Police Stops, Car Crashes and Parking Enforcement

Posted on July 17, 2020 by Colin Fiske

The Collector

July 17, 2020

County Enforcement of Encroachment Permits Starts Today
Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal announced this week that his office will start enforcement procedures against businesses that have moved dining tables or retail operations into parking areas without a permit. We have a couple of questions: (1) Is keeping parking spaces free of obstructions really a top priority for the county right now? (2) Even if officials for some reason think the answer to question #1 is “yes,” does it really need to be done by gun-toting law enforcement officers? If this is what police departments are spending their time on, maybe a little de-funding doesn’t seem so radical.

Alert: Driving Is Really Dangerous
We don’t cover most local car crashes in The Collector, partly because there are just so many of them. But a number of major crashes made the news this week, and sometimes it’s worth a reminder that driving is just a really dangerous activity.

Arcata Police Department Moves Ahead with Some Reforms
Meanwhile, Eureka continues to devote half its budget to police. Unmentioned in most reports on police reform, but critical to remember, is that the vast majority of police encounters with members of the public happen on the street – in car lanes, in bike lanes, on the shoulder or on the sidewalk. The recently introduced federal BREATHE Act would, for example, prohibit “pretextual stops and ‘consent’ searches.”

Eureka City Council to Discuss Tax Renewal
The city’s “Supplemental Transactions and Use Tax” is scheduled to expire, and its renewal will likely appear on November’s ballot. Tax revenues are used for a number of purposes, including building and maintaining transportation infrastructure.

Car Culture Restaurant Opens on Broadway
A drive-thru restaurant decided that it didn’t really need people to actually leave their vehicles, so it could open during the pandemic after all. Imagine that.

Tech Data: Humboldt Residents Are Moving Around More
But they’re not necessarily going to the same places they used to.

Reminder: Make Your Street Story Reports
If you see or experience a hazard, near-miss or collision on the street, make your Street Story report here. CRTP uses reports to advocate for change, and local agencies use them to apply for grants and prioritize improvements. Your reports are important!

DMV Lets Older Drivers Keep Their Licenses for a Year
Drivers over 70 are usually required to renew their licenses in person, in part to test their eyesight and otherwise confirm that they are still able to safely drive. Due to the pandemic, the California DMV is waiving that requirement for a year. We don’t want vulnerable seniors to have to visit a DMV office either, but please don’t forget: This isn’t just meaningless red tape – driving is dangerous!

A Conservative Argument to Abolish Single-Family Zoning
In the US, suburban single-family subdivisions have been associated with political conservatism for decades. But single-family zoning restricts property rights and the suburbs are dependent on massive federal highway subsidies for survival. Doesn’t sound too conservative, does it?

Local Elections and “The Disability Vote”
Local officials have a lot of influence over how accessible streets, roads and other public facilities are.

House Climate Report Incorporates Transportation and Land Use
It’s pretty unusual for a mainstream climate platform to address transportation with anything more than “let’s electrify all the cars.” So we are encouraged by the House Democrats’ report, which includes important measures like building more housing near transit and improving bicycle and pedestrian safety.

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.

More Street Art is Coming to Eureka

Posted on July 10, 2020 by Colin Fiske

The Collector

July 10, 2020

Eureka City Council Approves Housing on Parking Lots
Despite complaints from some nearby tenants, the Council unanimously voted to move ahead with attempts to attract developers to build low-income housing on three city-owned parking lots. CRTP fully supports the move. Below is a photo of one of the parking lots at issue, earlier in the day of the City Council meeting. The number of empty spaces is telling.

Eureka Street Art Festival Bringing Murals to Henderson Center
There won’t be a block party this year. But artists will still be sprucing up the city with cool murals! For those of us who think a lot about the pragmatics of transportation, it’s important to remember that art can play an important role in improving the streets.

Eureka Budget, Transit Agreement on Council Agenda
As car-minded pundits like to say, local budgets are “where the rubber meets the road” for policy implementation.

CHP Conducts High-Speed Chase
These kinds of pursuits are notorious for causing injury and death. Luckily, this time the only damage appears to have been to a vehicle.

How About We Don’t Include Road-Building in the Next Infrastructure Legislation?
It’s just not a good investment.

PG&E Offers EV Savings Calculator
Wondering if an electric vehicle is in your future?

The E-Bike Ad That Couldn’t Be Shown on French TV
What’s so offensive about it? It makes the car industry look bad.

Will COVID Change Everything?
More experts weigh in on the post-pandemic future of transportation.

Bike Lanes Can Be “Functionally Obsolete” Too
“Functional obsolescence” is the term engineers use to describe infrastructure that no longer meets modern standards. Frequently, it’s used to justify very expensive upgrades to vehicle-serving infrastructure. Almost never is it applied to active transportation infrastructure, despite the fact that old bike lanes and sidewalks – and even many new ones – frequently fail to meet modern standards.

Shutdowns Saved a Lot of Animals
The daily death toll of wildlife on American roadways is normally astronomical.

A Bold Proposal for Manhattan
What could the heart of one of the world’s great cities look like with no personal automobiles?

Turning Parking Lots into Housing in Eureka?

Posted on July 3, 2020 by Colin Fiske

The Collector

July 3, 2020

Turning Parking Lots into Housing in Eureka?
The City of Eureka will hold a public hearing next week on a proposal to allow development of affordable housing on land currently occupied by under-utilized parking lots. This is the kind of creative approach to infill development that’s necessary to meet both housing and driving-reduction goals, and CRTP fully supports the move.

CRTP Teams Up with EPIC, Humboldt Baykeeper on Subdivision Comments
In a second comment letter on the huge McKay subdivision project, we elaborate on the legal insufficiency of the transportation impact analysis and also discuss impacts to ecosystems and wildlife. You can read our first comment letter with EPIC here.

Activists Roll Around Eureka for Rent, Mortgage Relief
Taking to the streets continues to be the preferred method of protest for many. Using wheels lets you cover more ground.

Planning Commission to Consider Samoa Development Permit
The Humboldt County Planning Commission will hold a hearing on a Coastal Development Permit for the long-planned redevelopment and expansion of the Town of Samoa. CRTP is concerned about the impacts of developing more and more housing in areas far removed from public transit and other services.

Arcata Transit System Agrees to Conditional Deal with HSU
Humboldt State students, faculty and staff provide most of the ridership for the Arcata Mad River Transit System. Each year, the university pays the City of Arcata (which operates the system) a fixed amount based on the previous year’s ridership figures to cover the cost of the next year’s rides. With the new academic year approaching, the city and the university have inked a deal. But ridership predictions are a big question mark due to the ongoing effects of the pandemic on university operations. For that reason, the contract contains a provision to allow renegotiation at the end of October based on actual ridership up to that date. So the system appears to be fully funded for now – but if student ridership stays low (as it probably will), the funding system could come crashing down later in the fall.

County Residents Want Parks
In unincorporated urban areas like Cutten and Myrtletown, the county only maintains one kind of public space: roads. Residents are asking for neighborhood parks, but the county says it doesn’t really do that. Here’s an idea: allow some roads to function as parks with Slow Streets, public art, and placemaking.

Reminder: Make Your Street Story Reports
9 new hazards and 7 near misses have been reported in the county in the last few weeks. If you see or experience a hazard, near-miss or collision on the street, make your Street Story report here. CRTP uses reports to advocate for change, and local agencies use them to apply for grants and prioritize improvements. Your reports are important!

Transportation Commission Approves Bike/Ped Funding, Talks About Equity
Commissioners fulfilled their promise to set aside a full $100 million for active transportation projects, then delved into the issue of transportation equity – a somewhat shocking turn of events for an agency that historically has never seen a highway project it didn’t like.

Caltrans Rolls Out New Five-Year Safety Plan
Fatalities have been rising in the state for years, particularly among bicyclists and pedestrians.

Transportation Folded into Bigger Infrastructure Bill
The INVEST Act, House Democrats’ transformative transportation bill, has now been incorporated into the much bigger Moving Forward Act, a comprehensive infrastructure bill. Also included: a provision from our very own Representative Huffman to fund a switch to electric mail trucks and charging stations!

Safe Routes to School: Enforcement Is Not a Solution
In light of undeniable inequities in law enforcement nationwide, the national Safe Routes Partnership has eliminated enforcement from its list of guiding principles.

Four Steps Toward Anti-Racist Urban Planning
Recommendations from planner Amina Yasin.

SB 743 Is Now the Law of the Land!
Thirteen years after the law was passed, agencies in California can now no longer consider traffic congestion to be an environmental impact of new projects.

Defund the Police, Fund the DOT?
Berkeley is considering taking traffic enforcement responsibilities away from the police department and giving them to unarmed civilian transportation officials.

Evidence Mounts That Transit Is Not a Major Cause of COVID Spread
Despite what you may have heard.

Survey: Humboldt Residents Overwhelmingly Support Street Changes

Posted on June 26, 2020 by Colin Fiske

The Collector

June 26, 2020

Survey: Local Residents Overwhelmingly Support Street Changes
The results are in from CRTP’s survey of Humboldt County residents. Here’s the short version: Compared to before shelter-in-place orders, people are walking and biking more than they’re driving, and a significant portion of people are having some trouble maintaining social distance while on the street. In response, large majorities support a local Slow Streets program (80%), new automatic walk signals to avoid “high-touch” surfaces (72%) and reduced parking requirements to allow outdoor dining and retail (90%). Respondents identified places that they have trouble social distancing and places they’d like to see Slow Streets. We plan to make sure our local officials respond to these requests. If you’re interest, you can also check out specific results for Eureka, Arcata, and unincorporated Humboldt County.

Arcata Issues Guidelines for Sidewalk, Parking Space Cafés
CRTP has been calling for cities to allow outdoor dining in parking spaces for months now, so that local restaurants can get enough business to stay open while keeping diners safely 6 feet apart. But we have concerns about Arcata’s guidance for outdoor dining on sidewalks, which will allow restaurants to leave as little as 48 inches of space between tables for pedestrians to pass. Given that diners will be eating and thus not wearing masks, this could force pedestrians to run a gauntlet of unmasked people less than 2 feet away to either side.

McKay Ranch Project Is a Suburban Subdivision from Another Era
The massive proposed development on the far edge of Eureka would include no bike or transit infrastructure or connections. Read CRTP’s full comments here.

Trinidad Rancheria Publicly Attacks Hotel Critics
Interestingly, the thing that Rancheria officials seem most angry about is an apparent attempt to deny funding for their proposed highway interchange, which in the past the Rancheria has denied is directly related to the hotel project. Rigorous research on the economic effects of new rural highway interchanges is limited, but generally they seem to stimulate local highway-serving development.

New McKinleyville Planning Grant Announced
At its meeting this week, the McKinleyville Municipal Advisory Committee announced that the county has received a grant to support active transportation planning in McKinleyville – the result of two years of efforts by local advocates (including CRTP). Also at the meeting, it was announced that the release of architectural renderings of various future Town Center possibilities has been delayed – although probably not for very long.

Local Transportation Patterns Are Changing
Meanwhile, many experts around the world are ruminating on what changes will stick around when the pandemic is gone.

Fortuna Safe Routes to School Project Under Construction
Because some day kids will go back to school!

Serving People and Communities of Color with Transportation Planning
One expert’s thoughts.

California E-Truck Rule Adopted
The new rule will require manufacturers to start phasing in zero-emission trucks to address air quality and climate concerns. On a related note, Congressional Democrats – including our own Rep. Huffman – have included electrification for US Postal Service delivery trucks in their transportation bill.

Tulsa Police Arrest and Assault Black Kids for “Jaywalking”
The kids were walking on the street in an area with no sidewalks.

New York Planners Want a New Bike and Pedestrian Bridge
A major piece of transportation infrastructure that’s not designed for cars? Imagine that!

The Racist History of Los Angeles Freeways
Critical information on the development of the state’s largest city.

CDC: Drive Alone to Avoid COVID…or Not
The federal government’s shifting guidance on how to get to work.

Electric Vehicles for Social Justice?
An energy expert argues that electrification can promote equity.

“Justice Rollers” Organizing Arcata Event

Posted on June 19, 2020 by Colin Fiske

The Collector

June 19, 2020

CHP Investigating Incident at McKinleyville Protest
As we reported last week, a driver was apparently trying to run down pedestrians in the street, and narrowly missed.

“Calling All Justice Rollers”
Local advocacy group Centro del Pueblo is asking folks to turn out on their bikes, skates, skateboards, or any kind of wheels for a 4-mile roll in Arcata on Sunday calling for the abolition of the police, ICE, and the Border Patrol.

Arcata Police Budget Cut, But Parking Enforcement Returns
The close relationship between policing and automobiles is rarely hard to spot. Speaking of which: the Eureka City Council just approved the purchase of six new police cars.

Don’t Forget to Take Our Survey!
Let us know how you’ve been getting around during the pandemic, and what you think of some ideas for making the streets safer and healthier.

HCAOG Board Talks Climate…
Local advocate and physician Dr. Wendy Ring spurred a discussion at yesterday’s meeting about the planning agency’s work on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Dr. Ring, CRTP Executive Director Colin Fiske, and others asked the Board to establish clear and ambitious goals for reducing vehicle miles traveled and reducing transportation emissions. Look for this item on a future agenda.

…and Mobility on Demand
Later in the meeting, the HCAOG Board approved a modified version of a consultant’s recommendations for local mobility-on-demand pilot projects. The recommendations include an expansion of bikeshare and other bike infrastructure, app-enabled “modern hitchhiking,” and some significant changes to the Redwood Transit System. That last one sparked most of the discussion. The consultants are recommending eliminating the low-frequency, low-ridership bus trips north of McKinleyville and south of Fortuna (as well as detours to Manila, the McKinleyville airport, and some Fortuna stops) and replacing them with on-demand service so that the rest of the route can be run at a higher frequency. The Board seemed to mostly agree with the concept, except for objections from Rio Dell to removing their fixed-route service – so that part was removed from the final Board action. Another public meeting will be held on Monday for more public input on the recommendations.

Eureka May Put New Sales Tax on the Ballot
Some of the revenue would almost certainly go to roads. Meanwhile, the Arcata City Council also approved a tax measure for the November ballot which would raise revenue partly for trails.

New Guidance for Non-Essential Travel
And flights to LA are returning, too. Long-distance air travel is notably the most carbon-intensive and perhaps the most COVID-risky kind of transportation.

Drive-Through Everything
This week, dinners at the Mateel. And more and more graduations.

Global Driving, Carbon Emissions Are Nearly Back to “Normal”
Good news perhaps for some economies, terrible news for the climate. As people drive more, we also expect the motor vehicle death rate to rise again, too.

City Design Impacts Social and Economic Outcomes
How can we have safe streets if Black people are afraid to use them? Transportation advocates need to critically examine both our own movement and the tools we are using to promote public welfare.

New Bill Proposes Environmental Review Exemptions for Certain Projects
The idea is to make it easier to build active transportation and transit infrastructure.

The New Commuter Mode of Choice in Europe
The bicycle!

Another Demonstration, Another Attempted Vehicular Homicide

Posted on June 12, 2020 by Colin Fiske

The Collector

June 12, 2020

Another Demonstration, Another Attempted Vehicular Homicide
As protesters politely used the crosswalk to cross Central Avenue in McKinleyville yesterday, a driver apparently angry at their anti-racist message sped an SUV through the crowd, narrowly missing several people (and horses). This time, the horrifying incident was captured on video by a local reporter. Yet the incident, which came very close to resulting in serious injury or death for people on the street, was still barely mentioned in media coverage of the event. There has also been no word on whether local law enforcement officials will pursue charges against the driver. This is not an isolated incident. Thankfully, no such incidents were reported at the previous day’s march in Arcata, where protesters occupied the whole street on their way from the Plaza to HSU.

Don’t Forget to Take Our Survey!
Let us know how you’ve been getting around during the pandemic, and what you think of some ideas for making the streets safer and healthier.

A Short Reading List on Racism and Equity in Transportation
There are volumes written on the intertwined histories of racial politics and transportation. But if you’re new to the idea that a highway could be a monument to racism, and you’re looking for a place to start, here are a few suggestions:

How Segregation Caused Your Traffic Jam: An introduction to the history of racist “urban renewal” and freeway building from the New York Times Magazine.
What Cars Can Teach Us About New Policing Technologies: Sarah Seo, author of the groundbreaking 2019 book Policing the Open Road, briefly lays out the direct line from the advent of automobiles to the expansion of police powers and modern discriminatory policing.
Dangerous by Design: The latest edition of the national pedestrian safety report highlights the heightened risk of death for pedestrians of color.
Race, Class and the Stigma of Riding the Bus in America: How public transit ridership became increasingly low-income and non-white.
America’s Unfair Rules of the Road: An overview of race and class discrimination in the American transportation system.

How Can Tribal Pedestrian Safety Be Improved?
Pedestrian fatality rates are extremely high in Native communities nationwide. If you’re interested in how to help address this issue on the North Coast, you might want to check out the first in a series of upcoming webinars called “Walking Towards Justice in Indian Country.”

Arcata Planning Commission Discusses Infill Plan
The city’s plan to encourage more infill development is tied closely to its efforts to encourage active transportation and transit.

Trails Everywhere!
An update from last weekend’s Virtual Trails Summit.

Weekly Street Story Update: Harris Street Hazards
Five new local reports were made in Street Story in the last week, including two reports of hazards on Harris Street in Eureka. Like many local reports, these reports highlight areas that can be unsafe for people using any mode of transportation, not just walking or biking. If you see or experience a hazard, near-miss or collision, make your Street Story report here.

New Transportation Bill Introduced by House Democrats Includes Major Changes
There are some important policy shifts to better support transit and long-distance passenger rail, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve safety. But highways still get the vast majority of the funding. For more details and analysis, check out this informative post. Our own North Coast Representative Jared Huffman is a co-sponsor of the bill.

Bike-Parking Bill Passes Assembly
On to the Senate!

Effectiveness and Equity in Post-COVID Commuting
Ideas for ensuring that transit, micro-mobility, and other critical commuting modes are safe and accessible to everyone.

Tesla Refuses to Disclose Carbon Emissions
What’s an EV company got to hide?

The Murder of George Floyd and the Responsibilities of Transportation Advocates

Posted on June 5, 2020 by Colin Fiske

The Collector

June 5, 2020

George Floyd, like so many other Black men and women, was murdered by police in the street. The public right-of-way – space dedicated by society to allow the free movement of people through and between our communities – is all too often the site of violence directed toward people of color. This is no coincidence. The creation of modern police forces in American cities, the dramatic expansion of police powers, and the focusing of those powers on people of color with oppressive “law enforcement” activities can all be traced back directly to the rise of cars in the first half of the twentieth century. And, although it receives less attention, people of color are much more likely to be killed by cars while walking in the public right-of-way, even when police officers are nowhere around.

The street is also the site of much of the public protest against Floyd’s killing. The sanctity of automobility in our society is evidenced by the fact that blocking traffic is considered one of the most radical forms of protest, and many drivers apparently feel the right to use their vehicles as weapons to push through the crowds. In some cities, officials seem to be using the transportation system to punish protesters, stranding them at night by shutting down public transportation and bike share systems.

The transportation system is entangled with the devaluation of Black lives – and many other systemic inequities – in so many more ways than these. We have sometimes highlighted these issues in The Collector and other venues. But as transportation advocates and educators, we have not done nearly enough. Transportation space is historically, deeply, inextricably racialized, and we have often failed to call out racial inequities where they exist. Sometimes this is a result of a misguided sense of keeping our work focused and “staying in our lane” – but that’s no excuse when we know that racism pervades every street, sidewalk, trail and bike lane in the country.

We must do better. We will do better.

-Colin Fiske, Executive Director, CRTP

We Want to Know What You Think About Transportation-Related COVID Responses
Please fill out the survey and spread the word.

County Officials Ready to Help Businesses Move into Parking, Street Space
Responding to suggestions from CRTP, Supervisor Mike Wilson, and others, county staff say they’re ready and willing to let restaurants and other businesses set up tables in parking spots. As we hinted at in our press release, the response to our other suggestions – focused on increasing safety during the pandemic for the most vulnerable road users, including walkers, bicyclists, kids and folks with disabilities – has been more muted.

Arcata Eases the Way for Outdoor Dining
The City Council voted to eliminate many of the restrictions on businesses operating in the public right of way. In addition to sidewalk cafés, discussions include possible closure of 8th and 9th Streets on the Plaza for outdoor dining, following ideas long advocated by CRTP. We are following developments closely to be sure that these changes will help out both struggling local businesses and members of the public who need space to walk and bike safely around town.

Discussions Continue Over New Transportation Sales Tax Possibilities
This week, the Humboldt County Association of Government’s Technical Advisory Committee again discussed the possibility of putting a new tax measure on the ballot to fund local transportation projects. The continued discussion is apparently the result of the fact that, at the last HCAOG Board meeting, the Humboldt Taxpayers League – an organization which appears to consist only of two local perennial gadflies – said it would support a tax measure if the revenues were devoted only to fixing roads. Some Board members were so impressed by that declaration that they didn’t want to let the proposal die, despite acknowledging the bad timing in the midst of a global recession. (Others questioned why the League insisted that money couldn’t go toward transit or active transportation projects also.)

Virtual Trails Summit Tomorrow
But register today.

Weekly Street Story Update: Tell Your Story
More than a dozen new reports of hazards and near-misses have come in to Street Story from Humboldt County residents over the past two weeks. If you’re experiencing problems on the street as a result of the pandemic – like not being able to stay 6 feet from other people on a narrow sidewalk – please reach out and let us know. And as always, if you see or experience a hazard, near-miss or collision, make your Street Story report here.

Uber & Lyft Caught Destroying Perfectly Good E-Bikes
Amid all the upheaval in the bike share industry, the two companies apparently decided to just trash bikes they didn’t want any more, rather than selling or donating them.

Quick-Build, Quick!
CalBike works to speed up the pace of bike network build-out.

E-Bikes Are Great
The New York Times sings their praises.

Zagster Ends Bike Sharing Service in Humboldt

Posted on May 29, 2020 by Colin Fiske

The Collector

May 29, 2020

Seven Years is Long Enough
Way back in 2013, SB 743 became law. It required that environmental impact reports stop identifying traffic congestion as an environmental impact (which inevitably leads to “mitigation” catering to more driving) and instead use vehicle miles traveled (which leads to mitigation in the form of better bike, pedestrian and transit infrastructure). This change was finally scheduled to take effect on July 1, 2020. But because the shift would highlight the impacts of suburban sprawl and make that style of development a little harder to build, some people never got on board. Now, in the midst of the pandemic, those opponents are lobbying Governor Newsom to delay implementation even further. CRTP has joined other transportation advocates around the state in saying: we’ve waited long enough.

Zagster Ends Operations in Humboldt
Although there has been no public announcement, CRTP has confirmed that Zagster has ended its bike sharing operations in Humboldt County and has already started to collect its bikes and infrastructure. Information shared with local Zagster partners indicates that the company is going out of business entirely. Fallout from the pandemic is cited as the primary reason.

Eureka Easing the Way for Sidewalk Dining
We applaud the city for opening up the right of way for outdoor dining, to help local restaurants survive the social-distancing era. However, we wish they’d put those tables in parking spaces instead of on sidewalks, where they might interfere with safe passage for pedestrians.

Architect to Illustrate Options for McKinleyville Town Center
At a meeting this week, the McKinleyville Municipal Advisory Committee revealed that it has engaged local architect Kash Boodjeh to create renderings to illustrate a range of options for the future Town Center, based on public input to date. The drawings are scheduled to be released to the public at the end of June, with the committee reconvening on July 15 to hear feedback and discuss the options.

Amtrak Bus Service May Cut Some North Coast Stops
At a meeting today, the Board of the San Joaquin Joint Powers Authority – which oversees the Amtrak bus service from Humboldt County to the Bay Area – is scheduled to consider temporary changes to that service, including the elimination of stops in McKinleyville and Rio Dell/Scotia. It’s just the latest impact of the pandemic on the local public transportation system.

Virtual Trails Summit Next Saturday
Get the latest on the Great Redwood Trail and other local trail projects.

Storm Damage Repair Scheduled for Herrick Avenue
Humboldt County has hundreds of millions of dollars in road maintenance backlogs, and every year has to scramble just to repair damage done by the previous winter’s storms.

Weekly Street Story Update: Tell Your Story
If you’re experiencing problems on the street as a result of the pandemic – like not being able to stay 6 feet from other people on a narrow sidewalk – please reach out and let us know. And as always, if you see or experience a hazard, near-miss or collision, make your Street Story report here.

Streets Need to Be Open to Everyone
When considering how to make streets more welcoming to people who aren’t in cars, we can’t forget that public spaces are all too often hazardous to people of color – no matter how they are designed.

Will the Pandemic Lead to Permanent Changes to the Streetscape?
Slower streets, more space for pedestrians, bicyclists and open-air business – it turns out a lot of people actually like these things.

States and Environmental Groups Sue Over Fuel Efficiency Rollback
The Trump administration’s move to gut federal fuel efficiency standards faces its latest challenge in court.

Two Important Updates on Housing in Arcata

Posted on May 22, 2020 by Colin Fiske

The Collector

May 22, 2020

The Village Will Not Be Built
It’s official: the controversial and long-delayed student housing project in Arcata is not going to happen.

Arcata Voters Will Be Asked to Raise Affordable Housing Cap
The California constitution requires local voter approval before any government-supported affordable housing can be built. (Because racism.) In Arcata, that has translated into a cap on affordable housing set back in 1992. So this fall, Arcata residents will be asked to increase the cap so more affordable housing can be built. (As of late last year, there was also a state ballot measure gaining steam in the legislature for the November 2020 ballot to repeal the constitutional provision, but there’s been no word about that lately.) This is a critical transportation issue, because a lack of affordable housing in Arcata has led to many people with local business – especially HSU students – living in Eureka, McKinleyville or more outlying areas and racking up more vehicle miles traveled as a result.

E-Bike Rebates All Reserved
The dedicated funding from Redwood Coast Energy Authority for e-bike rebates is already used up. But they are still taking names for a waiting list.

Redwood Transit System Back to Regular Fares
Humboldt Transit Authority has installed plexiglass barrier to protect bus drivers, so passengers can once again enter front doors and pay regular fares.

Rural Areas Have Lots of Carless Households
Contrary to popular opinion.

Drive-Thru Graduation
Will the pandemic attach people even more firmly to their cars for every kind of activity?

Two Big Rigs Crash in Same Spot in One Week
What’s going on here?

Berkeley Closes Full Streets for Restaurants
It’s part of a growing trend some are calling “streateries.”

Redesigning Street Space Isn’t Enough
A progressive urbanist says we need to center our coronavirus responses – and everything else we do as transportation advocates – in support for marginalized communities.

Teleworking May Not Reduce Emissions That Much After All
Many of us have been wondering if a lasting impact of the pandemic will be more teleworking, and thus perhaps lower greenhouse gas emissions. Not so fast, say some researchers.

Committee Passes Bike Parking Bill
AB 3153 would allow developers to replace car parking with secure bike parking, reducing the cost of housing and encouraging more people to bike instead of drive.

A Growing Coalition Wants to Ban Beg Buttons Permanently
The pandemic has added new urgency to efforts to remove infrastructure that already unfairly discriminated against pedestrians.

Let’s Respond to COVID-19 by Making Streets Safer

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Colin Fiske

The Collector

May 15, 2020

COVID-19 Response in the Streets
In an op-ed on the Lost Coast Outpost, CRTP Executive Director Colin Fiske calls for more protections for bicyclists and pedestrians – and local businesses – by making some changes to our local streets.

Eureka Mayor Talks Pedestrian Safety During the Pandemic
Mayor Susan Seaman notes that social distancing requirements are causing some people to walk in the street, and urges everyone to be careful. And she even plugs Street Story!

People Are Moving More Around Here
Getting restless, Humboldt? Just remember to follow public health guidelines if you’re going out.

Planning Commission Unanimously Approves New Manila Trail
Most residents are excited about the long-await bike/pedestrian improvements. But a couple of local gadflies just can’t stop gadding.

County Reports on McKinleyville Town Center Survey
At a (virtual) meeting this week, Humboldt County planning staff attempted to summarize the hundreds of responses they received to an online survey about the future Town Center. Here are some of the takeaways: People want a mixture of public open space, small businesses, and homes in the Town Center, and they want walkability and bikeability to be a primary focus.

Humboldt Virtual Trails Summit Scheduled
Mark your calendar!

Even More About E-bikes
Haven’t heard enough about e-bikes and the local e-bike rebate? Listen to the Eco News Report!

Weekly Street Story Update: Tell Your Story
1 new crash and 1 near miss have been reported in the last week on Street Story, both in Arcata. If you see or experience a hazard, near-miss or collision, make your Street Story report here.

Drama at the California Transportation Commission
Compared to years past, it was like living in another world to watch the Director of Caltrans appear before the Commission and passionately argue for more money to be set aside for active transportation projects. Though there was quite a bit of argument, the Commission did promise in the end to reserve $100 million out of one of its major funding programs. CRTP was one of the groups advocating for the reserve.

Transit Gets Another $15 Billion in New Democratic Proposal
But it’s not nearly enough. Advocates are asking for it to be doubled.

How COVID-19 Could Be An Opportunity to Make Our Cities Better
And how diseases of the past have shaped the communities we live in today.

The Problem Isn’t Density, It’s Crowding
Dense cities have plenty of space to deal with coronavirus safely – if they take back some of the real estate from cars.