The Collector
January 16, 2026
Our Voices Were Heard: Regional Transportation Plan Fixes Are on the Way
Following public pressure from CRTP, EPIC, and 350 Humboldt, as well as dozens of our members and supporters, the Humboldt County Association of Governments (HCAOG) Board of Directors showed support this week for addressing the problems we identified with an update of the county’s Regional Transportation Plan. Specifically, a majority of the Board supported restoring use of the phrase “climate crisis” throughout the plan, as well as restoring the existing policy that 80% of new housing should be in non-car-dependent areas, rather than pushing that target date out to 2030. Supervisor Steve Madrone, representing the county, also spoke forcefully in favor of a policy requiring HCAOG to prioritize funding projects that do the most to advance the RTP’s goals of safety, climate action, and equity.
While the HCAOG Board did not take a vote, based on their discussions, we expect these issues to be addressed when the final plan comes to them for adoption next month. Humboldt’s Regional Transportation Plan contains ambitious and science-based policies and targets – even more so than the recently approved Regional Climate Action Plan – and it’s imperative that we keep it that way.
Trinidad Rancheria Part of High-Tech Transportation Safety Pilot
The Trinidad Rancheria will be collaborating with the University of Utah to install high-tech sensors along Scenic Drive and in other parts of the Rancheria, thanks to a pair of federal grants awarded recently. The sensors are intended to detect seismic movements and landslides as well as traffic movements, use AI to predict road hazards, and produce real-time warnings. CRTP will be watching to see if this approach can produce real safety gains, although the energy and expense involved leads us to question how realistic it is for these technologies to be deployed at scale.
Wiyot Family Housing Development Moves Forward, and Other News from Eureka
Eureka’s Design Review Committee this week approved the Gou’wik Hou Daqh “Where the Families Are” Wiyot Family Housing Development, to be built on the site of the current city parking lot at 5th and D Streets. CRTP has been working to support the conversion of underused downtown parking lots into walkable housing for many years, and we are excited to see this project move another step closer to construction.
In other news from Eureka, the City Council is slated to adopt new Strategic Visioning Goals that include, among many other things: doubling down on transportation safety efforts, developing a new transit hub in Henderson Center, creating “pedestrian-centric parkways,” seeking funding for pedestrian lighting along Broadway, and implementing a better parking management program in core areas.
Speaking of parking management, city staff told Transportation Safety Commission members this week that the city is proceeding with its paid parking program for downtown lots and preparing to expand it to on-street parking. Staff also outlined plans to reprogram many of the city’s traffic signals to reduce conflicts and improve safety.
But the news from Eureka is not all good. Unfortunately, the City Council recently decided to appeal its allocation of affordable housing through the state-mandated Regional Housing Needs Assessment. Specifically, the city objects to the use of vehicle miles traveled as a major factor in allocating lower-income homes throughout the county, which results in Eureka – as the county’s most walkable community – having to plan for more affordable housing.
CRTP believes that all communities need affordable housing, but concentrating such housing in car-dependent areas rather than walkable communities like Eureka penalizes people who can’t afford to own or operate a vehicle. Moreover, when we pushed for more housing at all income levels to be built in non-car-dependent areas, the city objected to that, too – a history which undermines the moral case they are trying to make against “concentrating poverty” in Eureka.
Provide Input on Del Norte Active Transportation Plan
Del Norte County is developing a much-needed active transportation plan, and there are currently two opportunities to provide input: You can take a survey about your experiences and priorities, and you can provide location-specific comments on a map. We encourage anyone who lives, works, or visits Del Norte to use both tools to provide input. You can find out more about the plan here. Let’s encourage Del Norte to start prioritizing the safety and mobility of people walking, biking, and rolling!
We Can’t Enforce Our Way to Safety
The Eureka Police Department has taken every opportunity lately to remind the public that they are conducting more – way more – traffic stops than they used to. But serious crashes just keep on happening. It is tempting to believe that better enforcement of traffic laws would solve our safety problems. And it’s true that a small number of people drive especially dangerously as a matter of habit, which is why we support efforts to revoke driving privileges from the most egregious violators. But the research consistently shows that enforcement can’t produce sustained, community-wide reductions in serious crashes. When you add in the fact that traffic stops are often used as a pretext for other investigations rather than targeting genuinely unsafe behavior, and the fact that people of color are almost always targeted disproportionately, you can see why CRTP does not support police enforcement as a major strategy for improving safety.
Barriers to Better Bus Service
A recent article on the Lost Coast Outpost explored the question of why Humboldt County doesn’t have better bus service. The answers will be familiar to regular readers of The Collector. Low-density, car-dependent development makes effective transit service very hard to provide, and the Humboldt Transit Authority has a very small budget to work with.
The article singled out the proposed “Roger’s Garage” affordable housing project in Bayside, noting that there is currently no bus service to Bayside due to the low-density development pattern, but it’s possible there could be service in the future if the project generates enough local demand. Given the current lack of transit service, CRTP’s focus for the Roger’s Garage project is on accelerating progress toward addressing the dangerous conditions for bicyclists and pedestrians at the Samoa Boulevard/US-101 interchange, which is currently a major barrier for people walking and biking from Bayside to the rest of Arcata.
Unmentioned in the Outpost article is the need for improvement of the Eureka and Arcata transit systems, which serve the densest parts of the county but run complicated, infrequent, and inconvenient loop routes. If you have ideas about improving transit in Eureka specifically, click here to take a survey being conducted by a local student about just that topic.
News from Beyond the North Coast
Let’s Talk About the Cost of Cars
With politicians focusing much of their energy lately on the issue of affordability, cars are a major blind spot. While the cost of gas gets plenty of air time, the other costs of car ownership – which collectively are much greater than the cost of fuel – are largely ignored.
This Is Your Brain on Cars
“Car brain” – also called windshield bias or, more academically, motonormativity – is a real thing. And it’s causing huge problems.
Newsom’s Budget Again Fails to Invest in Active Transportation
Governor Newsom’s January budget proposal leaves investment in pedestrian and bike infrastructure at historically low levels, despite massive demand from local communities. Meanwhile, new research confirms that building this kind of infrastructure leads directly to more people walking and biking, which the state needs in order to meet its climate targets – not to mention improve public health and stimulate local economies.
Trump’s EPA Doesn’t Value Human Life
The US EPA has proposed new rules which fail to assign any dollar value to human lives saved by pollution regulations, while assigning large values to the supposed costs of such regulations to corporations. The predictable result will be that almost any proposed regulation will appear to have huge costs and no benefits, and will therefore not be adopted. If this approach is applied to new vehicle regulations, the implications for transportation will be significant.
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.
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