The Collector
June 19, 2026
More Street Art Is Coming to McKinleyville!
Following up on last fall’s quick-build safety project on McKinleyville’s Hiller Road, Humboldt County Public Works is working with the McKinleyville Municipal Advisory Committee’s Subcommittee for Active Transportation and Seagoat Farm Stand & Folk School to bring more traffic-calming street art to the intersection of Hiller Road and McKinleyville Avenue. Murals will be painted at the corners of the very wide intersection, in order to slow drivers and make it easier for bicyclists and pedestrians to cross the street. This is part of a project CRTP has been promoting and helping to organize for the last several years.
The painting will be done by local mural artists Ben Goulart and Sam Jones, but volunteers are needed to provide support from Friday, June 26th through Sunday, June 28th. If you’re interested in volunteering, please email megan@seagoatfarmstand.org.
Local Residents Look to Stop Amazon at the Ballot Box
Residents throughout Northern Humboldt are organizing to stop the proposed Amazon distribution center in McKinleyville by taking the issue directly to voters this fall. The newly formed “Save Our Coast” campaign has drafted a ballot measure that would prohibit warehouses and distribution centers bigger than 20,000 square feet in the county’s coastal zone, effectively blocking the Amazon project. Marine-dependent facilities would be exempted from the ban. Anyone interested in volunteering to help gather signatures for the ballot should email Debbie.Harrison.Rumberger@gmail.com.
CRTP opposes the Amazon distribution center project and supports efforts to stop its construction. Faster delivery, one of the project’s main goals, is one of the main drivers of climate pollution from online shopping. Additionally, anything that encourages online ordering undermines the emissions reductions that otherwise come from building homes within walking and biking distance of local shops.
The distribution center is also projected to generate 542 (mostly truck) trips in an area where there are several schools and many of the main transportation routes lack bike lanes or sidewalks. Without safety upgrades to local streets and roads, this new traffic would add to the dangers already faced by people walking, biking, and rolling in McKinleyville and other communities in the region.
Community Meeting on Offshore Wind Terminal Project
Next Wednesday from 5:30-7:30 pm at the Arcata Community Center, the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation & Conservation District’s Community Advisory Committee will be hosting a community meeting about the plans to build an “offshore wind heavy lift marine terminal.” Despite the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine offshore wind projects, including revoking hundreds of millions of dollars in grant funding to the Harbor District, the district and the state of California are continuing to pursue the project.
CRTP’s Executive Director Colin Fiske is a member of the Harbor District’s Green Terminal Advisory Committee. We advocate to ensure that the project produces as little pollution as possible, including from the heavy trucks accessing the terminal, and that any increase in car and truck traffic is mitigated by safety improvements on local streets and roads. The community meeting next week is a great time for CRTP supporters to bring up these issues to ensure they are considered as the project moves forward!
News from Beyond the North Coast
Sprawl Is Bad for Your Health & Your Wallet
A new report from Johns Hopkins University finds that residents of lower density, more sprawling communities have worse health outcomes and fewer social connections. In contrast, residents of denser, more walkable communities are not only healthier and have better social lives, they also pay substantially less in electricity and transportation costs, making their overall cost of living lower.
Trump Administration: Racist Transportation Projects Are OK
The US Department of Transportation has rescinded a long-standing civil rights rule that prohibited federally funded projects from having a disproportionate negative impact on communities of color.
Take a Stand for the Right to Sit Down
Fed up with the lack of places to sit while waiting for the bus, community groups and individuals from San Francisco to Chattanooga have taken the issue into their own hands. These grassroots activists are now inviting anyone and everyone to join them in making the bus riding experience just a little bit nicer by making and installing low-cost DIY benches at bus stops. Plans and instructions are freely available from several organizations online.
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.