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Greyhound Ending North Coast Service

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The Collector

June 14, 2024

Affordable Downtown Eureka Housing One Step Closer to Reality
Nonprofit affordable housing developer Linc Housing secured additional funding this week, bringing their three downtown projects closer to construction. The projects will replace underutilized parking lots and create much-needed affordable, walkable housing in an area served by both city and regional transit systems. We’re excited to see these projects nearing completion!

Greyhound Ending North Coast Service
CRTP has learned that Greyhound will be ending its route on the North Coast at the end of June, and will no longer provide its previous service between Arcata and San Francisco. We are deeply disappointed with the loss of this important regional bus service. But readers should know that Amtrak continues to provide a similar bus service, and the new Redwood Coast Express service from the Humboldt Transit Authority now allows riders to piece together a low-cost trip from Del Norte to the Bay Area on regional transit buses as well.

Ride Your Bike to the Oyster Festival!
CRTP will be providing our bike valet service at the Oyster Festival in Arcata this Saturday. Ride to the event, and we’ll watch your bike for you – you don’t even need to lock it up!

In our recent Street Story Data Analysis, Central Avenue in McKinleyville rightfully attracted significant attention. Reports indicate that crashes and near misses occur here regularly. Drivers are often reported coming off the freeway at fast speeds and continue in a similar manner down the length of Central, despite stoplights and high traffic. Bicyclists report narrow shoulders near the freeway and not feeling safe biking down Central even with a bike lane due to drivers speeding and high traffic. There are numerous recorded incidents of bicyclists and pedestrians being cut off by drivers who are either not paying attention or trying to get ahead of the non-car travelers. One highlighted report from Central Ave:
“I was bicycling southbound in the bike lane on Central Avenue when a vehicle crossed my path into a parking lot so close to me that I had to brake abruptly and went over the handlebars, injuring my hand and shoulder.”
 
Let us know your experiences on Central Avenue and other areas in Humboldt County on Street Story. Making a report is quick and easy!  Haga clic aquí para hacer un informe en español.
A wide expanse of Central Avenue asphalt is in the foreground, with a parking lot and sign for the McKinleyville Shopping Center behind
The driver was very seriously injured, but thankfully did not hit anybody else. This scary incident highlights the need for significant safety improvements on 11th Street, which along with K Street have been priorities for CRTP for the last few years. The city has recently taken up our idea of starting with near-term, “quick-build” safety improvements to these two streets, and we hope to see changes on the ground soon.
The battery failed while charging. While this may be a first for our area, cheap e-bike batteries have unfortunately caused a number of fires in other communities, almost always due a charging failure. This is a good reminder to only buy e-bikes with UL-listed batteries, and to follow all directions for use and charging. The Redwood Coast Energy Authority has information about what to look for in a quality e-bike on their rebate information page.
The tunnel will be the longest in California, and the biggest and most expensive infrastructure project on the North Coast in many years. It will also come with significant environmental impacts – although less significant than many of the other alternatives that were under consideration. CRTP will monitor the project as designs progress to ensure that there are safe facilities provided for bicyclists and other road users.

News from Beyond the North Coast

Does Jim Wood Think There’s No Transit on the North Coast?
Recently, some politicians have been fighting to exempt rural areas from requirements to assess the amount of driving caused by new development. This assessment has been part of the environmental review process for several years now, and is critical to advancing climate goals and reducing car dependence. But to hear some people talk about it, car-dependent development is the only option in vast swaths of the state. In a recent legislative hearing, the North Coast’s own Assemblymember Jim Wood apparently suggested – falsely – that there’s no point in measuring driving in his district, because there’s no public transit people could use instead.

Of course, there are many transit systems serving the North Coast, and we assume Wood knows that. Maybe the Assemblymember misspoke, or maybe he was misquoted. Either way, fighting to maintain the car-dependent status quo is a terrible idea. We hope that our representatives recognize the urgent need to develop more housing in areas that are served by the buses and bike lanes and sidewalks we have – and to put more funding toward improving those systems instead of pretending they don’t exist.

One Simple Trick for Lowering Car Insurance Rates
Make the streets safer! A new law in Wales lowering traffic speeds has had the result of not only reducing collisions, but also reducing auto insurance costs. Why couldn’t we do the same in this country?

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.