Author: Dan Allison

Dan Allison is a transportation advocate in Sacramento, CA. Dan dances and backpacks, as much as possible.

the end of freedom of movement?

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This is a follow-on to my earlier post xenophobia and retribution.

If you have followed any of the reports of ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) and other federal agencies taking Latinos and others off the street for immigration enforcement, you probably have noticed the same things I have:

  • ICE, and other federal agents, generally are in plain clothes, not wearing uniforms that identify their agency
  • they are not wearing name tags
  • they are wearing masks
  • they are using unmarked vehicles
  • it seems that there are only males working for ICE, I’ve not noticed any females in the videos
  • ICE and the administration continually claim that they are making if safer by removing criminals, but ICE is not looking for criminals, they are just looking for Latinos and other people of color

Some of the people taken have shown up at detention facilities, where they are housed under inhuman conditions, and generally denied access to lawyers. But the whereabouts of many is unknown. As far as ICE and the Trump administration are concerned, these people have already been found guilty, and are not deserving of due process. The Trump administration has been transporting many of these people out of the US, and then claiming that they have no rights under US law because they are not in the US.

The actions of ICE can fairly be called abductions or kidnappings, and the victims can be said to be disappeared. These are the actions of authoritarian regimes, not of a democracy. It is the method dictators use to remove, silence and kill dissidents. ICE has been likened to the German Gestapo, and that analogy is apt. Trump is implementing the methods of the dictators he so admires.

So why is ICE working in this way? You would think they would be proud of their actions, showing up in uniform, with nametags and without masks, and using official and identified government vehicles to transport people. But they are not.

I believe it is because ICE and the Trump administration are actually sending a message to all of us. That message is ‘we can disappear anyone we want, at any time and place we want, without consequences’. Going after undocumented immigrants (and permanent residents, and naturalized citizens, and born citizens) is not just about those people, but all people. Once they have established that they are immune to the laws of the US, they can do anything to anyone. That is the message.

Many people in this country (though not blacks) have always had freedom of movement, and even a choice about how to go places, despite the government spending nearly all of our transportation funds on those who drive. We assumed that was part of our freedom in a democracy. We are now a step closer, a big step closer, to government control of our movement. There will be checkpoints for ID. There will be tracking of the movements, and associations, of everyone. That is the purpose of the data being compiled by Palantir (see links below). We are on a slide into autocracy and oppression. We will have no freedom of movement.

All of this has been on my mind for weeks, but I recently started reading Between the World and Me by Ta-nehisi Coates. Every searing word emphasizes how blacks have never had freedom of movement in this country, from slavery to today, always under the control/oppression of the police and government. That is the fate that now awaits everyone, whether ‘white’ or not.

regional block grants for transportation

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This week’s podcast Talking Headways Podcast: Localities Subsidize the State DOT, Talking Headways, Jeff Wood, was an interview with Adie Tomer of Brookings Institution about a research paper recommending that some federal transportation funding go directly to regional government, MPOs (Metropolitan Planning Organizations) and COGs (Council of Governments), rather than through state departments of transportation. The paper points out that in most cases local governments are subsidizing the state DOT, giving more money to the state than they are getting. The solution suggested is regional block grants (Regional block grants: A new approach to funding transformative infrastructure projects, Brookings Institution, 2025-05-08).

“Regions are the economic hubs of the nation, with metropolitan areas alone producing 90% of gross domestic product in 2023.”

“Regional infrastructure needs are complex, outpacing existing federal funding mechanisms. Formula funds primarily flow to states, while regional actors struggle to qualify for many competitive grants.”

“A new federal model should empower regions and their localities directly. Regional block grants can equip regions with predictable, flexible funding to deliver transformative infrastructure.”

I love the idea! Caltrans gets state funding, and gets a portion of SACOG funding, and a portion of Sacramento Transportation Authority funding. That allows Caltrans to continue to widen freeways and build interchanges, while local roads are pocked with potholes. We have ever fancier freeways with ever expanding lanes. Why? We don’t need that, it contributes nothing to solving our transportation needs, but just induces more driving and more congestion and more pollution and more crashes.

There is a constant tension at the SACOG Board when Caltrans demands funds that come from the state and other sources, for their pet projects. Same at SacTA, when Caltrans demands funds that come from local sales tax. Time to end this!

I encourage you to listen to the podcast, available on any podcast reader, and check the Brookings research paper.

Slow Down Sacramento mid-year

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Slow Down Sacramento recently sent a ‘Mid-Year Check-In: How Far We’ve Come (and Where We’re Going)’ email that very well summarizes ways in which the City of Sacramento has made progress, and has not, on the Slow Down priorities. As always, I encourage you to ‘join‘ so you don’t miss informative emails.

The email goes through each of the ten policies that Slow Down set at the beginning of the year, shown in the graphics below. Significant success has been made in:

Quick Build (1): The city has established a program, with budget and staffing. This was both a city initiative and strongly supported by the advocacy community including Slow Down.

There has been progress in Twenty is Plenty (2), Daylight Now (5), Art! (8) and Automated Enforcement (10). The others have been advocated for but no significant progress has been made. For End Dangerous Design (9), the city is undertaking an update of its Street Design Standards, which Slow Down, Strong SacTown, and other have been involved in, but the outcome has not been released. Of course the important thing is not just better designs to not repeat the same mis-design mistakes, but to correct the mistakes already made which make our streets less safe for everyone.

Thank you, Isaac Gonzalez and all the others on the Slow Down Sacramento team.

graphic of Slow Down Sacramento 2025 Policy Roadmap items 1-5
Slow Down Sacramento 2025 Policy Roadmap
graphic of Slow Down Sacramento 2025 Policy Roadmap items 6-10
Slow Down Sacramento 2025 Policy Roadmap

xenophobia and retribution

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I can’t stay silent. My vision in starting this blog has been a better world, where all people can travel in safety, with choices about how to get there, and what they need on a daily basis is close by so they can travel by walking and bicycling most of the time. Livable places, and joyous lives! I am blessed to live in a place that approaches that, midtown Sacramento.

I have come to realize that proactively addressing equity is critical, because the transportation system we have created left out low income people, people of color, and everyone who doesn’t or can’t drive. We have spent billions for car drivers, and disinvested in communities. We have to make up for that by investing in walking, bicycling, transit, and housing. Continuing to invest in driving, in car dominance, is in no sense equitable.

And I have come to realize how important affordable housing is. We can’t have an effective transit system without a density of affordable housing, and we can’t have affordable housing without convenient, frequent, and affordable transit, and of course safe and convenient walking and bicycling.

The actions of Donald Trump and the coward Republicans in Congress and on the Supreme Court work against everything I believe in, and have promoted. They favor private motor vehicles over all other modes, and fossil fuels over cleaner alternatives. They have reduced support for transit, for affordable housing, for health care, for clean energy. And too many other things to list. They idealize an imagined 1950s, or 1850s, when citizens were rich white men and everyone else was subservient. It was an era of chrome and fins, polluting cars without safety features, and a crash and fatality rate even higher than today.

The Trump administration has made deportation of undocumented immigrants a core principle. If you think this is about immigration status, look more closely. They are targeting specifically people who came from, or look like they came from, south of the border, people who don’t look like their image of the white world. They have deported people with legal status. They have detained and threatened to deport born citizens. And Trump just said he wants to deport naturalized citizens. This is xenophobia, pure and simple. If you think this stops with Latinx, you aren’t paying attention. Trump has expressed at various times hatred for Jews (not Netanyahu, though), communists (not Putin, though), Democrats, gays, trans, Canadians, Europeans, Africans (except Afrikaners, of course), Muslims, Palestinians, and even rural whites. And even Republicans who don’t cow-tow. Basically, everyone who doesn’t match his ideal white person (Make America White Again). Of course once he has dealt with the ‘others’, it is likely he will go after the whites as well. His hatred knows no bounds.

And what if you don’t agree with this drift (and acceleration) towards authoritarianism? He promises retribution against everyone who disagrees with him. Though the courts have slowed him, almost every executive order and every administrative decision is an effort to extract retribution. If you think you won’t eventually be on his enemies list, you aren’t paying attention. The phrase “First they came for…” is completely appropriate to this time.

Trump is a megalomaniac and narcissist. He hates everyone and everything that is not himself. He hates democracy, he hates this country, he hates most of the people of this country. Of course what he most hates, at a very deep level, is himself. He will stop at nothing, and he will end by destroying everything good about this country. Unless we stop him.

If this post causes you to stop reading or following this blog, I wish you well. I am not the enemy, you are not the enemy.

SABA’s Gear’d Up newsletter

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I recommend subscribing to SABA’s (Sacramento Area Bicycle Advocates) Gear’d Up newsletter. it is one of the best sources of information about what is going on with government and advocacy efforts to improve safety for bicyclists, as well as transportation in general.

The June Gear’d Up and older newsletters are available.

Of course SABA also needs your membership, donation, or volunteer. Check the SABA website.

daylighting enforcement?

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The City of Sacramento has announced that it will be enforcing the state intersection daylighting law, AB 413 (Lee, 2024), starting today. Tickets will be $25.

Higher income people will of course just see this as the cost of parking, and won’t care. An open spot at every corner, only $25? Yes! With the new parking rates, a person could park in a daylighted space for 8 hours for less than the cost of a metered space.

Daylighting increases safety for people walking by providing increased visibility between drivers and walkers crossing the street. As with all crosswalk laws, it applies whether the crosswalk is marked (painted) or not.

I’m a little cynical about this. Over the years, I have reported about 60 violations of drivers parked ON the crosswalk. Once, the driver was cited. Often I would wait to see if parking enforcement officers would show up, and what they would do. Sometimes, the vehicle was gone. Often, the vehicle was still there, but the 311 report closed without action. Sometimes, it was closed without the officer even showing up.

Traditionally, parking enforcement has only been concerned about drivers overstaying time at parking meters.

Administration of the parking and parking enforcement program has changed, so perhaps the city is serious about enforcing daylighting. Time will tell.

alternatives to transportation sales tax

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Sales taxes are regressive, in that lower income people pay a higher percentage of their income in sales tax than do higher income people. In Sacramento area, a new transportation sales tax measure is being talked about, whether for transportation in general, or for transit specifically. No proposals have been made, but there are certainly many discussions in many arenas.

The San Francisco Bay Area is also having the same discussions. There is legislation to authorize a transportation sales tax measure in up to five Bay Area counties. A recent KQED article (Proposed Transit Tax Should Be Paid by Businesses, Not People, Progressive Group Says) talks about discussions, and an alternative proposal to use a business gross receipts tax instead of sales tax. It is true that any tax ultimately comes out of the pockets of citizens, but a gross receipts tax is better distributed and not as regressive.

I have a concern that politicians again and again go to the default of sales taxes because it seems easier to sell. But sales tax rates are already very high, and there is increasing evidence that voters will not go for a higher sales tax rate, no matter what the topic or the benefit.

I’ll write more about funding options in the future. Past posts include Is sales tax for transportation the wrong approach?, transportation funding ideas, and many, many others under the category: transportation funding. I was amazed, looking back, at how many times I’ve posted about transportation funding and tax measures.

another big day of meetings

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Tomorrow, Thursday, June 12, there will be at least three transportation-related public meetings:

SACOG (Sacramento Area Council of Governments) Board of Directors, 10:15 AM to about 12:00 PM, at Conzelmann Community Center, 2201 Cottage Way, Sacramento, CA 95814 (not at SACOG offices on L Street). agenda

Sacramento Transportation Authority (SacTA): 1:30 PM to about 3:00 PM, at the County Board of Supervisors Chambers, 700 H St, Ste 1450, Sacramento. agenda

Sacramento Active Transportation Commission (SacATC): 5:30 PM to about 7:30 PM, at City of Sacramento Council Chambers, 915 I Street, Sacramento. Note, SacATC usually meets on the third Thursday of the month, but the June meeting is on the second Thursday. agenda