Court Stops Highway 50 Expansion

Judge Frawley today released his order in the NAST/ECOS lawsuit challenging the adequacy of Caltrans' environmental review of the proposed Highway 50 expansion. The short story is that we won. Here's a quote from the soon-to-be-distributed press release:

Judge Timothy M. Frawley of the Superior Court of California, County of Sacramento, issued a ruling halting the progress of CalTrans’ plan to widen Highway 50 between Sunrise and Watt Avenues. Neighbors Advocating Sustainable Transportation (NAST) and the Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS) filed the suit because CalTrans’ analysis of the project’s air pollution and climate change impacts was inadequate, and the project did not consider options that did not involve widening the freeway. The ruling was issued on July 15th. The lawsuit was originally filed in June of 2007.

Among other findings, Judge Frawley found that CalTrans failed to:

Complete an analysis of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and disclose the air quality impacts associated with the traffic increase.

Consider a reasonable range of potential alternatives, including the feasibility of a transit only alternative as way of meeting the project objectives.

Adequately address the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the project.

The entire text of the judge's order is available here. I'll post the press release as soon as it is ready.


Thanks to everyone who provided logistical, financial, and moral support over the past year. This victory is a triumph for the transparent and thorough public process that CEQA demands. We look forward to a more thorough and honest debate about the value of more freeway lanes in the Sacramento region. Given what's happened to gas prices in the past year, that debate should be very interesting!


Update: Here is the press release.

Some Reflections from the Motherland of Congestion

Here's an interesting piece about traffic congestion in Los Angeles, where they know a thing or two about traffic nightmares.

The story really makes two noteworthy points: 1) traffic congestion is less a question of infrastructure capacity and more a problem of lifestyle choices; and 2) voluntary congestion relief measures will not by themselves induce people to make the changes that need to be made to make clogged roadways run smoothly. Parking pricing and other deterrent programs are an important part of keeping traffic volumes in check.

Sacramento Region's Master Transportation Plan open for Comments

Sacramento's blueprint for transportation over the next 28 years is prepared and ready for comment. Of interest is the over-emphasis on road expansion and maintenance at the cost of fewer options for transit riders.

You can access the MTP documents on line, each section downloads individually due to size constraints. The core of the plan can be found in the summary of the budget and investments.

Comments are due to SACOG on the MTP by December 20, 2007. Send your concerns to:
Matt Carpenter
mcarpenter@sacog.org; by mail to SACOG, ATTN: MTP Comments, 1415 L Street, Suite 300, Sacramento, CA 95814; by fax to (916) 321-9551; or by phone at (916) 321-9000.

Affordable Housing and Air Quality

Sacramento County has one of the most innovative and progressive affordable housing ordinances in the country. The ordinance was crafted with a coalition of building industry representatives and housing advocates and went into affect in 2005. Yet, just as soon as a more politically favorable climate emerged on the County Board of Supervisors, the Building Industry Association began to backtrack. The ordinance, which has already created 4,000 new affordable units, is now in jeopardy according to the Sacramento Bee:

The building industry challenged this ordinance in court and lost the first round. That would suggest the county is on strong legal footing with its requirement that 15 percent of any new development provide for affordable housing.

Yet for dubious reasons, a new majority on the Board of Supervisors has been negotiating a settlement with the building industry to revise this landmark ordinance. Housing advocates, who helped craft the original law, were excluded from these talks and only recently have seen details of the settlement proposal. What they've seen gives them great fear that supervisors are preparing to rush through changes that undermine the goals of the 2004 ordinance.

It isn't a stretch to link the lack of affordable housing in our urban areas to poor air quality. Just think about the situation in the Bay Area during the past several decades. As housing prices soared, more and more families had to search for housing outside of the urban corridors--Livermore, Gilroy, San Benito County, Santa Rosa. These commuters spend hours a day on the freeway in order to fulfill the American Dream. But that Dream has turned into a nightmare as congestion worsened and pollution emissions increased. In the Bay Area most of that pollution drifts through the Delta to worsen air quality in the Central Valley. See the Transportation and Land Use Coalition website for more on the links between housing, environment and transportation.

In the same fashion, greenhouse gas emissions increase with the increase in the vehicle miles traveled to these affordable homes. It is imperative that local politicians do all they can to create and enhance a mix of affordable homes in the urban core in order to stem the rise in homelessness and improve our environment. Contact the Sacramento Housing Alliance to find out what you can do to protect affordable housing in sacramento.

Meta-blogging

I make a conscious effort not to put together too many posts that unreflectively link to other sites. In my humble opinion, any blog worth its salt must provide some original content, thought, or synthesis. Simply pointing people to other writers’ posts is journalistic parasitism, and it doesn’t usually make for good reading.

Nevertheless, I think it’s worth sending out some recognition to other sites that are of interest because of their perspective on transportation and/or the natural resource policies in the Sacramento region. Here are a few that I’ve found interesting.

The blog Walkable Neighborhoods just finished a monthlong photographic examination of the walkability of urban areas in the United States. Each day, Eric Fredericks posted photos and/or commentary highlighting pedestrian-friendly urban design around the country. Some of the choices were, to say the least, unexpected. (Sacramento’s K Street mall? Sure, it’s walkable. But give me a reason to want to walk there!) And the project might be faulted for its heavy reliance on university towns and incorporated enclaves of wealth, both of which are able to address growth and traffic issues in ways that can’t easily be exported to cities where the teeming masses work and play. Nevertheless, the project is provocative, and some of the material is both enlightening and inspiring.

Locally, Sacramento is blessed with a complementary set of blogs focused on Sacramento Regional Transit, the public transportation agency that is the object of both affection and frustration for many of us. RT Driver provides an employee’s perspective on both daily life in the Sacramento transit system and on policy issues affecting operations. RT Rider covers many of the same issues from the perspective of a passenger. Both blogs have had fascinating and passionate entries on the proposed cuts to transit service as a result of the Governor’s and Legislature’s cowardly budget proposals. Check those entries out here and here. (And make plans to appear at the RT Public Hearing at 6 PM on Aug. 13!)

Finally, SacBee editor Stuart Leavenworth is slowly establishing a blog covering global warming issues. He calls it the Hot House. I’m at best ambivalent about the Sacramento Bee’s journalistic and editorial coverage of transportation and air quality issues in the region. Still, a global warming blog is a great idea, and I’m hoping that providing a forum focused on the issue has impacts on the rest of their editorial policy. Leavenworth recently has had a couple of provocative posts about the Attorney General’s strategy of forcing local planning agencies to include greenhouse gas emissions in their CEQA analysis. Read those posts here and here.

Private Sector Approaches

As an advocacy organization, ECOS naturally is especially concerned with public policy issues that affect transportation and natural resources. But it's worth noting that there are private sector enterprises that see opportunity in providing people with alternatives to the individually owned automobile as a way of getting around. Here are two examples.

Notwithstanding the French love of the Tour de France and the hackneyed image of the baguette-bearing cycliste, France's capital city isn't famous for being bicycle friendly. (Maybe that's a consequence of the populace having smoked a few too many Gauloises.) Nevertheless, a recent venture is attempting to convince Parisians to take advantage of the city's 230-mile network of bike lanes. Velib ("Velo liberte") is a city sponsored project financed by the advertising giant JC Decaux (better known to Californians as the developers of San Francisco's pay toilets/advertising kiosks). Velib has established a citywide network of 750 bicycle stations where residents and tourists can rent one of 10,648 three-speed bicycles. Other European cities have attempted to provide free bicycles for the temporary use of anyone moving around the urban area, but people tend to undervalue (and therefore abuse) goods and services provided for free. The Velib strategy is to charge a small daily or monthly fee for bicycle use. Also, the bikes are equipped with alarms that go off if they're not returned on time. Other cities, even some in the United States, are watching closely to see if the project works.

In most places in the U.S., using an automobile to get around is at least an occasional necessity. But in urban areas, not everyone needs a car all the time. Many people wind up dumping lots of money and resources (purchase price, maintenance, insurance, parking) into cars that they don't need to use every day. For these people, car ownership is inefficient and needlessly expensive. What's more, once you own a car, you find reasons to use it.

One solution is car sharing. Car sharing is basically a form of car rental-- a service that makes cars quickly and cheaply available for rental by the hour. By making it easier for people to acquire a shared vehicle, car sharing services make it possible for people to forego individual car ownership, even if they need an automobile on a regular basis. Reducing the number of cars in circulation has direct impacts on parking demand and land use in densely populated areas. And by reducing the availability of vehicles, it can also reduce congestion by encouraging people to use alternative means (transit, bicycles, walking) to get around. For-profit car share enterprises exist in the East Bay and San Francisco, among other places.

ECOS and NAST file suit against Caltrans

ECOS and NAST have jointly filed a lawsuit challenging the adequacy of
Caltrans' environmental analysis for the Highway 50 expansion project.
While it's unfortunate that we had to resort to litigation, it's also
exhilerating that we've been able to put together a coalition to
forcefully stand up to the state's leading transportation agency to demand
honesty and accountability concerning the impacts of this project for our
region and our neighborhoods.

I've posted our press release that gives more details.

The story has also been picked up by the Capital Public Radio and by the Sacramento Business Journal.

ECOS has never opposed carpools. We do, however, oppose road widening projects dressed up as dubious incentives to carpooling. More importantly, we demand that our policymakers and the public at large be told the full story about the costs and benefits of highway widening. If we as a region are going to invest in road projects that will increase traffic, air pollution, and the other woes that come with an automobile-based transportation system, then we also need to be investing in mitigation measures that will counter those impacts. Those measures could include further investment in the fledgling light rail line that runs parallel to the highway Caltrans proposes expanding. It could mean cooperating with other agencies to implement programs that are proven to reduce automobile traffic. Any number of mitigation measures are imaginable-- but the first step is to admit that widening freeways will induce more vehicular traffic.

Litigation is, of course, expensive, and we are actively soliciting support. PLEASE continue to support this effort by sending us a check. Friends of ECOS, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is accepting donations specifically for this lawsuit. Mark your check "Highway 50 litigation fund" and send it to:

Friends of ECOS
909 12th Street, Suite 100
Sacramento, CA 95814

Donations are tax deductible.