Planning

Late last month, State Senator Jim Beall (District 15, Santa Clara) introduced SB 152, which would radically restructure the Active Transportation Program, reducing the statewide component to 10% from its current 50% while increasing the Metropolitan Planning Organization component from 40% to 75% and the Small Urban and Rural component from 10%-15%.

In September 2018, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) initiated a project to develop Active Transportation plans for each of its 12 districts, ultimately covering the entire State of California. As part of this effort, Caltrans is developing an overarching statewide data framework and methodology for collecting, storing, and using active transportation data. District 4 in the Bay Area is one of the first areas beginning this process.

In recent weeks, the City of Modesto has adopted an update to its general plan. Last year, we joined with local advocates to make comments to the plan, and many of the concerns raised were adopted in revisions. A key aspect of our comments was that the proposed draft plan did not address environmental justice as required during general plan updates by state law, SB 1000.

The City of Rialto in San Bernardino County convened their first active transportation technical advisory committee (TAC), called Rialto Walks, Rides & Rolls, earlier this month. The first meeting was facilitated jointly by KTUA Consulting, Alta Planning and the City of Rialto. Stakeholders in the TAC include community based organizations, businesses and local agencies.

The Southern California Association of Governments will be soliciting partnerships with community based organizations (CBOs) to help assist with outreach and feedback for the Regional Transportation Plan & Sustainable Communities Strategy (RTP/SCS) 2020 update. Connect SoCal is the official branding for The RTP/SCS 2020, and outreach will begin this spring. Eligible CBOs will have opportunities to be compensated to do outreach work with SCAG and the consultant team.

Note: Because some Metropolitan Planning Organizations have not yet released their recommendations for the ATP Cycle 4 MPO component, we have extended the deadline to apply for our Cycle 5 assistance in order to accomodate jurisdictions that are still waiting to find out if their projects will be funded.

If you are working to make streets safer or to increase access to schools and parks so that children and families in your community can have more opportunities for physical activity – we can help!

As we reported last month, the California Transportation Commission announced the results of Cycle 4 of the Active Transportation Program at the beginning of the year. There have been a few updates to the recommendations since then, and we have also had the chance to dig into the numbers and identify some trends.

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