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Inaugural Joint Air Resources Board and Transportation Commission a Hopeful Start

July 25, 2018/by Zac

If we had to sum up the first-ever Joint Air Resources Board (ARB) and California Transportation Commission (CTC) meeting in a word, we’d go with “hopeful“. CalBike and more than a dozen of our allies and partners wouldn’t have missed this important inaugural joint meeting brought about by CalBike-supported Assembly Bill 179, introduced by Assemblymember Sabrina Cervantes (D-Corona), part of a series of efforts to reform the powerful California Transportation Commission, an executive body with far-reaching impact.

The public comments from CalBike’s policy team and our fellow advocates made clear that reducing Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) and Greenhouse Gases (GHGs), improving air quality, increasing public accountability, and achieving a more just transportation system are critical priorities for our diverse communities.

Two publicly available summaries have been developed since then from Streetsblog and California Association of Councils of Government (CALCOG). The two summaries have a different take of the meeting, but both encapsulate it well within their own perspectives. What the summaries – and public comments at the meeting – do make clear is that there is tremendous interest in public stakeholders being more involved in coordination between the two agencies. Attendees at the joint meeting were clear: the ability of the public to provide oversight, accountability, and engagement with any joint actions is absolutely imperative.

It was also clear from the 4-hour meeting that Air Resources Board staff and board-members were already well versed in the state’s sustainable transportation goals. This makes sense, because the ARB’s chief role is to regulate toxic air and the agency acknowledges that the transportation sector is the leading state emitter. On the other hand and contrary to common sense, the California Transportation Commission, which is primarily charged with allocating billions of transportation investments, was clearly out of touch with decreasing VMT and GHGs, and with improving California’s toxic air and lack of social equity. As the two major agencies continue to develop closer relationships, and closer coordination, we hope substantial progress can be made in meeting California’s need for cleaner air, more transportation options, and, ultimately, redress and resolution of the inequities directly caused or influenced by California’s transportation investments. To get our state on the right track, both agencies have to be on the same page.

Timing, as always, has been critical in driving change. Just last week, the ARB released new data showing that the state has hit its 2020 GHG goals ahead of schedule. Superficially, this is great news. At the same time, however, the data also showed that the transportation sector did not substantially play into these achievements. Meeting our 2030 and 2050 greenhouse gas reduction goals is impossible without completely reconstructing our transportation system.

This is where we all have the tremendous opportunity for joint action of the ARB and CTC, and it must be immediate, substantial, and comprehensively coordinated. Stay tuned in the coming weeks and months as CalBike, and our partners, continue to challenge the authorities entrusted to defend our environment and our families to uphold California’s ambitious GHG targets. But, just as importantly, the air quality, equity, and mobility regulations, strategies, and policies that meet the actual needs of ordinary residents. We will be offering specific and detailed recommendations on ways to get there. The next joint meeting is December 4th in Los Angeles, and we are hoping that many others can be involved in this momentous, and hopeful, collaboration ahead.

https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ctcarbrecap-1.png 628 1200 Zac https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.png Zac2018-07-25 22:28:112019-01-08 09:48:14Inaugural Joint Air Resources Board and Transportation Commission a Hopeful Start

New Environmental Justice Report Finds California Transportation Commission Far Behind Equity Goals

July 6, 2018/by Zac

Last week the California Environmental Justice Alliance (CEJA) held a briefing to discuss their second annual Environmental Justice Agency Assessment. The report lays out principles for the inclusion of environmental justice in policy and program implementation for state agencies, including the California Transportation Commission (CTC), an agency CalBike watches closely and which is extremely important this year given the agency’s increased role in making transportation investments from last year’s landmark transportation funding package Senate Bill 1, the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017.

CEJA’s assessment shows disappointing progress by the CTC in making transportation investments more equitably. Specifically, it shows that its investments sustain the inequalities burdening low-income communities of color across the state who face massive and interconnected systems of polluting highways, dangerous roadways, growing port complexes, threatening rail distribution centers, and sprawling warehouse districts. Vulnerable Californians located in close proximity to transportation infrastructure like this are exposed to dangerously high levels of nitrogen oxide, particulate matter, and ozone. Predictably, they  suffer more disease and shorter life expectancy as a result.

The particularly insidious problem is that once we build transportation infrastructure it impacts generations to come as all subsequent development patterns have to connect with them. The CTC has not historically critically assessed the impact of its funding on California’s disadvantaged communities, and its rush to spend the new gas tax money in advance of the proposed gas tax repeal on the ballot this November has not allowed for a critical evaluation of how that money maintains inequities.

The rush in spending money is intended to show the voters that they are getting value for their gas tax money. “Brought to you by SB 1” signs are apparent all over California. But for low-income communities burdened by transportation investments, expedited, uncritical spending is not helpful. These communities and the organizations representing them, led in part by CalBike, did not support SB 1 in the first place due to its failure to protect disadvantaged communities.

Considering that the gas tax is considered a regressive tax by low-income Californians, the CTC has a challenge in convincing the populations burdened by SB 1 infrastructure projects to vote to keep the tax. The new report by CEJA shows they have a long way to go.

An important first step for the CTC is the corridor studies they have just begun. Freight corridors can be transformed with investments to protect adjacent neighborhoods such as the electrification of all truck traffic in special lanes, the construction of better active transportation infrastructure, and better enforcement of existing pollution controls. If the CTC expects voters to support the gas tax in November, they would be wise to show early results from these corridor studies.

As a state, we must actively make space for and include environmental justice communities in all of our policy decisions. Especially when we decide to increase taxes and new funds, there must be space for our most vulnerable residents to be considered important stakeholders as well as opportunities for actual meaningful partnership. Anything else would be a failure to deliver on the promise of a California that is safe and healthy for everyone.

https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/cejareport.png 512 1024 Zac https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.png Zac2018-07-06 22:28:252018-11-15 12:03:01New Environmental Justice Report Finds California Transportation Commission Far Behind Equity Goals

Campaign to Promote E-Bikes in California Turns to BikeShare Programs

July 5, 2018/by Zac

As more people discover the joy of using an electric bike to get around, just like with regular bikes, our communities become better — more equitable, more prosperous, and more inclusive. Bicycles are affordable, safe, healthy, and clean transportation. The problem is, electric bicycles can be expensive. Their cost deters many Californians from trying this valuable and sustainable mobility option.

The California Air Resources Board recognizes this problem when it comes to electric cars. The ARB has distributed almost $536 million dollars to Californians to help them afford electric cars, but so far, not a dime to help them afford the cleanest vehicle of all, the bicycle! CalBike has been working for years to get bikes included as eligible for rebates and purchase incentives through our proposed Bicycle Purchase Incentive Pilot Program. Click here to learn more, and sign our petition.

This year, we saw a new opportunity to promote e-bikes: the expansion of e-bikeshare programs.  

Bikesharing programs have the potential to provide healthy and affordable mobility to millions of Californians. Electric bikeshare programs have extraordinary potential because e-bikes remove the barriers that prevent many people from relying on bikes for transportation. On an e-bike, hills are flattened, distances shortened, and strenuous trips are made easier.

Every study shows that when people have access to e-bikes, their use of an automobile decreases, saving money, improving health, and protecting the climate.  About half of all e-bike trips would have been car trips, at an average of 9 miles according to a recent North American survey. A review of at least 18 European studies found that e-bike users reduced the amount of miles driven by 20% to 76%, with four studies reporting figures of at least 50%.

Despite this potential, e-bikeshare programs do not reach most of California. Bikesharing programs and companies concentrate their service in the wealthy coastal cities, leaving the rest of lower-income California without access to this clean mobility option. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) can solve this disparity easily: simply by including electric bikeshare as an eligible expense in their already-established $15 million program “Clean Mobility Options for Disadvantaged Communities.”

What You Can Do

CalBike has worked with the CARB staff who are planning to recommend a program to the agency’s Board of Directors when they approve their budget in October 2018. You can help by writing to CARB urging them to support the staff proposal. Click here for a sample letter.

 

https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/E-Bike_Rebates-e1538778853200.png 504 1200 Zac https://www.calbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/calbike-logo.png Zac2018-07-05 22:29:262019-08-14 14:16:12Campaign to Promote E-Bikes in California Turns to BikeShare Programs

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