Transform and Allies Call Out Plan to Streamline Highway 37 Widening

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In late August, Transform joined with 24 environmental, transportation, and other advocacy organizations to send a letter to California Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire opposing a plan to amend a 2023 law. The law provided special streamlining privileges under California’s endangered species laws to certain clean energy and water infrastructure projects. This year’s amendment would have extended those special streamlining privileges to a project to widen State Route 37 between Vallejo and State Route 121 in Sonoma County, which will have significant impacts on a sensitive salt marsh habitat. 

SR 37 does often experience traffic congestion, but decades of research and lived experience have proven that adding lanes does not solve congestion. And, at its core, the proposal to widen the highway is the wrong solution to a very complicated but completely different problem.

How to drown $500 million

The project to add lanes to SR 37 is described as “interim.” That’s because the $500 million the state proposes spending to add capacity to this highway segment, which is right at sea level and is regularly inundated during king tides, will likely be underwater due to climate change within 15 years. The long-term proposal is to raise the roadbed to accommodate future sea level rise, a much more expensive and involved undertaking.

The irony of building additional lanes that will increase driving, thus increasing greenhouse gas emissions, on a roadway that is likely to be submerged by climate change appears to be lost on planners.

Real problems—real solutions

The reason for the congestion on SR 37 is rooted in economics as much as transportation policy. Sonoma County has a dearth of affordable housing, so many of the people who work in its vineyards and tourist industry live in more affordable communities in Solano County. Those workers must drive to their jobs in Sonoma County towns and cities because of a lack of public transportation options.

Widening the highway is an acceptance of an unacceptable status quo, where working-class people are forced into long, expensive commutes.

The solution is two-fold. Sonoma County must build more housing, particularly more affordable housing, so employees have the opportunity to live closer to their places of work. This is a long-term project that won’t be easy, but it’s essential.

The second solution is to provide more frequent and reliable transit options between Solano and Sonoma cities. This could be accomplished fairly quickly. In our letter, we recommend tolling on the existing lanes of SR 37. The revenue this generates could support expanded public transportation. The tolling scheme could be designed to minimize the cost to low-income households and would cost substantially less than $500 million to implement. 

Over the long term, passenger rail is planned for this corridor to connect to the Capitol Corridor service between Sacramento and the Bay Area, which will provide another alternative to driving in the future.

Facing the realities of climate change

Highway expansion should no longer be a default solution to congestion. In congested corridors like Highway 37, widening will only serve to increase driving and ultimately worsen congestion. Choosing to invest in alternative solutions will not be easy; California has entrenched administrative structures and industries built around expanding highways, so change must include just transitions for workers and businesses. 

But, despite the challenge, we must change the way we think about transportation planning. Our freeway mentality has driven us to the brink of climate catastrophe. A future focused on infill housing development, housing affordability, and a broad array of low- and no-carbon transportation options is the only way to move toward a more stable and liveable planet.

Read the full letter.

Sign on Letter_ Oppose Backdoor Streamlining for HW 37Download

Transform Welcomes New Housing and Parking Manager

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Julia Gerasimenko has joined Transform as our Housing and Parking Policy Manager. She will lead the SPOT SJ program and Transit Oriented Communities outreach and engagement in the Five Wounds neighborhood of San Jose. 

Julia is motivated to tackle systemic issues in ways that materially improve people’s lives. “As a first-generation immigrant growing up on low income in the affluent community of New Haven, Connecticut, I often felt othered,” she says. “Public transportation was an accessible and affordable public service that allowed me to access incredible cultural and educational opportunities in nearby New York City, despite not having a lot of money.” 

Julia has never owned a car and has always gotten around by public transit, walking, and biking. Her first job out of college was helping others access educational resources because she saw that as the path to upward mobility. However, she soon realized that the students she worked with had to choose between making a car payment or buying textbooks, and that led her to focus on the interconnections between transportation, housing, and community and individual well-being at the Active Transportation Alliance in Chicago.

“The most successful campaigns I was a part of at the Active Transportation Alliance always had housing and transportation advocates collaborating to build a larger umbrella and more collective power to influence policy wins,” Julia says. “Housing and transportation are fundamental to everyone’s lived experience, and I can think of few other issues that need urgent solutions to tackle climate change and systemic racism.”

While working on transportation issues in Chicago, she also became aware of how much of our public space and streets are dedicated to storing (mostly) empty cars. She sees an urgent need to aggressively push policymakers and developers to prioritize constructing more affordable housing by repurposing parking and investing in transit-priority streets, protected bike lanes, and other forms of infrastructure that support safe and healthy living conditions for all.

Adding Julia to our team represents an increased emphasis at Transform on our parking reform efforts. “I’m excited to change the narrative around parking and our communal public space. The dominant narrative that there is ‘never enough parking’ and countering that with a mindset of abundance,” she says.

SPOT SJ is a collaborative effort to better utilize abundant garage parking spots in downtown San Jose, leaving curb space for active transportation and public transit. Julia’s work in Five Wounds will be conducted as part of a grant from the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) to design better connections for people biking, walking, and taking the bus to connect with a transportation hub around the next planned BART station in San Jose. 

We’re thrilled to add Julia Gerasimenko’s enthusiasm, knowledge, and policy savvy to our policy team.

ac transit bus

We Still Have a Path to an Excellent Regional Transportation Measure — With Your Help

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Representatives from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) joined a Voices for Public Transportation (VPT) meeting on August 21 to outline three scenarios under consideration for a regional transportation measure. Transform and VPT believe the Go Big Framework deserves strong support, while the other options fall short of what we need to ensure transit transformation. We’re rallying people who care about the future of public transportation in the Bay Area to attend the MTC Transportation Revenue Measure Select Committee meeting on Monday, August 26, 2024, at 9:30 a.m. The meeting will be held at the Bay Area Metro Center, 375 Beale Street in San Francisco, in the first floor board room. If you can’t attend in person, consider joining on Zoom or sending public comments by email to [email protected] by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, August 23.

Here’s what you need to know about the scenarios MTC is considering and talking points to support a robust transit funding measure.

Core Transit Scenario: The opt-in option

This option would cover San Francisco, Contra Costa, Alameda, and San Mateo Counties, with an option for the other five Bay Area counties to opt in. It proposes a half-cent sales tax and would raise money to fund the agencies operating in those counties: BART, AC Transit, MUNI, and Caltrain. 

MTC estimates this option would raise $540 million annually from these four counties and $1 billion if all nine counties opt-in. In this scenario, 10% of the funding would go to region-wide transit transformation projects. MTC would have to find additional funding to cover those projects in counties that don’t opt-in. The remaining 90% would initially shore up funding for transit operations before shifting entirely to county-by-county discretionary transportation spending. 

Unfortunately, the Core Transit Scenario would not fill the broader operating funding need in a way that keeps our transit systems running without service cuts. It is hard to imagine that voters would vote to increase their taxes for a measure that would result in service cuts. While some flexibility for counties is needed, the Core Transit Scenario would give counties carte blanche on two-thirds of the entire measure without any guarantees that the money would be spent on needed investments in transit, walking, and biking as opposed to harmful highway expansion projects. 

The Go Big Framework: A nine-county solution

The second scenario MTC is considering would raise $1.5 billion annually through a 0.54% payroll tax or a $0.28 per square foot parcel tax across all nine Bay Area counties. 

This scenario would allocate 20% of funds to transit transformation, with 10% going to MTC for regional projects and 10% returned to counties. It would allocate 50% of funding to operators to maintain their 2023 levels of service initially, with amounts adjusted for inflation after that. The remaining 30% would be county-by-county discretionary transportation spending, known as county flex funds, for use on any projects included in Plan Bay Area. This could include road repairs, new bike lanes, or transit improvements, but it could also mean adding highways. 

One of the sticking points in negotiating a region-wide measure is the desire of counties to keep the revenues raised locally rather than subsidizing operations in other counties. Transform is recommending a guaranteed 90% of the revenue raised in a county would be returned to that county over the life of the measure to address this concern.

While Transform opposes any regional transportation revenue going to highway expansion, we believe this is by far the best scenario presented by MTC and look forward to improving it further. It uses a progressive revenue source, gives a great deal of autonomy to counties to serve the varied needs of their residents, gives robust funding to transit transformation, and, most importantly, fills the transportation funding deficit.

Scenario Three: Going it alone

The final scenario is to abandon the project of a regional transportation revenue measure entirely. The MTC’s only role would be to seek authority for local jurisdictions to run their own ballot measures to raise revenue. This option would provide no transit transformation funding and wouldn’t guarantee the future of the Bay Area’s interconnected transit network. It would be particularly challenging for multi-county operators like BART and Caltrain and cities like San Francisco that could see three separate transit funding measures on the same ballot. Many Bay Area residents live and work in different counties, and funding a harmonized and fully operational regional transit network serves everyone’s needs. Further, putting multiple transportation funding measures on the ballot will confuse voters, making it more likely these measures would fail.

Speak up for regional transit transformation

MTC is hearing a lot of loud voices from different interest groups right now. They need to hear from those of us who want a revenue measure that will protect our regional transit system, share the costs proportionately, with those of greater means contributing the most, and bring about transit transformation, encouraging more people to ride instead of drive.

If you can attend in person, attend virtually, or submit a public comment, here are questions and talking points Transform and VPT suggest raising to MTC: 

  • The number of counties that will get funded matters. Will we get a measure that excludes transit riders in the North Bay and South Bay, or will our measure help everyone?
  • The revenue mechanism should be progressive. Will the measure be funded by a sales tax, which hurts working people, or will it be funded by those with the most ability to pay?
  • The amount of money raised needs to be enough to keep transit fully operational or the whole purpose is defeated. Some scenarios won’t even keep transit funding at the levels they are today, which we all know is already inadequate. How will MTC ensure the measure includes adequate funding for all transit operators?

Please speak up for regional transit funding at the MTC Transportation Revenue Measure Select Committee meeting on Monday, August 26, 2024, at 9:30 a.m.:

  • In-person: Bay Area Metro Center, 375 Beale Street in San Francisco, in the first floor Board Room 
  • On Zoom 
  • Or send public comments by email to [email protected] by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, August 23.

Working together, we can save public transit in the Bay Area!

Regional Housing Bond Measure Pulled from the Ballot — What It Means for Our Movement

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On Wednesday morning, the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority (BAHFA) unanimously voted to remove Regional Measure 4 from the 2024 ballot. The measure would have raised $20 billion to alleviate the Bay Area’s housing and homelessness crisis. Unfortunately, the measure was scuttled in response to a series of eleventh-hour challenges by extremist anti-housing and anti-government activists. This is a tragic missed opportunity for voters to say yes to urgently needed affordable housing and homelessness funding.

This decision is heartbreaking for Transform and other housing advocates, and, more importantly, for the hundreds of thousands of people in our region who now must wait longer for the affordable housing and homelessness solutions Bay Area residents need and deserve.

The decision is also a major setback for our climate and transportation goals. By funding the construction of over 40,000 new affordable homes near transit, the measure would have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by over three million tons and spurred an additional five million transit trips per year.

While it is frustrating that a well-resourced group of naysayers halted progress on housing and homelessness this election, Transform and our partners will continue to build the necessary power to win big on these critical issues.

Looking Forward

All is not lost in the fight for affordable housing. Transform and our partners will be working hard to pass Prop 5 this November, which will lower the voter approval threshold for housing and public infrastructure bond measures to 55%. This measure is critical to advancing future affordable housing bond measures across the state.

Beyond November, our region continues to face significant challenges, from the housing and homelessness crisis to a looming transit fiscal cliff. New regional funding measures for both transportation and affordable housing are urgently needed. Passing both measures in the coming years will take unprecedented collaboration, creativity, and courage.

Transform will play a leading role in both these efforts as we continue our work to empower communities of color, innovate solutions, and advocate for policies and funding — all with the aim of helping people thrive and averting climate disaster. And we will need supporters like you in this fight to build up the necessary resources, political will, and movement organizing to beat the anti-taxers in future election cycles.

In the meantime, get ready to vote yes on Prop 5 in November, and stay tuned for future calls to action in the fight for housing, transportation, and climate justice for our region.

Disability Access Lifts Everyone Up

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The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law on July 26, 1990, after a decades-long fight by disability activists seeking equitable access to our civic commons. As we pass the 34th anniversary of this landmark legislation, we take a moment to appreciate the way ADA improvements benefit people of all abilities, particularly in transit. And it’s also a good time to reflect on how far we have to go.

Removing barriers, providing opportunities

The ADA has four sections, requiring equal opportunity from employers; access to state and local government programs, services, activities, and facilities as well as public transportation; access to public accommodations such as businesses; and provision of telephone relay services. The public transportation section requires service providers to buy accessible vehicles and provide paratransit services.

The ADA caused changes in building standards that have made our built environment — especially newer buildings, buses, and transit stations — more broadly accessible. Still, 34 years later, barriers remain for people with disabilities. 

Everyone benefits from a more accessible world

Everyone benefits from improved access for those who most need it. If you’ve ever rolled a stroller or a bicycle down a curb cut, you’ve benefited from the ADA. If you’ve ever taken your bike to a BART platform using the elevator, you’ve benefited from the ADA. 

People in the disability community say that the rest of us are temporarily able-bodied. We will all get older and appreciate a kneeling bus. Whether permanent or temporary, many of us will have times when we need a helping hand, and the ADA makes that possible.

We also all benefit indirectly from improving access. We benefit from the creativity, humor, insights, and company of our neighbors and friends when we build a world with curb ramps, accessible buses, station elevators, level train entries, and other improvements brought to us by the ADA.

We still have a long way to go

The disability justice ecosystem in California is woefully under-resourced, often excludes the voices of directly impacted people, and is underrepresented in the transportation planning space. While important progress has been made in the disability justice movement, accessible transportation remains stubbornly excluded and has shown little improvement in the past few decades. Living in a world that denies access to the nearly 25% of Californians who live with a disability denies all of us the valuable contributions of those community members. A substantial investment in the movement to focus on accessible transportation is necessary if we are to make progress for this community’s ability to meet their needs and live full lives. 

Last year, we spoke with disability advocates from the Silicon Valley Independent Living Center and Community Resources for Independent Living and a planner from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission about how to make public transit more accessible. They pointed out that the ADA is “a floor, not a ceiling,” and accessible design must go farther. And they emphasized the importance of the disabled community having seats at the table when decisions are being made about transit access. As the community says, “Nothing about us without us.”

In Transform’s new strategic plan, we make a point of giving power and voice to those historically impacted by racist disinvestment in housing and transportation. Empowering and investing in the voices of the disability community is fundamental to our theory of change. And it’s also fundamental to a more accessible world for everyone.

Carrie Harvilla at USDOT Climate Symposium

Transform Joins Transportation and Climate Symposium

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Transform Deputy Director Carrie Harvilla with Eli Lipmen from Move LA and Zak Accuardi from the Natural Resources Defense Council

I was thrilled to attend a Transportation and Climate Symposium hosted by the U.S. Department of Transportation on July 11 and 12. At the gathering, hundreds of decision-makers from the private and public sectors — including state, regional, tribal, and local government representatives from across the country — gathered to share and learn about innovative solutions to decarbonize our transportation systems and create more accessible and affordable mobility options for all Americans.

Here are highlights from the conference.

Convenient, Efficient, Clean

Throughout the symposium, representatives across sectors stressed the need for a multi-modal transportation future that is “Convenient, Efficient, Clean.” Transform would add equitable to this list because equity must be part of our climate solutions.

In a workshop focused on shared bikes and e-bikes, I heard echoes of the work Transform has done to raise the profile and expand access to micro-mobility options, like our report, Shared Mobility: How Shared Bikes and Scooters Can Support an Equitable, Climate-Friendly Transportation Network. Panelists from USDOT, e-bike manufacturers, and bikeshare companies discussed micromobility as a first- and last-mile solution that must be included as a part of comprehensive transportation planning. Transform is already working on putting these ideas into practice.

At a lively philanthropy roundtable, grantmakers stressed the importance of decision-makers understanding that investing in transportation systems change is critical to addressing other national and global issues. For example, addressing the wealth gap relies on frequent and affordable mobility options for folks to get to their jobs and educational opportunities. Fostering a strong democracy requires convenient transportation and safe streets so that all voters can get to the polls. If transportation is a barrier to voting, we can’t have a truly representative government..

USDOT looks at decarbonizing transportation

At the event, the USDOT released Decarbonizing U.S. Transportation. Like California’s Climate Action Plan for Transportation Infrastructure (CAPTI), the report addresses GHG emissions from the transportation sector. Also like California, transportation is the largest single source of climate-killing emissions, with about 16% of carbon emissions coming from light-duty vehicles such as cars and pickup trucks.

The report suggests strategies for creating a convenient, efficient, clean transportation system, many of which are programs Transform is working on currently or has promoted in the past. These include micromobility, congestion pricing, recognizing the connections between affordable housing and convenient transportation, transit-oriented development, active transportation, and investing in public transit.

It was great to connect with others who care passionately about these issues from around the country, to share ideas and inspiration. Transform has been working on these issues for more than 25 years, and we will continue to be a leader and innovator in this space. We look forward to many more years of fruitful collaboration to create vibrant, climate-resilient, affordable neighborhoods in the Bay Area and beyond.

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