Car drivers can zip between places with restrooms. Bicyclists, to a lesser degree. Transit users and walkers, not at all. This is a transportation issue. If people cannot find restrooms, they can’t make their way through the city. They can’t afford to wait at a transit stop for a transfer. People with urinary issues (count me among them) have to plan carefully around not just their movement, but around restroom access. A city without public restrooms is a city that biases transportation against walkers and transit users, and in favor of vehicle drivers. Access is denied to an entire class of citizens.
In Sacramento, public restrooms are scarce. Cesar Chavez Plaza downtown has a Portland Loo type restroom, but it took years to get it done. So far as I know, there are no plans for additional locations.
Cesar Chavez Plaza restroom Portland Loo model
Roosevelt Park downtown has a new restroom, replacing the old one. There are two single-use, all-gender units, which is the current trend and probably much better than the older multi-user, gendered restrooms.
Roosevelt Park new restroom
The restroom in Fremont Park, right across the street as I type, has been closed for years, and despite the sign, is never open during events. Porta-potties are used for events at this park.
Fremont Park restroom closed
I have not traveled to all the city parks to see which restrooms are open, which are open but with limited hours, and which are closed, but my impression is that about half the park restrooms in the city are closed. The city has a GIS map of park restrooms, but no indication of whether the restrooms are actually open or not: https://data.cityofsacramento.org/datasets/b9e7fa6d1d104833b3f04268d7f682dc_0/explore. Park restrooms are valuable for walkers, but very few are located on transit routes.
There are no public restrooms at transit hubs. No restrooms where people are waiting for the next train or next bus. The next bus, at transfer points for low frequency routes, can be quite a long wait, up to 45 minutes assuming the buses are on schedule. Even at Sacramento Valley Station, where a number of modes converge, you can only use the restroom by showing an Amtrak train ticket. Using light rail or bus, or just walking or bicycling, you are out of luck. (Note: Many people assume that Amtrak or Capitol Corridor owns the train station, but it is owned and managed by the city.)
Some light rail stations and a few bus stops have restrooms for the transit operators, but not for the public.
The city should:
re-open or replace all park restrooms, within two years
install public restrooms at every city park which does not currently have them; this would include Muir Children’s Park, Grant Park, Winn Park, and several others
install a public restroom at the bus layover point on L St & 14th St
install a public restroom at the 16th St light rail station (where the Gold Line and Blue Line diverge, and the most used transfer point)
install a public restroom at 7th St & Capitol Ave light rail station (where the Blue Line, Gold Line and Green Line diverge; the 8th St & Capitol Ave stop is a block away)
identify locations throughout the city where walkers and transit users congregate, and install public restrooms there
You might wonder why I’m asking the city to install transit restrooms rather than SacRT. The reason is that I see it as the responsibility of the city to provide restrooms everywhere they are needed, not of the transit agency, though of course the projects could be joint projects.
Note: As is not unusual, I had forgotten that I’d written about N St before: N Street bike route to cycle track, 2015. Seven years have passed, the city has taken no action.
The construction for the Capitol annex project has narrowed N St to two lanes eastbound, from 10th St to 14th St, and parking has been removed from the south side to shift the lanes over. Now is the time for the City of Sacramento to implement its long-delayed (if not deep-sixed) plans for re-allocating space on N St. There have been ongoing utility projects over the last few years that have narrowed N St to two or even just one lane. At no time did that create significant congestion, during the pandemic or before the pandemic. I live two blocks from N St, and both travel along it and cross it frequently. I’ve never seen more than momentary congestion, in 11 years. What that means is that N St, in its three-lane configuration, has grossly excess capacity for motor vehicles.
While the street has been narrowed is the time to redesign the street so that it has no more than two general purpose lanes, and has a curb-protected or parking-protected bikeway. Probably on the left. This is in fact the perfect setting for a separated bikeway, five blocks from 10th St to 15th St with no intersecting streets from the north side, which is Capitol Park.
It is true that the sidewalk on the north side of N St is a designated bikeway, so bicyclists may use the sidewalk to avoid riding in the street. But bicyclists on the sidewalk are often in conflict with people walking on the sidewalk. The sidewalk has pretty continuous use by walkers, particularly during the lunch time – walk time for state workers, but a lot of people also include a circuit of the Capitol Park on their runs and walks. This conflict is easy to solve: create a safe, welcoming, protected (separated) bikeway on the street. And do it now!
On N St eastbound, the leftmost lane is a designated left turn lane at 10th St, which is what makes possible the two-lane configuration beyond 10th St. As a temporary measure, this works well, and forcing turns off three lane streets is a good solution for so many overbuilt arterials roads in Sacramento, but here it is only temporary, and would be obviated by the conversion of all of N St from 3rd St to 15th St. N St becomes a two-lane street at 15th St, and then becomes a two-way street at 21st St. N St from 15th St to 21 St would probably be a good candidate for a separated bikeway as well, but with paint bike lanes existing, would be a lower priority.
Below is a StreetMix sketch of what N St might look like. Note that the width of the street and the elements are estimated, not measured. I don’t believe parking is needed on both sides, but the diagram shows it for people who think it is necessary. Left side is north, Capitol Park in this case, and right side is south, mostly state buildings.
N St Sacramento between 3rd St and 15th St
As a reminder, I feel strongly, and it is backed up by evidence:
Three-lane streets are significantly less safe than two-lane streets, primarily for the muli-lane threat (one vehicle stops for walkers and the others do not). They are also a clear sign of poor land use planning, which puts residents and the things they need to reach (jobs, stores, recreation and entertainment, medical, etc.) far away. Narrowing all such roadways in the city from three to two, or less, would increase safety, increase livability, and encourage people to make different choices about where they live and visit. Maps of collisions (vehicle vs. vehicle, vehicle vs. walker, vehicle vs. bicyclist) align almost perfectly with overbuilt arterials.
One-way streets are significantly less safe than two-way streets, for the same multi-lane threat, and because there isn’t any friction to slow drivers. However, I think that the only valid argument for one-way streets is to accommodate separated bikeways, bus lanes, or rail transit. That may be true of N St.
And, sorry, can’t resist, get rid of the worthless palm trees while they are at it. We need shade trees, not poles.
TIRCP (Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program) grants for 2022 have been announced, with two in the Sacramento region. One is a joint application from Capitol Corridor JPA, City of Sacramento, SACOG, SacRT, and Downtown Railyard Ventures, for work related to Sacramento Valley Station realignment of light rail and buses. The second is for SacRT to purchase eight more modern low floor rail cars.
4. Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority (CCJPA), with the City of Sacramento, Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG), Sacramento Regional Transit District (SacRT), and Downtown Railyards Venture, LLC (DRV)
Project: Sacramento Valley Station (SVS) Transit Center: Priority Projects Award: $49,865,000 Total Budget: $95,050,000 Estimated TIRCP GHG Reductions: 156,000 MTCO2 e
This project delivers a set of interrelated projects to introduce better connectivity between modes at the Sacramento Valley Station, as well as redesigned commuter and intercity bus service to the SVS and Downtown Sacramento, that will increase ridership on both trains and buses. Project elements include design of a new bus mobility center to facilitate convenient transfers between modes, realignment of existing light rail tracks and construction of a new platform, construction of a new cycle track on H Street to improve access to the station, and construction of a new pick-up and drop-off loop.
The light rail tracks will be realigned into a loop with a new north-south oriented platform just south of the Steve Cohn Passageway entrance (about 450 feet closer to the rail tracks than currently, and only 100 feet from the future Bus Mobility Center), as well as a new double track alignment from the new platform to the intersection of F Street and 6 th Street. The construction of the new pick up and drop off loop at the station will allow more efficient transfers. The project includes installation of a new storm drain trunk line which will enable new transit-oriented development on key parcels next to SVS.
A new regional bus layover facility will be built in a 2-block portion of X Street between 6th and 8 th Street. The proposed facility will allow buses to layover in Sacramento between runs, improving bus efficiency and reducing vehicle miles traveled, as well as fossil fuel consumption. Initial users of the facility are expected to include El Dorado Transit, Galt-Sacramento SCT Link, Placer Transit, Roseville Transit, San Joaquin RTD, and Yuba-Sutter Transit.
The project will also support the consolidation of downtown regional bus routes, building on the study SACOG completed with 2020 TIRCP funding. Construction of shared stops between SVS and the future Midtown Amtrak San Joaquin and Altamont Corridor Express station will be completed, including the reuse of seventeen bus shelters from the Temporary Transbay Terminal in San Francisco. This component will also complete an unfinished portion of 5 th Street between Railyards Boulevard and North B Street as the most efficient connector for all north area buses to access the freeway to SVS and serve the new state office complex on Richards Blvd. That will provide the connectivity to implement 10 additional bus stops (5 northbound and 5 southbound) north of H Street. Commuter buses operated by Amador Transit, Butte Regional Transit, El Dorado Transit, Soltrans, Galt-Sacramento SCT Link, Placer Transit, Roseville Transit, San Joaquin RTD, Yolobus and Yuba-Sutter Transit will be routed along new shared northbound and southbound routes. This work will complement SacRT’s TIRCP-funded network integration to better integrate its service with intercity rail at both SVS and the future Midtown station.
The project will also purchase and install contactless EMV readers coordinated with the California Integrated Travel Project on rail and bus vehicles to allow fares to be collected through contactless bank cards and mobile wallets.
Ridership at Sacramento Valley Station is also expected to be positively impacted by the city’s housing policies, confirmed with a Pro-Housing designation by HCD, the first city to receive such a designation in the state. A significant amount of housing is expected to be added in the Railyards District, adjacent to the station area.
These plans will be developed in cooperation with many transit partners and agencies throughout the Sacramento region, and with additional technical assistance provided by the California Department of Transportation, in order to ensure integration of regional and interregional capital improvements and service.
Project is expected to be completed by 2025.
Key Project Ratings: Medium-High Cost per GHG Ton Reduced: Medium-High Increased Ridership: High Service Integration: Medium-High Improves Safety: Medium Project Readiness: Medium Funding Leverage:High Multi-Agency Coordination/Integration: Priority Population Benefits: Medium-High Housing Co-Benefits: High
15. Sacramento Regional Transit District (SacRT)
Project: Fleet Modernization Project Award: $23,600,000 Total Budget: $47,200,000 Estimated TIRCP GHG Reductions: 44,000 MTCO2 e
Purchases 8 new low-floor light rail vehicles (LRVs) to further expand low-floor fleet operations on the light rail system. Over one-third of SacRT’s light rail fleet has reached the end of its useful life, and this investment leverages past TIRCP grants, as well strong local match, to help modernize the fleet.
Low-floor LRVs will produce operational efficiencies by speeding up train times and optimizing boarding convenience and safety along with increased capacity. They also will increase fleet reliability and reduce the number of shorter than planned trains need to be operated on the system. These are significant benefits to persons with disabilities, seniors, parents with strollers, and bicyclists, who will have more boarding options and increased boarding and alighting safety. These improvements are expected to support retaining and attracting new light rail riders, including residents of disadvantaged communities, who make up 30% of the population within SacRT’s service boundary.
The project also supports sustainable housing and land use development while providing meaningful benefits to priority populations by improving mobility and access to transit options. The project complements several TOD/joint development projects underway along the light rail corridors, including a surplus SacRT property near a station that was sold to an affordable housing developer who has entitlements and plans to begin construction on 128 units.
Ridership on SacRT is also expected to be positively impacted by further rollout of integrated contactless payment throughout the light rail and bus system, as well as by the city’s housing policies, confirmed with a Pro-Housing designation by HCD, the first city to receive such a designation in the state.
19 Project completion is expected by 2027.
Key Project Ratings: Medium-High Cost per GHG Ton Reduced: Medium Increased Ridership: Medium-High Service Integration: Medium-High Improves Safety: High Project Readiness: High Funding Leverage: Medium-High Multi-Agency Coordination/Integration: Priority Population Benefits: High Housing Co-Benefits: High
Applications made for Active Transportation Program cycle 6 from counties and cities within the SACOG Region. So far as I know, no other details about these projects are available yet. The application period for the state-level program just closed. pdf version
I walked by the section of Capitol Ave in Sacramento, east of 18th St, as I have done many times, but today it struck me how dead this street is, now. It was alive for a while:
Capitol Ave, Sacramento, pandemic street closure, August 2020
But now it is sick again. To extend the analogy, it has always suffered from car sickness (a street dominated by motor vehicles), but had a relatively brief recovery when the street was closed to cars and opened to people walking and bicycling, and now a relapse into car sickness:
Capitol Avenue, Sacramento, opened to cars but not people, June 2022
The street feels abandoned. There are no people walking or bicycling. There are a very few people at the restaurants. It is hot, hot, hot, with insufficient street trees and an overly wide pavement. Note that if the street were closed (to cars) again, the street could be significantly narrowed, just space for bicyclists. Parking, unnecessary. Bike lane, unnecessary. Travel lanes, just enough width for emergency vehicles. Leaving plenty of space for outdoor dining, and street trees, and even a little nature.
During the closure (to cars), the street felt alive, even when there were few people there, even in the morning before most of the restaurants opened. People were walking and bicycling, and hanging out.
I don’t know why the closure was ended, and all the street canopies and seating removed. I’ve heard a lot of different stories: it was the city, it was the Midtown Association, it was the business owners. So I can’t point any fingers. But what I can say is that what was once clearly alive is now barely hanging on. Will it die? Probably not, but it won’t ever be healthy again, until the cars are again removed.
Cars kill business, cars kill cities. Why do we allow our city to be dominated by cars?
At the SACOG Board meeting this morning, the board passed the staff-recommended agreement that authorizes Executive Director James Corless to negotiate an MOU (memorandum of understanding) with the transportation sales tax measure proponents and SacTA (Sacramento Transportation Authority) to include elements of the agreement in the MOU and in the ballot measure statement of support.
There was a lot of controversy over this issue, more than I have seen at any board meeting. Representatives of the other five counties (Yolo, Yuba, Sutter, Placer, El Dorado) and the cities within expressed great concerns about the agreement. Some voted no, some voted reluctantly yes, but there was no enthusiasm. The only really enthusiastic voice at all was from David Sander, representative of Rancho Cordova, who is also conveniently the board chair of the Capital Southeast Connector JPA. Even James Corless who supports the compromise expressed considerable discomfort that the agreement was even necessary to keep SACOG in the discussion.
The agreement implies that each new project (not in the current MTP/SCS) will have to completely mitigate all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the reduction. Left unanswered is how that can be accomplished. How can a project like the sprawl and VMT inducing Capital Southeast Connector be mitigated? Will the project fund all mitigation, or will the project proponents come back to SACOG or SacTA begging for funds for mitigation? Are all the other projects expected to pick up the slack in order to meet the required reduction in GHG? Will projects in the other five counties be expected to pick up the slack? Nothing in the agreement says the proponents of these capacity expansion projects will help to meet the regional target of 19% GHG reduction.
Don Saylor of Yolo County asked some very pointed and relevant questions of Corless and SACOG Counsel Kirk Trost. Trost confirmed that it is unlikely that any signatories to the MOU could be held legally accountable, that the MOU would be worthless if it continued the same vague language in the agreement, and that the whole thing was dependent on the good will of all the players. All players includes Sacramento County and each city in the county, and by implication, the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District. It is not at all clear whether they will all sign on, or that they will fulfill their agreement. The commitment to the 1970s model of transportation (the dark side), which the measure proposes to continue for 40 years, is very strong among many of the entities in the county, and it would not be surprising if some decided to back out on or just ignore the commitment to mitigating ALL GHG impacts of each project.
The original motion to adopt the agreement and delegate to Corless was modified to include a review (not approval) by the board chair and the chairs of the SACOG committees. A second motion to include formal representation on the review by the other five counties failed, but Corless promised to reach out to them.
Most board members just held their nose and voted yes.
My comments were directed at the mis-information that was being provided by signature gatherers, talking about fixing streets, support for bicycling, and “it’s all for transit”. There was never mention of freeways, interchanges, or capacity expansion, which is largely what the measure is really about. The measure proponents clearly intended to fool the public into signing by not telling the truth about the TEP (Transportation Expenditure Plan). Of course many ballot measures have the same dishonesty, but it is significant in this case because these are the people that Mayor Steinberg and Corless were negotiating with ‘in good faith’. There is no good faith with the proponents.
I think the transportation advocacy community can see a small victory here in that many people are now coming to understand how bad the proposed measure is and specifically how it will harm the region. And they saw today how the proponents intended to bully SACOG, in the measure language, and in this agreement. We lost on this particular vote, but board members can’t really deny anymore that the transportation future of the county and the region has been hijacked.
For more on the measure, see Measure 2022 posts. The use of this category is not meant to confuse. A lot of people are referring to this as Measure A, but the measure letters are assigned by county elections after they have qualified, so this is in no sense Measure A at this time.
Many organizations and governments are again touting homeownership as the path to economic security and wealth creation. I have my doubts. The wealth generated for people who own homes is not wealth out of thin air, nor is it wealth out of moral superiority. It is wealth out of exclusion and externalized costs. Every day, the gap among homeowners, and renters, and unhoused people grows, and the structure of wealth accumulation depends upon this gap.
As we, as a society, come to realize that we cannot continue to subsidize single family homes and their development pattern that requires large amounts of infrastructure, huge amounts of driving, and an impoverishment of cities, the single family home will lose value. This is hard to believe, given the exponential increase in home prices, but it will happen. As has been said by many others, the suburbs will largely collapse of their own weight, of their permanent debt burden. See growth ponzi scheme. Some will survive by changing their form and becoming small towns within the bigger city, but most will not. Detroit is the fate of most suburbs.
So, when the reckoning comes, and the American dream of homeownership comes to an ignominious end, what then is the alternative?
I’d like to propose small business ownership as a better model. No, I have no illusions that small business ownership is easy, or that it is any quick path to wealth. The business owners I talk to would find this laughable. But the wealth that is gradually accumulated is real wealth for the owner and real wealth for the community. It does not need subsidized infrastructure. It does not need an expensive transportation system and associated harms. It may need a small boost from the government, at times, but largely it survives and thrives by being part of an ecosystem of a healthy (and wealthy) community.
Some people claim that homeownership is the way to erase the disparity in wealth between white people and people of color. I’ll let the people of color speak for themselves, but for me, nothing about the current system or the proposed system of widespread homeownership looks likely to erase the gap. In fact, though it may bring a few people from the renter category into the homeowner category, it will very likely cast the rest downward into struggling renters and unhoused. If the government spends money to increase homeownership, as seems the politically preferable action these days, what then of the unhoused? What then of renters? What then of people who live in substandard and deteriorating housing, whether they own it or rent it?
I believe that government should stop subsidizing, and stop promoting large developments and large businesses. Large developments and large businesses seek government support in order to make what they do more profitable, but it is at the expense of the rest of us. This is nowhere more clear than in our transportation system, which was designed, and continues to be designed, to support large corporations and large shopping areas (malls), to make possible long distance commuting which is necessary when we separate single homes from work, shopping and recreation, and which destroys both the general environment on which we depend and the local communities that suffer from this system.
All efforts should instead be focused on small businesses. What do they need to succeed? What small government actions would support them? In this, I am completely aligned with the Strong Towns message:
Chuck Marohn, President of the Strong Towns organization, will be in the Sacramento area this Thursday (June 16). He is speaking in Citrus Heights, 6:00PM to 7:30PM, and it appears he is also presenting to the SACOG Board at a workshop, item 14 (immediately following consideration of the proposed transportation sales tax measure side agreement).
This conjunction seems appropriate, since Strong Towns has just released its five campaigns that are the core of its new strategic plan:
So, how does the transportation sales tax measure measure up?
It does almost nothing for safe and productive streets. It at least give lip service to complete streets, but since it does not define what that means, the transportation agencies will create arterials that look a little nicer, but do little to slow traffic or increase the number of safe crossings. In fact, it is the unwritten policy of each of the agencies that speed limits will NOT be reduced when a roadway is reconstructed.
It is all about highway expansions. More freeways, more interchanges! More construction jobs dedicated to making our cities worse rather than better.
Accounting. The Existing Measure A has an Independent Taxpayer Oversight Committee (ITOC), which ensures that no one is absconding with funds, but does not address whether the projects actually contribute to economic stability, nor whether bonding almost all projects was a good idea. Measure A income is going largely to pay off bond debt, which is why SacTA and other advocates are so wanting to pass another measure, so Measure A can be bailed out.
The measure says nothing about the connection between land use and transportation. It just makes the assumption that more transportation infrastructure is good, and more sprawl (technically, low density exurban development) is also good.
Parking is hardly mentioned. Yes, this is primarily the purview of local agencies (cities and the county), but it is interesting that none of the projects in the Transportation Expenditure Plan address management of parking. Isleton wants to rehabilitate a parking lot, and the City of Sacramento wants parking facilities (not defined).
I am a founding member of Strong Towns, and the organization has influenced my thinking about transportation and housing more than any other source. I don’t agree with everything, but I do agree with most, and it is these goals that I work to implement in the city, county, and region.
Imagine, if you will, a backroom filled with cigar smoke, burley guys with prominent gun bulges around the edges, the sounds of illegal gambling games coming from the adjacent room, and the clink of bootleg whiskey bottles. Around the table sit power players, working out deals. Someone asks about the public, and one of the burley guys says “We took care of them”.
This is the picture I have of the just-released proposed agreement on the transportation sales tax measure being developed. Read the agreement: Mitigation Agreement, and the SACOG 2022-06-16 Agenda Item 13 Staff Report that introduces it. It is important to realize that this agreement was developed by Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, SACOG Executive Director James Corless, and the proponents of the measure (called ‘The Campaign’ in the agreement). The proponents are named A Committee for a Better Sacramento, but their website tell the story: two mega-developers of greenfield (agricultural) lands, Cordova Hills Development Corporation and Angelo T. Tsakopoulos and Affiliated Entities, and the California Alliance for Jobs, an organization that supports large infrastructure projects on behalf of construction contractors (it is the contractors, not the workers who are represented). The proponents want the taxpayers to build them a freeway and interchanges to increase the value of their greenfield developments. The public was not involved. Actually, the SACOG Board of Directors was not really involved.
Before going into what is wrong with the agreement, a review of what happened at the last SACOG Board Meeting on May 19. Almost every representative from Sacramento county and cities badmouthed the SACOG study that revealed that the Capital Southeast Connector would likely cause the region to not meet its 19% greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction target, and therefore likely lose a significant amount of state and federal funding for transportation and housing. Several of them even questioned the honesty of the staff that wrote the study. It was a pretty horrible display of politicians saying they know more than professional staff. On the other hand, almost every representative of counties and cities in the region that are not in Sacramento County expressed concern about losing transportation and housing funding if the measure passes. James Corless listened to this, and decided an agreement that helps some select developers and some select projects, while harming the region, is the way to go.
So, the agreement. What is wrong with it?
The agreement accepts that project proponents (cities and the counties, not measure proponents) can make a determination about whether their project meets air quality requirements. It encourages both projects and the overall program to meet SACOG requirements and inclusion in the MTP/SCS, but accepts that they may not. This will establish a precedent that will be used by project hosts and tax measure proponents from now on, to claim they don’t need to follow SACOG.
The agreement proposes that SACOG undertake a study of the proposed measure to determine GHG/VMT impacts. This will be expensive, and the funds will come out of the Sacramento Transportation Authority (SacTA) Measure A funds, meaning less money for other projects. This study would probably be a good idea, but it should have been done before the measure was written, not after. If this measure fails, as it should, advocates should demand that climate impact studies be done before the Transportation Expenditure Plan is completed, not after.
The agreement also proposes a third party study, because, basically, the measure proponents don’t trust SACOG to kowtow to the party line. Who will this third party be? The agreement doesn’t say. Handpicked by the proponents? Handpicked by SacTA (current SacTA Executive Director Kevin Bewsey was formerly the Principal Civil Engineer for Sacramento County, hardly an unbiased role)? The agreement says, if the two studies don’t agree, we’ll talk about it. Hmm. More smokey back rooms.
The agreement depends upon an ‘extra’ $510M in additional sales tax revenue for mitigation. What if sales tax remains flat, or decreases? What if construction and management cost go up at the same rate as the sales tax receipts, thereby eating up the excess? No mitigation, then? That is the implication.
The agreement relies on the good will of the transportation agencies in the county (pretty please) to spend their extra sales tax revenue on mitigation: “…recipient agencies can pledge that the use of these additional funds be used first for GHG Mitigation.” Notice it doesn’t say must or will, just can. Citrus Heights, for example, which is much more likely to propose multi-modal transportation projects than other entities, will be asked to sacrifice sales tax revenue to mitigate the Connector and other capacity expansion projects, even though they won’t benefit from those. The same for the City of Sacramento, which makes it doubly disappointing to me that Mayor Steinberg is a party to this agreement.
The agreement implies that the GHG/VMT generating projects can be mitigated sometime later: “Therein, there should be no net increase to regional GHG emissions after mitigation measures are complete.” It doesn’t say the mitigation needs to happen first, or at the same time as the project, just sometime within the 40 years. Ouch!
An MOU is just a statement of intent, laying out what each party intends to do. It is not a contract, and is not legally binding. If one of the parties is unhappy with what the other parties have done, or not done, they can bring a civil suit, but they may not allege breach of contract, because it is not a contract.
The agenda staff report says it is likely that the SACOG Blueprint will have to be delayed in order for staff to be shifted to the study. This is SACOG’s flagship product. Why in the world would it be delayed just to meet the needs of the transportation sales tax measure proponents? This is crazy.
$100M out of City of Sacramento’s share of sales tax revenues would be added for the Mobility Center. Why? What does this have to do with the Capital Southeast Connector and other roadway capacity expansion projects? Are we going to mitigate all the bad things in the measure with a small investment in electric vehicles?
The measure proponents are bullying SACOG. This was their intention, else why would they have removed the GHG/VMT climate protection language that was in the deferred 2020 measure? It is as though the school bully said “hand over your lunch money” and the victim counter-proposes an agreement to only give half of the lunch money, and agrees not to report the bully to the Principal (the Principal, in this case, being the public).
Please take a look at the SACOG Board page to see who your representatives are, and contact them about this agreement.
The SACOG Board Meeting is this Thursday, June 16, starting at 9:30AM, and this is agenda item 13. You can view the meeting at https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82132538239. You can comment via Zoom, or by email or online or phone, or even in person. This is apparently the first in-person meeting of the board. See the agenda for details.
For more on the measure, see Measure 2022 posts. The use of this category is not meant to confuse. A lot of people are referring to this as Measure A, but the measure letters are assigned by county elections after they have qualified, so this is in no sense Measure A at this time.
From the Executive Summary: “… rapidly moving to zero-emission transportation, electrifying the cars, buses, trains, and trucks that now constitute California’s single largest source of planet-warming pollution”. Notice that bicycles are not mentioned. Even more worrisome is that one third of the carbon reduction is from actions that capture carbon, including natural environments and as-yet unavailable carbon capture technology.
From the Ensure Equity and Affordability section: “… effective actions to move with all possible speed to clean energy, zero-emission cars and trucks, energy efficient homes, sustainable agriculture, and resilient forests…”. No mention of electric bikes or transit. Unless CARB intends to buy every low income person in the state an electric car, its plan will not meet with needs of low income and disinvested communities. What would meet those needs is a transit-first policy and funding, with significant state investment in making walking and bicycling more welcoming and safer.
In the entire document, there are two instances of ‘bike’ and three of ‘bicycling’ (and none of bicycle or e-bike or electric bicycle). There is one instance of ‘transit’. Six instances of ‘walking’. Ten instances of ‘active transportation’, but 163 instances of ‘transportation’, many of them referring to other documents and programs. In contrast, 157 instances of ‘vehicle’. Not hard to see where the focus is.
Here is a wordcloud of just the Executive Summary section. See if it speaks to your concerns. A wordcloud of the entire document would show vehicle prominently.
CARB seems incapable of imagining a future that is not dominated by cars. They simply intend to replace existing cars with electric cars. Put simply, this is climate arson, by the very agency that is supposed to be working on climate change in a serious way.
Sadly, many of the climate change and environmental organizations seem aligned with this focus on vehicle electrification.
I’ve said it before and will repeat (again and again): electric cars, or any electric vehicles other than bikes, are only a partial solution to the climate crisis. Serious solutions will include and prioritize walking, bicycling and transit. If you are an electric car booster and not working to reduce the dominance of motor vehicles in our cities and lives, you are not serious about climate change. And you are certainly not serious about livable cities.
Getting Around Sacramento 