In Action Report 9, we describe how the majority of our Regional Transportation Commission is continuing to move forward as fast as possible on Highway 1 widening projects, and is working hard to make sure nothing gets in the way.
Thinking that it will speed up the construction of the Soquel/Morrissey Auxiliary Lanes Project (which will double the width of the highway in that section) if they build it themselves, they are planning to assume responsibility for the construction—a role that is normally left to Caltrans.
And just to make sure that threats of Global Climate Change won’t get in the way, they say they’ll support Steinberg’s Senate Bill 375, the aim of which is to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT), but only if compliance with SB 375 is voluntary, and only if it won’t threaten the funding for Highway 1 widening.
Thus while they pretend to support legislation that would deal with Global Climate Change, they also want to ensure that any such legislation is toothless.
At least that’s the way we read it. We welcome any comments.
Actions taken at the RTC’s June 5 meeting are posted here, and detail both the Soquel/Morrissey Auxiliary Lane Project and the Highway 1 HOV Lane Widening Project. We welcome your comments!
As we detail in report 7, our Regional Transportation Commission is continuing to sell Highway 1 widening, and is opposing legislation to deal with greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. How can we turn them around on this issue?
Here’s another song whose lyrics I wrote some years ago, but still seems relevant. Let us know what you think of it!
As noted in our report on the April 3 meeting of our Regional Transportation Commission, there was again a UNANIMOUS vote in support of the acquisition of the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line when the Commission approved additional allocations of nearly $200,000 to fund the preliminary work needed.
The Commission also approved the expenditure of over $141,000 for bicycle and pedestrian programs for the coming year.
These actions were most welcome.
If you want to write a note of thanks to the commission, just click on this link to send an email.
At its March 20 meeting, our Regional Transportation Commission voted unanimously to recommend the expenditure of $500,000 to move forward on acquiring the 31-mile Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line from Union Pacific.
More details may be found here.
We welcome any comments!
As our readers may have noticed, we have added a songs section to our site, which now features three songs, “Widening One Won’t Work”, “Funny Thing About Freeways”, & “I’m Goin’ Back on the Bicycle”. “Funny Thing About Freeways” was contributed by “Singing Scientist” Peter Weiss.
Metro Santa Cruz’s blog page has a nice piece by Steve Hahn about the first song.
Let us know what you think of the songs.
As reported by Paul Elerick, Fred Keeley (currently our County Treasurer, formerly Speaker of the California State Assembly, and more recently the Convener of our Transportation Funding Task Force) offered up some strong opinions on February 20. Among other issues, he said we should acquire the 32-mile rail corridor (the Santa Cruz Branch Line) ASAP, even if we don’t know exactly how we might use it, and strongly advised that we not pour more millions of dollars into adding lanes to Highway One.
Since Keeley has completed his work as Convener of the TFTF he now feels free to express his true opinions.
What do you think? Should we change our current transportation policy, which at the moment places first priority on widening Highway One? If so, how?
This is the first post for our Sensible Transportation website. In the wake of our Regional Transportation Commission’s decision to halt its preparation of a Transportation Sales Tax measure for the November 2008 election, it makes sense now to suggest possible strategies for improving our system of transportation for Santa Cruz County—strategies that could enhance our mobility while decreasing the use and need for the private automobile, especially the single-occupant automobile.
Any thoughts on how our community should proceed?
