Last month, a group of youth and community residents initiated a meeting with Assemblymember Eloise Gómez Reyes of the 47th District in San Bernardino County. Youth representatives from the group Soar IE envisioned an initiative for safer sidewalks around neighborhood schools in Muscoy. Muscoy is unincorporated area of San Bernardino that has a CalEnviroScreen pollution burden profile of 96-100%, is low-income, and the population is 82 percent Latinx.
On March 23rd, the California Air Resources Board held a board meeting in the City of Riverside. A key agenda item was a vote on setting regional goals for greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets as mandated by SB 375. Advocates hoped that SB 375 would encourage regional governments to coordinate land use and transportation planning efforts to curb GHG emission from driving. The board heard testimonial presentations from all Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs), who must implement the targets at the regional level.
The Fresno Council of Governments has issued a call for projects fo
On February 21st, the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) released a draft of their Public Participation Plan and is currently soliciting feedback until April 21st. SCAG is responsible for developing plans like the Regional Transportation Plan Sustainable Communities Strategies and the Public Participation Plan is a critical guide for how SCAG will interact and gather input from public stakeholders The updated plan includes practices and methods fo
The Morongo Valley Basin in Southern California, which includes the areas of Joshua Tree, Yucca Valley and Twentynine Palms in San Bernardino County, is embarking on the development of an Active Transportation Plan. The Morongo Valley Active Transportation Plan (MV Plan) has developed a stakeholder committee to discuss and provide major feedback for the plan--which will include Safe Routes to School components and walking/biking connections to Joshua Tree National Park.
Last fall, equity and environmental justice advocates were pleased at the passage of AB 179. The legislation mandated reform of the California Transportation Commission (CTC) board and placed requirements to ensure diverse representation, including experience working in disadvantaged communities. Despite the promising requirements written into AB 179, Governor Brown just re-appointed two incumbents who do not meet the criteria of equity or climate justice champions.
The California Transportation Commission (CTC) held the final public workshop for Cycle 4 of the Active Transportation Program on March 1, releasing the latest draft applications the night before. While we had initially pushed to retain standalone questions on public health, we had agreed to a compromise to have public health addressed in the Statement of Need question. We were heartened to see much of our compromise language for those questions adopted, even though our suggestions for questions pertaining to addressing the need were apparently not included this round.