail as the low-carbon approach to organizing transportation and land use in the era…

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Stopping NCRA from tearing up its RR tracks

A Bay Area environmental group is seeking to save the rail tracks in Mendocino and Humboldt Counties from being torn out. The Transportation Solutions Defense and Education Fund, TRANSDEF, sent a letter to the North Coast Railroad Authority demanding that the NCRA Board rescind the action it took last month. TRANSDEF asserted that the Board had no legal authority to direct its staff to begin the process of abandoning the railroad and turning it into a trail, in a process called railbanking. Railbanking means tearing out the tracks while claiming that the railroad can be restored in the future. North…

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Comments to Caltrans on SB 743 implementation

With the new SB 743 requirement to use VMT as the metric for evaluating transportation impacts under CEQA, Caltrans has reached out for comments on its draft documents. Those documents imply that Caltrans pretty much expects life after SB 743 to be similar to life before it. Caltrans expects to keep on widening highways, which will increase VMT due, in part, to the phenomenon of induced demand. TRANSDEF’s comments stress a broader perspective: the entire mission of Caltrans must change in response to the recognition that the State’s largest obstacle to achieving its climate change targets is the ever-increasing amount…

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State losing its war on carbon

Dan Walters had it partly right in his piece “State losing its war on carbon” in explaining why the transportation sector’s greenhouse gas emissions are going up instead of going down as planned. Yes, it’s true that “So far, Californians aren’t buying what their politicians are selling” when it comes to buying electric vehicles and increasing their use of transit. Those numbers are disappointing… But the problem is much bigger than that: The public keeps driving more (as measured in Vehicle Miles Traveled, or VMT) because suburban development makes its residents dependent on the automobile. With a large percentage of…

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New articles on Seattle

Politico has published a great account Has Seattle Found the Solution to Driving Alone to Work? Seattle voters made the decision to put their money into transit, on a big scale. It has paid off handsomely. Bay Area voters were cajoled instead to throw more money at highways. That will not turn out well. Streetsblog digs into solutions to the housing crisis with Seattle and Minneapolis: A Tale of Two Upzones.  As these articles make clear, Northern California is not a center for innovation in the fields of transportation and housing.

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Amazing changes in San Diego

San Diego used to be the most reactionary of the State’s large transportation agencies. No longer! It’s amazing what losing a few environmental lawsuits can do. Now, the San Diego Association of Governments, SANDAG, is leading the State in responding to the climate change crisis. SANDAG’s new Executive Director, Hasan Ikhrata, made headlines when he announced that San Diego Can’t Hit State Climate Goals Without Major Transportation Changes. While TRANSDEF has been saying that for decades, it’s different when it comes from an agency head. State reports indicate that greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles are increasing, despite efforts to reduce them. This…

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The personal dimension of climate change activism

Over the years, I’ve often compared the emotional difficulties of being a climate activist with the challenges faced by hospice workers: we are surrounded by death. Huge numbers of species are dying in the present, and far more will go extinct as temperatures continue to rise. It’s truly crazy-making to advocate for a strong governmental response to the seemingly obvious threat of climate change, yet receive only blank stares from the elected and appointed officials who have the authority to initiate action. It seems that most people just can’t imagine a world different from their current pleasant existence. Unfortunately for…

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San Diego Can’t Hit State Climate Goals Without Major Transportation Changes

The Voice of San Diego reported on a refreshing statement of the obvious as to the level of changes needed in the county’s transportation planning to meet State climate goals: The region simply can’t meet state requirements for thwarting climate change the way things are and the way they’re headed, Hasan Ikrhata, director of the San Diego Association of Governments, said at a Friday board meeting. Even if the region built the trolley lines and bus services leaders have been discussing, it would not change enough. Either state law would have to change, or regional leaders need to reimagine plans…

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