The Collector
May 23, 2025
Editor’s Note: The Collector will be taking a break for the next couple of weeks. We’ll be back with more transportation information and analysis in June!
CRTP Launches New Tool for Faster Safety Upgrades
This week, CRTP published our new web-based Quick-Build Toolkit. Quick-build projects use paint and other low-cost materials to improve streets quickly, typically without expensive groundbreaking or paving work. Quick-builds can take months to go from concept to construction, instead of the years or decades that are often required for conventional street improvements.
The new toolkit is meant to support the implementation of urgently needed safe and sustainable transportation upgrades in North Coast communities. Check it out, and then encourage your local government to try out the quick-build approach!
While you’re at it, you can also support a state bill to create a pilot quick-build program for Caltrans, too. With thousands of people dying on state highways every year – including Caltrans’ own employees – there is a clear need for rapid safety improvements on state as well as local routes.
Don’t Let the State Undermine Our Transit Funding Victory
California Streetsblog, a statewide publication about all things transportation, just described the Humboldt County Measure O transit funding win as “one of the largest victories for transportation reform in the state in 2025.” But the promise of this new funding could be undermined immediately if state support for transit is slashed at the same time. Let’s not let that happen.
Email Senator McGuire and Assemblymember Rogers and ask them to preserve existing transit funding programs and include new emergency transit funding in this year’s budget.
Meanwhile, even as the governor proposes no funding for major transit grant programs and drastic underfunding for bike and pedestrian safety, millions continue to roll in for state highways.
One More Week of Bike Month!
The world-famous, pedal-powered Kinetic Grand Championship takes place this weekend, and Bike Month wraps up with the annual Bike Celebration next Saturday, May 31st, at the Jefferson Community Center in Eureka. And while you’re marking your calendar, don’t forget about the Humboldt Bay Trail Grand Opening Celebration taking place in June!
Seeking Bike Valet Volunteers!
CRTP is looking for volunteers to help out with bike valet at the Juneteenth Day Festival on Saturday, June 21st at Halvorsen Park in Eureka. If you’re available to help that day, please reply to this email and let us know. If you want to help with bike valet but aren’t available for the Juneteenth event, let us know that too – we have plenty of other bike valet volunteer opportunities coming up!
Humboldt Parking Lots Host Fish-Killing Tire Toxin
In recent years, scientists have identified a chemical contained in car and truck tires that is highly toxic to aquatic life, particularly coho salmon. With every vehicle emitting trillions of microscopic tire particles on every trip, chemicals like this inevitably end up in the environment. Now, a study by Humboldt Waterkeeper has identified high concentrations of the toxic “6PPD-quinone” in runoff from large parking lots in Arcata and Eureka. So you can add saving the coho to the long list of reasons that we need to start driving less.
News from Beyond the North Coast
Study: Kids’ Risk of Death Almost Doubles When Hit by SUV
A new study has found that the risk of a pedestrian or bicyclist being killed is 44% higher when hit by an SUV or pick-up truck than when hit by a sedan. For kids, the increased risk is 82%. This research adds to the growing evidence suggesting that car and truck bloat is one of the main causes of increasing pedestrian deaths in the United States.
Maybe “Toxic Masculinity” Is More Than a Metaphor
A study in France has concluded that men emit 26% more climate pollution than women on average. Most of that difference is caused by men eating more meat and driving more, suggesting that cultural norms encouraging environmentally destructive male behavior are playing a major role in exacerbating global climate chaos.
Washington Becomes First State to Permit Shared Streets
Shared streets, also called woonerfs, are common in Europe and becoming more popular in the United States. A new law in Washington state is the first in the US to allow speed limits as low as 10 mph and to formalize a hierarchy for shared streets, where bicyclists are required to yield to pedestrians and motorists are required to yield to bicyclists.
Congress Votes to Block California’s Electric Vehicle Mandate
Despite lawyers and Congress’ own parliamentary experts warning that the action is illegal, the US House and Senate have voted to repeal federal approval for California’s plan to transition to 100% zero-emission vehicle sales by 2035. While electric vehicles leave many car-related problems unsolved (see for example the article above about tire pollution), they are nevertheless a crucial part of any serious effort to address the climate crisis. California officials have announced they will challenge the action in court.
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.