We support a sustainable and eco-friendly transportation system. We also support a long-term, comprehensive planning process that involves the public and is influenced by transit-oriented growth patterns.
Position History:
LWVBA Position 2012-2014 (Updated 5/2012)
- Support a long-term, comprehensive planning process consistent with the comprehensive Bay Area plan and growth management framework (currently ABAG’s plan) to promote compact, transit-oriented growth patterns served by an efficient, interconnected, multi-modal transportation network.
- Support planning processes that consistently involve public participation designed to include:
- outreach to all communities, with particular attention to those that are underserved by public transit;
- presentations that are simple, clear, and easily comprehended by a public not versed in transportation acronyms and jargon, and that are provided in the languages appropriate to non-English-speaking persons;
- follow-up evaluation by participants that includes measurement of their satisfaction with the materials and the presentation and their confidence that their needs have been understood and are being addressed.
- Support a transportation system that offers viable alternatives to single-occupancy vehicle use, that is designed to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and single-occupancy vehicle use, and that is:
- multi-modal,
- efficient,
- convenient,
- reliable,
- cost-effective,
- accessible to people with disabilities,
- equitable, and
- safe.
- The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), as the currently designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), should develop criteria and a process for evaluating all applicable modes of public transit and pedestrian and bicycle alternatives as a framework for testing proposals in order to build the most effective regional transportation system.
- The MPO should develop criteria and a system for allocating state and federal transportation funds to encourage compact, transit-oriented growth patterns, with:
- an analysis of potential transportation investments that includes their effects on future land uses in and beyond the Bay Area;
- criteria for evaluating alternative transportation investments that include reasonable fares, environmental effects on health (including air and water quality, noise reduction), on the production of greenhouse gas emissions, and on agriculture and natural resources;
- the analyses are to be presented as public information prior to selection of projects;
- the distribution of funds is to be tied to cooperative local land use planning.
- Bay Area transit systems should be linked into an efficient, reliable, convenient and affordable regional transit network with:
- attention to reasonable, fares, reduction of travel times, extensive hours of service, and good feeder service;
- easily comprehended materials describing routes, schedules, and transit hubs; and
- a fare payment method that can be used on all systems.
- Good service is to be encouraged by:
- monitoring the relative efficiency of various systems, and
- maintaining transit system options to mitigate interruptions in service (disasters, strikes) and to serve needs of people with special limitations.
- Transportation funding should be more reliably consistent with needs and long-term planning (e.g., annual adjustment of the gas tax to cover costs of road maintenance).
Issues:
League to which this content belongs:
The Bay Area
