California

In 2019, we’re gearing up for a round up of active transportation network (ATN) meetings throughout the Southern California region.

Last December, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) voted to endorse a series of policy proposals from the Committee to House the Bay Area, known as CASA. This independent committee, made up of stakeholders including representatives from cities, businesses such as Google and Facebook, and advocates such as Urban Habitat, had been deliberating for 18 months about how to address the housing shortfall in the region. CASA was established after the last regional transportation plan, known as Plan Bay Area, was passed.

Last week, State Senator Scott Wiener introduced SB-127, the Complete Streets for All Bill.

The California Transportation Commission kicked off 2019 by releasing its staff recommendations for the Active Transportation Program (ATP) Cycle 4 Statewide a

Advocates and community members in the City of Stockton submitted comments on the most recent update to the General Plan.

Last month, we were pleased to join other walking advocates at PedsCount 2018, hosted by California Walks. California Senior Policy Manager Jonathan Matz and Senior Equity and Policy Manager Demi Espinoza both attended the conference, which highlighted the obstacles to full use of and participation in our streets faced by communities that are marginalized due to race, gender and disability.

While we wait for the results of Cycle 4 of the Active Transportation Program (ATP) to be announced at the end of the year, we have produced an analysis of the submittal log. A few things stuck out to us about the types and sizes of the applications that were submitted:

Last week, California voters rejected Proposition 6, which would have repealed the SB1 transportation funding increases, by a ten point margin. As we noted in previous editions of the e-news, Proposition 6 would have resulted in a self-inflicted crisis on our state’s transportation system, not only removing billions of already allocated dollars, but rendering virtually impossible any future increases in revenue.