The Collector
September 26, 2025
The Week Without Driving Starts on Monday!
Next week, September 29 through October 5, 2025, CRTP, Tri-County Independent Living, the Humboldt Transit Authority, and the Humboldt County Association of Governments are organizing the annual Week Without Driving on the North Coast. The Week Without Driving is an invitation for anyone who wants to participate – but particularly for elected and appointed officials, transportation planners and engineers, and other decision-makers – to get some first-hand experience of what it is like to live without the option of driving, here in our local communities.
Nondrivers include many people with disabilities, kids, older people, immigrants, people with suspended licenses, and people who can’t afford to own or operate a vehicle. Humboldt County’s nondrivers include at least 36,000 people without a driver’s license, as well as an unknown number of people who have a license but can’t drive for financial or other reasons.
For participants in the Week Without Driving, the challenge is to not drive themselves in any car. If participants do end up driving during the week, they are encouraged to reflect on why they ended up driving, and what they would have done if they didn’t have that option. Local decision-makers who sign up to participate in the Week Without Driving are also invited to ride along with a local transit rider on one of their regular routes to gain additional first-hand insights into using the local transit system.
As of this writing, 55 local residents in Humboldt County have signed up to participate in the Week Without Driving, including elected officials and other local leaders. And there’s still time to sign up! Everyone is invited to participate, and public officials and transportation decision-makers are particularly encouraged to take part. Click here to learn more and sign up to participate.
Two Opportunities to Weigh In On Humboldt’s Transportation Future
Every four years, state law requires regions to update their long-term Regional Transportation Plans. Humboldt County’s new plan is due next January, and the Humboldt County Association of Governments (HCAOG) is preparing now. You can provide your input on the new plan by clicking here and taking a brief survey.
CRTP is a fan of Humboldt County’s current plan, which includes ambitious “Safe and Sustainable Transportation Targets” for cutting climate pollution and increasing transportation safety. CRTP and our supporters worked hard to ensure these targets were included in the current plan, and we’ll be advocating to keep them in the new plan – and to make sure we actually make progress toward meeting those targets, too.
HCAOG is also developing an official regional Vision Zero Action Plan, which is intended to lay out the steps necessary to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries throughout the county. You can provide input by taking a 10-minute survey about your safety concerns and priorities.
The Bus Stops Here
Do you have a business next to an existing bus stop in Humboldt County? The Humboldt Transit Authority is now offering static cling signs reading “The Bus Stops Here” for businesses by bus stops to place in a window. The signs help educate the public about our local transit system – and HTA will even feature your business on social media if you share a photo! For more information and to get your sign, email marketing@hta.org.
Hiller Road Safety Project Needs Your Support!
Regular readers of The Collector may recall that the region’s first major quick-build project, a Humboldt County bike and pedestrian safety upgrade on Hiller Road in McKinleyville, is scheduled to be built very soon – in fact, we expect it to be done within the next week or two! This project involves a significant public art component, but the county won’t be paying for that part, and donations are still needed. Click here to join CRTP in sponsoring beautiful, traffic-calming asphalt art in McKinleyville!
To learn more about the quick-build process and the potential for other local quick-build projects, listen to this episode of the EcoNews Report and check out CRTP’s Quick-Build Toolkit.
Tragedy Narrowly Avoided During High-Speed Chase
This week, according to the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, two officers were injured and a driver “narrowly miss[ed] pedestrians” during a high-speed chase. High-speed police chases are notorious for resulting in injuries or deaths, often involving innocent bystanders. Many jurisdictions across the country have banned or restricted them as a result.
News from Beyond the North Coast
It Wasn’t A Great Year for New Bike Laws
The legislative session just wrapped up in Sacramento, and bills approved by the legislature are now awaiting the signature (or veto) of the governor. Most of the top bills for bike advocates, however, didn’t make it that far. Bills establishing a Caltrans quick-build program and a bike highway pilot program both failed to pass. Legislators also failed to restore funding following last year’s draconian cuts to the Active Transportation Program, which funds most major bike and pedestrian safety projects in the state and is always short of money.
Congress Needs to Keep Its Funding Promises
CRTP recently signed onto a national letter urging Congress to fight the Trump administration’s actions to withhold or claw back money already approved by Congress for bike, pedestrian, and other safety programs. It’s hard to see how any future financial decisions by Congress can be taken seriously if agreed and approved funding can be unilaterally withdrawn later at the whim of the president or the party in power.
The Collector is CRTP’s weekly transportation news roundup, published every Friday. We focus on North Coast news, but we also include relevant state, national and international transportation news – plus other items that we just find kind of interesting! To submit items for consideration, email colin@transportationpriorities.org.