Category: Transportation Planning

Two union officers penned an opinion piece for the San Mateo Daily Journal that laid out their fantasy for transportation: We can all dream of a future when today’s unbearable traffic congestion is a thing of the past. Traffic would flow freely on Highway 101, Interstate 280, State Route 92 and the Dumbarton corridor because smart, safe, reliable technology will have improved mobility on our traffic corridors, expanded the use of public express buses and maximized the capacity of our highway network. The problem is, their fantasy is actually the unexamined assumption underlying all transportation planning in the U.S. When…

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TRANSDEF’s David Schonbrunn was on Santa Rosa radio station KSRO to talk about Regional Measure 3. Leading off the segment was a discussion with Jake Mackenzie, a Rohnert Park Councilman and the current chair of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (the MTC in OccupyMTC). In his segment (the lower of the two audio players on the KSRO page), Schonbrunn addressed sprawl growth, Sonoma’s big climate and congestion challenge for the future, and urged a shift of future development to sites near good transit service.

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The Chronicle’s lead story today, Measure would hike tolls to cut congestion, is a glowing promotion of the benefits of Regional Measure 3. To be able to check the box for journalistic balance, a short section on the opponents is stuck near the very end of the article. This perfunctory treatment, however, is immediately neutralized by MTC spokesmouth Randy Rentschler: Considering all the fixes we need in the Bay Area, there are going to be people upset they don’t get theirs included. I get it. It doesn’t take more than a day driving around in the Bay Area to figure we…

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The Mercury News published a report on the large contributors to the Yes on RM3 campaign. What’s so interesting about this measure’s sponsors is they’re not the usual group that typically bankrolls transportation funding measures. Usually, it’s contractors seeking to make money on the public projects funded by the measure. This year, however, high-tech firms are leading the charge to charge the public more for using the bridges. Is this public-spirited? Or is it an attempt to distract the public from connecting the dots between the big increase in congestion and the high-tech economic boom? If the public is told, through…

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A news story on KPIX-TV showed an RM3 commercial in the background, while delivering poll results: According to the exclusive KPIX 5 Survey USA Poll, 40 percent of Bay Area voters support the plan, while 34 percent are against it. Another 26 percent respondents said they weren’t sure. That support is a lot softer than earlier polling, which had made MTC confident enough to try pushing the toll hikes. Host Phil Matier pointed out the overt contradiction between the claim that the measure’s added public transit will reduce traffic and real-world experience: An interesting pitch, considering the poll shows that after all…

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A letter to the Vallejo Times-Herald announced that “The United Democrats of Southern Solano County voted to oppose Regional Measure 3.” This suggests a significant class division between elected and rank-and-file Democrats.

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The Mountain View Voice published a strong editorial yesterday opposing Regional Measure 3. Its key statement: RM3’s toll increases, along with the implementation of inflation escalators, ask for too much and attempt to leverage the public’s frustration over bad traffic to disproportionately penalize bridge commuters, a small fraction of voters and therefore an easy target. Bay Area business leaders and their advocacy organizations such as Silicon Valley Leadership Group need to work more on the root cause of our transportation problems — the continued approvals of new commercial development on the Peninsula without the housing needed to accommodate the employees. The…

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In editorial positions that strikingly diverge from the larger newspapers, the San Mateo Daily Journal and Palo Alto Daily Post came out with editorials yesterday opposed to Regional Measure 3.  The Daily Journal captured the heart of the equity issue: A small group of commuters should not be burdened with the cost of transportation improvements that only have a rough connection to the bridges they cross. The rationale reveals a certain amount of creep from the original intent of the tolls, and also a political tactic to get those who do not use the bridges to stick the cost of congestion relief…

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In a nicely balanced article, the San Mateo Daily Journal presented view from all sides of the Regional Measure 3 debate. TRANSDEF’s views came at the end.

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