MOVING THE CENTRAL COAST FORWARD was a meeting about regional transportation needs held on Saturday, January 31 in the cafeteria at Ventura College.

Hosted by ASERT, the Alliance for a Sustainable and Equitable Regional Transportation, and by CAUSE, the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy, the meeting featured keynote speaker Senator Alan Lowenthal who chairs the California Senate Committee on Transportation and Housing. There was also a panel of speakers: Rick Cole, Ventura City Manager; Esperanza Martinez of the Los Angeles
Bus Riders’ Union; and Das Williams from the Santa Barbara City Council.

Oh, yawn, right?  (Are you still with me after that first paragraph?)  Well, that’s what I thought when I almost didn’t show up at 8:30 in the morning on a Saturday.  I couldn’t even remember what e-mail or flyer orwhatever had caused the notation on my calendar.  But shortly after getting there and finding the coffee, I realized that I had stumbled upon one of the many battlefields where the final Armageddon is being waged with the beast that is devouring our planet and all life upon it.

Ventura County, incidentally, is not doing as well in the battle as are the counties to our north and south–as the three panel members made clear.

Rick Cole, Ventura’s City Manager, pointed out that we tossed “6,000 years of human culture into the trash can” when we started designing our cities around the automobile instead of around pedestrian traffic. Citing the fairgrounds “with a parking lot the size of Delaware” next to the beach where the runoff goes directly into the ocean, and the county government buildings, which are surrounded by acres of parking lots and can be reached only by car, Cole observed that we have a system in which our citizens who walk, who ride bikes, or take public transport are “separate and unequal.”  He noted that there are no homeless cars because there are laws ensuring that every building constructed has to have enough parking spaces provided.  And if people were treated with as much consideration as cars, there would be seven beds in shelters available for every homeless person.

Rick Cole, Ventura City Manager

Panelist Esperanza Martinez chronicled the success of the Los Angeles’ Bus Riders’ Union.  When the L.A. bus riders learned that buses were getting only 6% of available funding while highways were getting 70% and trains the rest, they got serious.  With action items such as “no seat, no fare” in which they refused to pay if no seats were available, and demonstrations against “transport racism,” they gradually got their share of the federal money to get natural gas fueled buses in L.A., and they saved the monthly bus pass, which is a lifeline for the working poor.

In both Los Angeles County and Santa Barbara County, voters approved a .5% sales tax to be used exclusively to fund transportation.  Ventura County has no such tax base for transportation.  This is a classic case of them that has gets. City Council Member Das Williams from Santa Barbara pointed out that when Los Angeles or Santa Barbara Counties petition the state or federal governments for assistance, they are able to demonstrate that they have money of their own for the projects.  Santa Barbara can go to Lois Capps and say, “We need three dollars; we’ve got two dollars.  Can you give us a dollar?”  Ventura County has to go to Lois Capps and say, “We need three dollars.  Can you give us three dollars?”  It’s not hard to figure out who’s likely to end up with three dollars.

Esperanza Martinez of the Los Angeles Bus Riders’ Union

Keynote speaker Alan Lowenthal, State Senator from Long Beach and chair of the Senate Committee on Transportation and Housing, made it clear that this wasn’t just a meeting about buses.  This was a meeting about social justice in all of its many aspects.  But once the speakers had made it clear that the issue of woefully inadequate public transportation is only one head of the beast (along with the wars, the economic collapse, the environmental devastation, the human rights atrocities, all the many aspects of the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into), some of us did talk about buses.

There were six workshop sessions.  There was one session on getting funding and results, one each on issues affecting bikes, buses, and trains, one on oil and environment, and one on how to use public transportation.  After the workshops there were breakout sessions where people exchanged information about transportation needs.

There’s something Orwellian about that phrase: “exchanged information about transportation needs.”  We’re talking about when you can’t get there from here—and you have to get there.  We’re talking about there being no buses that come within a mile of the adult education facility on Valentine Road in Ventura where many of the students are handicapped. We’re talking about mothers carrying a small child and pushing another in a stroller in heavy traffic along the shoulder of Victoria north of Gonzales to reach the Prototypes Program.  We’re talking about elderly people trying to reach Oxnard Airport from Ventura Avenue.  We’re talking about a man recently released from prison and on parole who doesn’t have a driver’s license but finally gets a job outside of Santa Paula but can’t get to work because the Vista buses don’t get there early enough so he’s fired.

California State Assembly Member, Pedro Nava, Santa Barbara City Counselmember, Das Williams, Program Host, Carmen Ramirez

State Senator Lowenthal commended the efforts that turned Ventura County blue in 2008.   But he also pointed out that transportation is a key to social justice and that counties with a population of over 500,000 are legally required by the Transportation Development Act to use a percentage of revenues for transportation.  Ventura County now has a population of 800,000 but continues to act like a rural county.  It certainly seems that our newly blue county’s Democrats need to be deployed to this battlefield.

The Santa Barbara based Alliance for Sustainable and Equitable Regional Transportation (ASERT) convened a panel discussion at the Santa Barbara Central Public Library on Saturday January 24th, 2009. The event celebrated the Nov 2008 passage of Measure A, which funds county transportation projects through a dedicated sales tax, while anticipating future challenges and opportunities in light of both economic conditions and the funding priorities of the Obama administration.

As a resident of Ventura County, I found the discussion particularly relevant for two reasons:

1) Transportation issues are regional by nature and are not constrained by county lines.
2) Measure A passed by 80%, one of the largest margins since the implementation of the 2/3rds rule in the early 1990s, presenting a case study for similar campaigns.

Since Ventura County is currently the largest county in the State of California without a dedicated portion of its sales tax to fund transportation, the campaign to get measure A passed provides particularly relevant lessons. At a time when the state budget crisis is impacting the state monies many counties and cities rely on to fund local needs, a lack of dedicated funding for transportation issues can translate to a serious crisis. Not only are cities and counties that lack self-funding at the back of the line for state assistance, but they often lack the ability to fund even basic maintenance, let alone the types of infrastructure projects we need to move forward on issues of congestion, environmental health and economic development.

The wide-ranging discussion offered a wealth of information on current and future developments in transportation policy and practice in both Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties. The panel included special guest former Massachusetts Governor and Presidential Candidate Michael Dukakis, who in addition to being a Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Northeastern University and UCLA is also the past Vice-Chair of Amtrak. The Honorable Supervisor Salud Carbajal moderated the event and additional panelists included Michael Chiacos, Energy Program Senior Associate of the Community Environmental Council; Gregg Hart, Public Information and Government Affairs Coordinator of Santa Barbara County Association of Governments; and Peter De Hann Programming Director of the Ventura County Transportation Commission. While Congresswoman Lois Capps was unable to attend, her district representative Jonathan Saur was on hand to read a statement reaffirming her commitment to issues of sustainable transportation.

As much as the public supports alternative transportation and currently favors large scale infrastructure development, the reality is these projects are often but a sliver of the transportation funding pie. Add in the current economic crisis, and funding for these critical projects is essentially nonexistent. Two major funding issues stood out against the backdrop of the state budget crisis and the economic downturn: first, that money is generally only available for capital improvements (such as the purchase of buses or trains), but not their operating costs; and two, that the current economic stimulus plan funds only those projects that can be shovel ready within 120 days, which will primarily translate to basic road repair. When it comes to transportation funding, we really need the time and the money to both cover operating expenses and pursue the alternative transportation and energy solutions the public intended these monies to fund.

Further highlighting the extent to which alternative transportation is losing out in funding, Dukakis pointed out that in an average year the federal government spends $33 billion on highways, $16 billion on airlines, and a paltry $1.5 billion on rail. As he put it, there is no form of transportation that is currently unsubsidized. So despite the public demand for alternative transportation, votes don’t always translate to funding priorities. And the time delays inherent to these large scale projects mean we often turn to quicker but less substantial solutions.

Santa Barbara County alone consumes 250 million gallons of liquid fuels per year, despite its boasting the 3rd highest per capita ownership of hybrid vehicles in the nation. With the passage of Measure A, however, funds will be available for more programs and projects to address these issues. Even before the passage of the measure, Santa Barbara County saw the addition of a new Lompoc-Vandenberg Air Force Base-Santa Maria bus service, “The Breeze,” which reached its projected 3-year ridership levels after only 6 months.

There is some good news on Ventura County efforts to get transportation alternatives up and running as well. The Coastal Express has been the star of the bus system with a ridership increase of 17% per year, and a proposal to accommodate morning commuters with more convenient train schedules is currently being pursued. But Ventura County is currently facing a potential $4 million shortfall in transportation funds: the funding gap is threatening Metrolink service to LA as officials scramble to come up with the missing money. And who wants to be driving down the 101 with all that train traffic back on the highway? Or worse still, riding the rails with train control upgrades pushed off because the money just isn’t there? Clearly, the gap between transportation needs and available funds must be addressed.

Sorry you missed the panel? You’re in luck because ASERT will be hosting its first Ventura County event on Saturday, January 31st from 8:30am-12noon at the Ventura College Cafeteria (4667 Telegraph Rd, Ventura, CA). While it will focus more on taking action to improve public transportation, the public will have an opportunity to meet advocates and leaders in transportation, share their transportation needs and create a strategy to improve public transportation. For more information about ASERT or to RSVP for “Moving the Central Coast Forward”, contact Carmen Ramirez at carmen@coastalalliance.com / (805) 658-0810 X. 213

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