Transportation

By Gloria Purcell

We need to build our communities so that we don't have to drive everywhere, create friendly and safe walking spaces, improve mass transit, and learn to carpool.

Now, with the unlivable traffic situation ruining our quality of life, these things have become urgent priorities for everyone on the Peninsula. Government officials have at last begun to think about "transit-oriented density", which simply means building new housing near mass transit nodes. Unfortunately, almost all of our already-built housing is nowhere near the train, nor to available, convenient bus service, and CalTrans continues to build roads that ignore the infrastructural needs of pedestrians--especially the elderly--bicyclists and wheelchair users. The San Mateo County Transportation Authority, which allocates transportation project dollars from the half-cent sales tax we voted for, urged by the Citizen Advisory Committee of which I am currently Chair, has become much more pedestrian and bicycle focussed in the past year, but is hampered by a specific spending limit mandated by the original ballot measure. Because of your Citizen Advisory Committee, the proposed new expenditure plan will contain a ten-fold increase in bicycle project spending, as well as improving shuttle services to employers and reducing freeway expansion funding. We have advocated and worked toward reinstating the Dumbarton Rail service, which may soon become a reality.

I support improved Caltrain service, including electrification, more frequent trains, pedestrian-friendly stations, and bike stations such as Palo Alto has. I insist that SamTrans provide better service, with more routes and smaller, hill-friendly buses to preserve our neighborhood roadways and lower neighborhood pollution. VTA light rail must expand intelligently, and new housing, employer sites and community areas must be coordinated with the routes.

I am not in favor of BART coming down the Peninsula or into San Jose, because of its incredibly high cost (for comparison, BART construction is 16 times more expensive than Caltrain construction, and BART cannot carry freight). Also, where in your town would you like to see a BART parking garage built? Think of the added local car traffic! I believe it is not in the public interest, and not a sane use of our taxpayer dollars, to expand BART unless the cost can be deeply reduced and traffic issues can be resolved.

Lastly, we need to change our own mindset. We have become so car-minded that often I hear remarks that clearly show that the person literally cannot think of anything else. Transportation staff promotes projects that are designed to move cars; they have forgotten that the object is to move PEOPLE. Traffic study engineers present elaborate pages of graphs and numbers, showing all the possible movements and quantities of cars, without any consideration of improving pedestrian and bikeways and the effect that could have on local traffic. Because of this mindset, roadways are planned for cars, not people, and walking is often so unpleasant or unsafe that we deliberately avoid it. Provisions for pedestrians and bicyclists, if any, give no thought whatsoever to improving the existing deficient "standard". See the new Highway 92 construction as one of many examples.

Changing our mindset applies to all of us, not just professionals and governments. Do you think of carpooling as inconvenient; something that diminishes your commute experience? Obviously, most of us do. Why? Doesn't it reduce your cost and increase your speed, giving you back hours of your life? Doesn't it reduce toxic pollution and cancer hazards in the air you breathe? NONE of the construction projects that we are asking government to build to "solve the problem" will EVER solve the problem. They will take 5 to 10 years of major disruptive construction, impeding your travel, cost billions of your taxpayer dollars, and congestion has been projected to be as bad or worse! Studies have conclusively shown that freeways will fill up faster than we can build them. Even the mass transit and other projects that I advocate will not solve the problem! The economy and the population are growing too fast (we also need to begin seriously talking about population!) Government agencies know this, but their job is to respond to our demands, whether that will work or not.

No, only we--you and I--can truly solve this problem. The incredible fact is that we could solve the commute car traffic problems in one day with zero dollars, just by carpooling. So take control. Empower yourself. Seize the initiative and save your tax money, bridge money and gas money. Save repair costs on your car. Drive right by those gridlocked cars in the other lanes, and know that you are helping the environment too! This we can do!