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News clippings related to transit, mobility and quality of life
MoveNews #82 for the week of January 3, 2010
Regional
Elected leaders think big when it comes to resolutions
San Diego Union Tribune, Diane Bell, January 5, 2010
As we start the first full week of 2010, hereís how some local leaders are resolving to make San Diego County a better place to live. ...
Todd Gloria, San Diego City Council member: A strong public transit system is a necessity for the long-term viability of San Diego. I will fight proposed cuts to service and work to secure new funding streams....
One for the Bicyclists
San Diego Reader, Dec. 29, 2009
On December 17, a group calling itself the Clairemont Residents for Common Sense called a meeting with City of San Diego senior traffic engineer Gary Pence to discuss the loss of two lanes on a main artery in Clairemont. Citizens had awoken one morning to find a section of Clairemont Drive between Burgener and Denver restriped, changing it from two lanes in both directions to one lane with a bike path. This stretch of road being a main artery to the I-5, commute times got a little bit longer.
About 50 citizens attended the meeting at the South Clairemont Recreation Center, with councilmember Donna Frye representing the mayor's office. Opinions on both sides of the issue were hotly debated. ...
Gary Pence showed statistics on accidents in this downhill area. He shared strategies the City had employed before changing the lane configuration. Mr. Pence also committed to improving communication between the traffic department and the community. Although one group of Clairemont residents demanded that the street be immediately restriped to the old configuration, a surprising number of residents (over 50 percent) preferred the new single lane due to the enhanced safety of all the road users, including bicyclists.
Interestingly, Bay View Plaza, which lies at the foot of Clairemont Drive and Denver Street, will be undergoing redevelopment soon. Construction is due to start in January. ... The local residents can only wait and see how traffic will be affected by the construction in the upcoming year, with traffic flow limited to one lane in each direction.
California
A powerful alliance of interest groups wants to put an end to what it considers highway robbery.
The League of California Cities, California Transit Association and other organizations have launched an initiative aimed at stopping state lawmakers from raiding transportation funds and other locally dedicated revenues to cover Californiaís chronic budget shortfalls.
The drain has deepened the financial crisis facing local governments and transit agencies, which have relied on the state funds to help pay for operations. The state has diverted as much as $3.5 billion in transportation funds from local transit agencies in the past three years, according to the California Transit Association.
In San Diego County, transit officials have repeatedly cut services and raised fares in recent years largely in response to the taking of the funds by the Schwarzenegger administration.
"I think what the administration has been doing is kind of a travesty," said Paul Jablonski, chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Transit System in San Diego.
When it comes to urban transportation, ingenuity is the key to cleaner, greener, and smarter cities. ...Crucially, decades of planning or billions of dollars of investment are not needed to start making cities more livable. This is because being ësmartí doesnít necessarily mean adopting space-age technologies, or launching exorbitantly expensive infrastructure projects. Instead, it is about creating better systems, based on more people-friendly principles.
In particular, we have identified three key policies that municipal leaders can implement in order to quickly and inexpensively transform their cities into oases of sustainability and livability.
The first is an increased emphasis on public transportation. By getting people out of cars and into clean, efficient mass transit, cities can free themselves from the expensive and self-defeating race to build more and more highways. It is important to note that cost need not be prohibitive for these projects. For example, Mexico City, Bogota, and Guayaquil have all proven the worth of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), a new type of mass transit system akin to an above-ground metro. By using special lanes reserved exclusively for high-capacity buses, these cities have mimicked the speed and capacity of subways, but at fraction of the cost.
Cities should also vigorously promote biking and walking. Like public transit, these ìnon-motorizedî modes of transport get people out of cars, increasing energy efficiency and reducing air pollution. In addition, a large number of studies have shown that even modest increases in bicycling or walking can significantly reduce the risk of obesity, heart disease and stress.
Fast Facts
In places where there has been significant investment in transit infrastructure and related streetscape improvements, there have been significant positive development effects.
Source: California Transit Association
MoveNews #82 was edited by Carolyn Chase and published by Move San Diego, Inc. as a service to our members. You may subscribe, unsubscribe, or send article suggestions by sending an email request to: info@movesandiego.org
NOTE: if there is no link provided to an item, then there is no additional content on that item. All links were current as of the date of publication.
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