California

On Thursday, February 2, SCAG Regional Council approved recommendations for its Sustainability Planning Grants Program (SPG) to fund 54 projects with $9.6 million (see full list of recommended projects on page 5 here).

On January 26, 2017, Mayor Eric Garcetti and the Los Angeles Department of Transportation announced the release of the city’s first Vision Zero Action Plan and Safety Study. The plan outlines goals to reduce fatalities by 20 percent by the end of 2017 leading to the ultimate goal of zero traffic deaths by 2025 (hence the name of the campaign ‘Vision Zero’).

On January 17, the Safe Routes Partnership’s California team hosted a webinar with LA Thrives, Enterprise Community Partners, LA County Bicycle Coalition, Housing California, California Bicycle Coalition and Southern California Association of Nonprofit Public Housing. The webinar provided tips and information on how to integrate active transportation infrastructure and programs with affordable housing developments for AHSC projects in LA County.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) announced its regional ATP award list. MTC received 61 applications totaling about $166 million in response to the Regional ATP Call for Projects. Staff recommends fully funding 13 projects and partially funding one project for a total of $22.2 million. Of the 14 projects, 7 are Safe Routes to School-related, and 9 are under $1 million. 94% of funds benefit communities of concern. 79% of funds benefit SRTS-related projects.

The California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) and OEHHA (Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA)’s statewide screening tool, CalEnviroScreen has been updated to a 3.0 version. CalEPA and OEHHA conducted several workshops and webinars over the course of Summer and Fall 2016 throughout the state in order gather input from stakeholders. A press release was published this month to announce the draft had been finalized.

The Safe Routes Partnership submitted a comment letter to Metro regarding the draft Measure M Guidelines last week. You can read our full letter here. Be sure to also check out a letter submitted by our partners at Investing in Place that we signed on to.

After months of hard work and input from community members, advocates, and the Metro Policy Advisory Council and staff, the Metro Board of Directors unanimously adopted the Measure M Master Guidelines last Thursday, June 16.