I attended the SACOG Blueprint Workshop on Friday, June 16, at the Folsom Community Center. So far as I am aware, this was the largest gathering that SACOG has ever hosted. There were electeds, city and county staff, citizens, and a lot of SACOG staff.

I attended because I was concerned that SACOG would be hearing mostly from electeds and staff, and not citizens. SACOG already hears from electeds and staff, too much. But there were enough citizens there to balance things out. The big surprise to me was that nearly everyone in the room came out of the side of the progressive solutions. Two contrasting scenarios for each of five issues (development pattern, types of housing, transportation expenditures, transit frequency vs coverage, and one I’m not remembering; unfortunately I lost track of the printed material provided, so can’t give you the details). In each case, the consensus of the people in the room was for the progressive idea: infill development, mixed use with multi-family prominent, transportation expenditures on maintenance (fix-it-first; fix the potholes) rather than expansion, investment in active transportation, and better transit frequency. When electeds vote on priorities and projects, they often favor the regressive (low productivity sprawl with a high and unrecoverable investment in transportation and other infrastructure), and many staff support this. But when removed from the direct view of the campaign donor class, it turns out most of them want the right thing. I am hopeful!

When a summary of the workshop becomes available, and/or I get a copy of the printed material, I’ll update this post.