The Collector
March 20, 2026
Help Shape the Future of Fortuna
The City of Fortuna is hosting a public workshop next Wednesday from 5:30 to 8:00 pm at the River Lodge, and another workshop the following week. Both workshops are open to “everyone who lives, works, raises a family or simply cares about Fortuna.” The first workshop will help establish a vision for the future of the community, while the second will begin to develop strategies for achieving that vision. Want to see a more walkable Fortuna? Better public transit and bike infrastructure? More affordable homes? This is a great opportunity to have your voice heard!
Help Shape the Future of Eureka
If you have experience with housing, transportation policy, zoning and land use, you could be the next Senior Planner for the City of Eureka. But you have to act quickly! Applications are due on Monday.
Help Us Get Support for Safer 4th and 5th Streets!
Every day more people are signing CRTP’s petition to Caltrans for safer 4th and 5th Streets in Eureka, but we still need your help! The more people and organizations who sign onto this petition, the stronger the message to Caltrans will be.
You can help by emailing the petition link to family and friends, sharing the link on social media, and re-posting CRTP’s posts about it. If you own a business, you can post a flyer encouraging your customers to sign. If you’re a local community leader, you can endorse the petition. And if you have a little extra time, you can help us collect signatures in person! For more information or to volunteer, email kelsey@transportationpriorities.org.
“Now I can feel safer when I ride to Old Town”
Local musician extraordinaire Moss Gross is out with a new ode to Eureka’s C Street Bike Boulevard. It’s destined to be a hit.
News from Beyond the North Coast
Rep. Huffman Introduces E-Bike Safety Bill
North Coast Congressman Jared Huffman recently joined several other lawmakers in introducing the “Safe SPEEDS Act,” which would finally set clear definitions for e-bikes at the federal level and mandate accurate labeling by manufacturers. By clarifying definitions, the bill could help local and state governments support the powerful potential of e-bikes to get more Americans on bikes while addressing the safety concerns that have arisen from high-powered, deceptively marketed e-motos.
Cars, Wars, and Oil Spills
The events of recent weeks are shining a bright light on some of the impacts of Americans’ dependence on fossil-powered vehicles. Predictably, the US and Israel’s war on Iran has led to a dramatic global spike in fuel prices. Afraid of the reaction of voters to high gas prices, the Trump administration has in turn taken steps including removing sanctions on oil from authoritarian regimes like Russia and ordering the reopening of a California pipeline responsible for one of the worst oil spills in state history. What the administration has refused to do, however, is back away from its reckless pursuit of an entirely fossil-fueled economy. And even here in deep Blue California, leading Democrats push for deregulating gas refineries while the state’s main pension fund refuses to divest from oil companies and air quality regulators give away billions to those same companies in the name of climate action.
In the face of all this horrifying news, we can’t help but wonder: how might our world be different if, instead of compromising our health, our environment, our morals, and our bank accounts to support our addiction to gas-powered cars, we committed our resources to a clean, healthy transportation future?
What’s At Stake in Federal Transportation Reauthorization
Congress is in the midst of negotiating the next five-year funding bill for surface transportation, and the stakes could not be higher. The federal highway trust fund has historically received the vast majority of federal transportation funding, but has nevertheless been essentially bankrupt for years. The Trump administration’s dismantling of clean vehicle rules will lead to drivers paying billions more in gas taxes, but will do nothing to keep the highway trust fund solvent. Meanwhile, all that highway spending is so bad for the climate that just forcing the trust fund to balance its budget each year – which one Republican senator has proposed – would dramatically reduce emissions, despite also slashing climate-friendly transit funding.
Tragically, however, most politicians and lobbyists are not rethinking the current broken system, but instead treating this five-year reauthorization as business as usual. For example: the vast majority of federal funding has always flowed to the states to spend more or less as they want, and – despite the abject failure of states to produce any safety improvements, emissions reductions, or even congestion improvements with prior funding – state transportation departments are now lobbying heavily to get even more funding with even less accountability.
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.