Fires. Floods. Droughts. Killer heat waves. These are the new normal for California in an ever hotter world. Yet our leaders continue to invest in building freeways and interchanges that lead to more driving, more GHG emissions, more climate chaos.
Something has to change and it starts with where we put our money. California can keep building climate-killing freeways or it can put those transportation dollars toward Complete Streets, giving residents more options to walk, ride a bike, or take public transit.
With the money it takes to build just a few linear miles of new freeway, we can build out whole connected, protected bike networks, giving people of all ages safe routes to school, work, shopping, and more.
We are in the hottest year on record because every year is hotter than the last, and yet, when it came time to find places to cut spending, the governor took two-thirds of the budget for the tiny Active Transportation Program, the only transportation spending fully dedicated to biking and walking infrastructure, while cutting zero dollars from expensive freeway boondoggles.
CalBike calls on our elected officials and agency administrators to recognize the urgency of the crisis and invest in active transportation while divesting from projects that increase VMT. We hope you’ll join us.
California has laid out admirable goals to reduce GHG emissions from transportation, which contributes the most to climate change in our state, but we’re still not moving fast enough to stop climate change before it’s too late. In fact, California continues to apply billions of dollars from its transportation budget to projects that increase greenhouse gas emissions. So CalBike has drafted a People-First Mobility Budget, an alternative transportation spending plan for California that gives residents more mobility options, improves health, increases equity, and helps us meet our climate goals.
We propose the $2.7 billion from SHA be distributed as follows:
25% of the Federal Trust Fund to VMT-reducing projects, including but not limited to implementing transit priority corridors on streets and highways. This would shift an additional $2.5 billion and strengthen the state’s recent efforts in meeting its GHG and VMT reduction goals.
75% of combined state and federal funds to continue to prioritize repair and maintenance of state-controlled roads. The remainder of the state budget plus $7.5 billion in federal funding adds roughly $15 billion. This fix-it-first allocation will pay for needed repairs such as fixing potholes, hardening infrastructure against extreme weather and other failures, and scheduled repaving. No repair projects should include new lanes, interchanges, or other infrastructure that would increase VMT. The $15 billion is more than enough to continue to meet the targets in the State Highway System Management Plan and the Transportation Asset Management Plan, and the goals of SB 1 and its associated programming.
At least half of the above spending should go toward improving infrastructure in historically underserved areas. Transportation racism has created a system of haves and have-nots. No neighborhood should have missing sidewalks, a lack of safe street crossings, streets in disrepair, and a lack of adequate transit connections, but years of malign neglect have led to terrible street conditions in many disadvantaged communities. This funding will provide literal reparations: repairing the damage of racism, one crosswalk at a time.
Zero funding for increased highway capacity. No new freeway lanes, overpasses, or interchanges. California has enough high-capacity, high-volume, high-speed streets. It’s time to build slow streets for people. This shift in funding will allow the above priorities to be implemented.
Invest in Complete Streets: Prioritize new safe, accessible, and equitable infrastructure that makes biking, walking, and micromobility convenient and appealing. Invest in safe roadways for all transportation modes, bringing us closer to Vision Zero and our ambitious climate goals.
Invest in Just Streets: We’re expanding the definition of a Complete Street to mean one where people of all identities and bodies are safe from police harassment. To accomplish this, we must decriminalize biking and walking, including bikes treating stop signs as yields—often used in biased, pretextual policing—to make our complete streets safe for all identities and bodies. Remove discriminatory barriers based on class, race, gender, age, ability, and other identities and invest in communities where the safety of all residents is paramount.
Invest in Complete Communities: No more bike lanes to nowhere. Invest in connected bikeways and pedestrian paths that provide safe, integrated access to essential destinations, making active transportation a viable option for more Californians.
Invest in Thriving Communities: Invest in long-term neighborhood safety, security, and wealth that connects sustainable transportation options with affordable housing that is integrated with healthy destinations. We must empower the communities most impacted by harmful transportation investments to choose their own goals, strategies, and projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, local toxic air, and lethal streets.
Divest from Freeway Expansion: Don’t build one more mile of dead-end infrastructure that increases traffic, damages communities, increases fossil fuel dependence, and creates new maintenance bills that California can’t afford to pay. Divest from failed traffic mitigation policies that lead to gridlock, and invest those funds in infrastructure to move California into the future.
Divest from Climate Collapse: Transportation is the biggest contributor to GHG emissions, so we must divest from projects that increase VMT and invest those funds in low- or no-carbon transportation alternatives.
Divest from Environmental Racism: Low-income communities of color are harmed the most by toxic air, freight distribution, displacement, and gentrification pressures. It’s time to divest from projects that bring environmental degradation and invest those funds in historically marginalized communities.
Divest from Enforcement and Criminalization: Californians need safety from the violence of cars, freight trucks, and other forms of publicly-subsidized harm that especially burden and criminalize Black and brown bodies/communities. Divest from racist, militarized traffic enforcement and invest in community resources to support and protect vulnerable residents.
Divest from Policing as a Street Safety Solution: Law enforcement is often positioned as the prevailing authority on street safety, ignoring other forms of community protection. We cannot trust the police to enforce traffic laws equitably without the removal of white supremacy from law enforcement. Therefore, we must remove police enforcement from Vision Zero and other safe streets strategies.
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Kendra Ramsey2024-07-11 12:30:352024-07-11 12:30:35CTC Invites Public to Weigh in on Active Transportation Program
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Laura McCamy2024-05-29 16:56:132024-05-29 16:56:14CalBike Commends Legislature for Rejecting Active Transportation Cuts
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Jared Sanchez2024-05-22 16:14:332024-07-16 14:06:25California Has a Climate Deficit
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