Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:08 Good planet's a hot zone, and tropic climbs season and winds blowing breathing trees. Strong
Speaker 0 00:00:26 Sunshine,
Speaker 1 00:00:27 Good planets are hard to find.
Speaker 2 00:00:35 Good evening, Kay Squids. It's every other Sunday again. And you're listening to sustainability now a biweekly case, good radio show focused on environment, sustainability and social justice in the Monterey Bay region, California and the world. I'm your host, Ronnie Lipitz. I'm imagining that not many of our listeners in Santa Cruz have tried to get to Corals or even Watsonville on the metro. It can be done, but you better put aside several hours for the adventure and even more time after 2:00 PM on weekdays. Otherwise, the cross county traveler is pretty much committed to going by car still. There are many people who do, do not drive or own a car, so what can they do? My guests today want to do something about public transit in Santa Cruz County. Lonnie Faulkner is founder and director of Equity Transit of Santa Cruz County. Michael Wool is a fourth year student at U C S C, working towards a BA in Environmental Studies and Economics.
Speaker 2 00:01:31 He's also the president of Slugs for Coast Connect on the Board of Friends of the Rail and Trail and local policy chair for the Student Housing Coalition. I don't know how you can do anything else with all of those things going on. Transit equity advocates for a robust and affordable public transportation system, a clean environment, affordable housing, safe, walkable streets, and opportunity access for work, school, and everyday life. And National Transit Equity day in week are coming in early February, so get out of your car and get moving. Lonnie and Michael, welcome to Sustainability. Now. Thank you for having us.
Speaker 3 00:02:08 Thank you, Ronnie. Really appreciate being able to be on the show today.
Speaker 2 00:02:11 Well, you're welcome. So look, let's start by, uh, having you guys, uh, tell us what you do. Lonnie, why don't you begin by telling us about transit equity, what it does and what you do there, you know, why you started it and all of that. And then we'll, we'll shift over to Michael.
Speaker 3 00:02:26 Absolutely. And, and I apologize for the confusion. The name of organization is Equity Transit, but we do work for Transit Equity. Um, sorry,
Speaker 2 00:02:35 I keep confusing that. I know
Speaker 3 00:02:36 It's common. No, no problem. <laugh>. Um, so we really do sync to bring seek to bring awareness, education, and action around the critically important, um, notion of transit equity, which is robust public transportation systems for our communities. And a lot of what we do, I say, is sit in long boring meetings. Um, for example, with various organizations, the Regional Transportation Commission, bus Metro, we attend some board of supervisors and other local organizations, um, that work on economy equity and environment that are ally interconnected. And we also, I'm gonna use this word a lot, is collaborate with a lot of organizations because unless we collaborate together throughout the county, throughout the, the country, throughout the the state, we're not gonna get these things done at any level. Um, and so we do a lot of collaboration.
Speaker 2 00:03:35 If I can ask you, just speak a little bit louder and closer to the mic. Okay.
Speaker 3 00:03:39 Absolutely.
Speaker 2 00:03:40 Okay. And how about you, Michael?
Speaker 4 00:03:42 Well, so kind of what I do is, um, I work, you know, obviously with Friends of the Rail Trail. Um, what inspired me to join is just my studies and like urban planning and sustainability. And, you know, I've always looked at like the rail corridor as a link that could lead Santa Cruz and the whole county towards a more sustainable transportation future. I mean, you know, one of the things you learn about in environmental studies classes is just how much of our greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation. And it's because we all tap the drive literally everywhere. Um, and then kind of my work with souk or Coast Connect is to push forward that vision of a connected Santa Cruz county, um, on campus with U C S E students because we ride more public transit than any other demographic in the county. Um, so it's more like to mobilize U C S E students to kind of advocate for a better public transit system that, you know, can serve us in the rest of the county.
Speaker 2 00:04:37 My guess is that without the students metro wouldn't be possible in Santa Cruz County. Uh, not withstanding that it already, you know, it's difficult to get around if you're not just coming to the university.
Speaker 4 00:04:48 Yeah, I always say there's like three places that U C S E students can get to on Metro really easily, and it's campus downtown and, um, to diridon over the hill to the airport. You know, it's just like, ah, yeah. Everything's not very connected
Speaker 2 00:05:02 <laugh>. Yeah. So why don't, uh, Lonnie, why don't you tell us what transit equity would look like.
Speaker 3 00:05:09 Great. Get And can you hear me
Speaker 2 00:05:11 Better? Yeah, you know, we can hear you go
Speaker 3 00:05:13 Ahead. Okay, wonderful. Um, I, the first thing I think is really important is to understand the history of what has happened in terms of transportation in this country. A lot of people don't realize that in the 1940s and fifties, the United States had the number one world best public transportation systems, and we were able to get people to and from work, community activities, education, all the things that they needed to do, mostly by public transportation. Um, places like Los Angeles and even in parts of San Francisco had some of the world's best electric, um, environmentally clean trolleys. And I apologize, I'm sick, so my voice is a little funky right now. Now. Um, so to understand that history and that when the, um, very wealthy industries of fossil fuel, automobile, rubber tire, um, the, um, asphalt and, uh, trucking industry came together, they basically laid down ever widening highways through the backyards and bedrooms of black and brown communities.
Speaker 3 00:06:24 And a lot of this was by design. So the civil rights era had been working almost a hundred years up to this point for the right to equal access to transportation. And suddenly overnight, in like 10 years and a little over a decade, the work done by these very wealthy industries undermined access to opportunity to black and brown communities and people of lower income. So imagine then all of a sudden, only the people that had the money to buy automobiles and cars could now get to work, to get over the highways that were being built and access to the jobs and education in the wealthier parts of town. This literally decimated classes of people and systematized and, and, um, systematized racism and classism in our country, um, through this one avenue of transportation. And so to make transportation equity right, again, we have to start to shift initially by educating people as to how that happened and then shift back to a time, back to a, a place in the future where people have access to transportation equity.
Speaker 2 00:07:41 So since we're talking about Santa Cruz County, you know, what do you, what would be your solution to bringing, uh, transit equity to the county?
Speaker 3 00:07:52 Sure. I mean, first of all, we need to prioritize funding for robust public transportation systems. Our car based systems do not serve everybody equally. And there's actually a large percentage of our communities that get shut out from the money that goes into the ever widening highways. So some of the things that we can do is to support a more boat robust busing system and ensure that we grow our busing systems and that we have those busing systems have ready access or, uh, designated lanes on the highways, uh, bus on shoulder, for example, that allow them to have easy access to get to and from work much more quickly and not have to sit in the traffic. And the other thing of course, that, you know, I'm aware that you're aware of that I'm working on is supporting rail. So rail transportation is highly supported by everybody throughout the community, um, I should say a large percentage of the community. And especially in Watsonville, people are really excited and looking forward to be able to jump on the train. A lot of people from Watsonville work in the greater part of, of Santa Cruz and would use that train to get to work and to school to Brio and uc. Santa Cruz,
Speaker 4 00:09:10 I think if I can jump in as well, um, another way to reaching transit equity in Santa Cruz County is just to end continual auto subsidies. And these auto subsidies come in the form of public space take in four cars. So this comes in the form of parking minimums at all businesses and residential locations. This comes in the form of putting street space to just cars and having, you know, like these car sores running through our, you know, our city where it's like, this is, this is land, this is the people's space that we're just giving to. We're only giving access to people with automobiles. So it comes down to like, you know, in instead of subsidizing car culture, we should be subsidizing public transportation. Like, if we spent the amount of money and used the amount of, you know, infrastructure and all that for public transportation, we could absolutely have a robust public transportation system that's time competitive and less expensive for the user than our current, um, auto base system.
Speaker 2 00:10:11 You know, I've been reading about, about all of the uproar in San Francisco about the new bus rabbit transit lane and, and slow streets. And there are a lot of businesses who claim that without automobile access, they can't make it. I mean, I I I don't disagree with what you're saying, right? Yeah. Uh, everything is, we, we don't live in a truly capitalist society, right. There are lots of things that are subsidized and given away. Uh, and so, um, how do these subsidies get turned into funding for transit?
Speaker 4 00:10:46 So you mean like how would, uh, instead of using dedicated space for parking, for example, like if we're talking about reducing the amount of public space for cars in a way that in and of itself is a subsidy to driving, because Sure. Then I, you know, if you're just looking at it from just that perspective, I, it's if it's easier for me to park that time is, you know, like a cost to me. Therefore it's like, you know, it's cheaper for me to go drive and park my car when it becomes harder to park, or the parking costs, you know, a fee. That's when it's like you start to consider other options. And I guess my answer to that is that if we were able to dedicate some of that street space to public transportation instead of just having all on street parking in addition to the onsite parking that businesses in, uh, residential places are required to have by the county, then we could actually start to reduce the demand for driving, because there's another option. The bus comes every five minutes instead of every 30 minutes, you know?
Speaker 2 00:11:48 Well, I mean, I'm gonna be playing devil's advocate throughout a hundred percent the show, right? I mean, right now, uh, with all of its, uh, its difficulties. A lot of metro buses run pretty empty. Yeah.
Speaker 4 00:12:00 Right? And that's, and
Speaker 2 00:12:02 So, you know, other than coming to u csc right, and, and going back downtown, where are the rider?
Speaker 4 00:12:09 So I think the reason that the metro buses run empty is because essentially a lot of these roots are unusable to people. If I lived, so, like, let's say for example, I live over in the east side and I have a bus coming past my house every hour. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that means I essentially have to plan my entire day around this bus coming. Sure. And it was like what Lonnie was saying earlier, if I have to like plan my day around a bus coming, you know, that's not equal access if I, as if I had a car. So that incentivizes people to buy the car because the bus doesn't come that often.
Speaker 2 00:12:45 We'll, we'll have to take a break in a moment, but again, I want to point out to you that until the 20th century, most people got to where they were going by walking a hundred percent, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they lived in small villages, they never went very far. Right. And of course, walking takes time. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, so, so there's a sense in which, uh, saving time by car, you know, is in some ways the commodification of that time, right? I mean, anyway, we are ge getting into, into, uh,
Speaker 3 00:13:16 I just wanna speak, if you don't mind to the, that your bus don't to stop me, you know? No worries. Yeah. Your bus, uh, your bus comment about empty buses, I think a lot of people see empty buses, but don't necessarily see the ridership that's actually happening. And there's also something that's really important, and I know bus Metro is working on, which is you look, you can think of ridership or you can think of coverage. And so I know right now we have a new general manager of bus metro and he's working with, um, some really important people and thinkers about how to optimize that, right? So given the ridership that we have right now, what is the best model for ridership versus coverage? And that's an important first step. And then you look at growing that coverage over time. And that's, you know, there's, there's a lot of, um, uh, noodling and research and, and things that go into that, which they are working on right now.
Speaker 3 00:14:15 The other thing is, if we're going to grow ridership, we need to have 15 minute bus stops so that the bus comes every 15 minutes and people don't have to wait a half an hour or an hour to get to where they need to go. There's a lot of people in our community that absolutely rely on the buses. They have no other choice. And for them it's a lifeline. But for many of us who want to ride the bus, and it's more difficult because of the timing, it will have to become a 15 minute bus system so that people are more apt to jump on the bus and ride it.
Speaker 2 00:14:47 You're listening to sustainability now. I'm Ronnie Lipshitz, and, and my guests today are Lonnie Faulkner, founder and director of Equity Transit of Santa Cruz County, and Michael Wool, who is a fourth year student at U C S A U C S A and very active in the transit, uh, arena. And we were just talking about about empty buses. Um mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I, I just wanted to say that until I bought an electric bike at the instigation of one of my guests on the show, I was riding the bus, the metro. And so, you know, I saw, I saw it when it was full and I saw it when it was empty. Um, and, uh, frankly, there was this problem of course, of, of bus capacity versus frequency. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right. Uh, we don't have to get into that. Um, I'd like to turn to the rail trail to the rail, the light rail issue. Um, what's your, what Lonnie, what's your vision for that?
Speaker 3 00:15:44 Yeah, I, you know, when I believe that when we look at constructing and developing any kind of systems, you have to look at transit, you have to look at urban design, you have to look at the integration of all of those things. And so I look four to five generations out, and for our rail system, I really see that our rail system is gonna be a great connection for the state rail network. And the state rail network is a priority for the state of California connecting cities across the state of California by clean rail, whether it be hydrogen or electric, in some cases, light rail. Um, regardless, I think that we have a great opportunity. Um, I know that this is a very contentious issue, but I think the contention has been in the past sort of artificially fueled. Um, so I think that when you start looking at, um, both measure D 2022 and other, um, uh, reviews where we've actually, uh, looked at the, the public's, um, what do you call it when you actually take a, um, a pole, a poll, thank you. That FM three survey done, um, they showed that 74% of the community wants rail. We've seen that in our past history for the last 20 plus years. A huge percentage of our community has fought very hard for rail. And so I really see that as a great benefit for our community.
Speaker 2 00:17:12 Uh, you know, I I I have to say that although, you know, great majority may want rail when it comes to actually paying for it, there is a lot of, or or asking, would you pay so much for it? There's a lot of resistance. Um, and, uh, this is always, you know, this is always a problem. Um, I know there have been endless studies of the traffic situation in Santa Cruz County. I mean, I read some of them some years ago, you know, from widening highway one to building a second deck to doing all kinds of, of things and, and rail, whether it's light or heavy pencils out as being fairly expensive. Um, and my question is, wouldn't it make more sense to create dedicated bus lanes on Highway one? I mean, the highway is there, the buses are an existing technology. Uh, the, the road doesn't have to be rebuilt, really. So how do you respond to that? Um, Michaels wants
Speaker 4 00:18:10 To, yeah. So I guess my response to that is that it's important to re remember too, the rail corridor is also already there. So it's a piece of infrastructure that exists. It's in a little bit of rough shape, but to be completely honest, it's not in as bad of shape as it seems. It's a lot better than no rail corridor. So we have a corridor there, we have a corridor, the highway one corridor. And my response to that is that look at where the people live. Look at where the people are. And if you truly want to create a transit solution that would get people out of their cars, what you should be thinking about, even though like, you know, these are two arteries that definitely feed the county and like connect, you know, north and south county, you need to think about the last mile.
Speaker 4 00:18:51 That's the most important determination towards whether or not you're gonna ride transit. So if we put a bus lane, or even if you put like rail through the middle of highway one, you're not gonna walk over there and jump on like you would if it was, you know, over where the people live. The density, the population density on along the rail corridor is some of the highest popul population density in the entire county. And, you know, you're just looking realistically, if you want to get people outta their cars, you're not gonna get people to go park and ride over at Highway One as realistically as they are to go and walk out of their door bike to the, you know, the train tasting that's a lot closer, you know, so it's just, you need like, park and Ride is great and all, but like, if it's faster for you to drive and you're already in your car, logically speaking, you're gonna keep driving. So, you know, if you're looking at a solution that will actually get people outta their cars, rail is a great one.
Speaker 3 00:19:44 Yeah. And I would say that it's a yes and we need more buses. We absolutely do. And if we're gonna grow public transportation countywide, uh, and get more people to use public transit overall, we wanna make sure that we're optimizing both of those opportunities. As Michael alluded to, our rail system already exists, and it goes right through the heart of several communities of dense population on par with Oakland and San Jose, for example. So we've got, it goes right through the village of Aptos, the village of Cap, um, on the west side. It hits the west side. I know I'm looking forward to taking my, my, uh, train all the way to Verve and stopping over there for some drinks. Um, and eventually taking the train and connecting to Monterey and connecting to San Jose and connecting to the train to San Francisco. So if we just think in terms of five years, if we're five year thinkers, then I can see people up in arms about the concern.
Speaker 3 00:20:45 But if we think in terms terms of four generations, the rail system is absolutely invaluable because we're talking about being able to transport system people, our tourists from over the hill, and not having to have them come on a car by train. They can come all the way by train from Morgan Hill, from San Jose, and do you know how many cars are brought over the hill every summer because people wanna hit the beach and they no longer will have to do that. They can take the train. So I, I see this as a much bigger picture into the future, especially once we connect to Watsonville and beyond, into other cities throughout the state of California.
Speaker 4 00:21:27 And if I can jump in, first off, Lonnie, thanks for the verb plug. Love it. <laugh>. Um, I work there by the way. Um, so, but coming from like a ucs e perspective as well, that connection to the state rail network is super important because imagine you're able to, you know, come down to the west side, jump on, you know, the train that's gonna go connect to Watsonville and Horror Station and then jump on an eventual train that connects to high speed rail to la which is super important to think about cuz a lot of UCSC students are coming from Southern California. Like the reason that a lot of people choose uc, Santa Cruz is because it's so different than where they're from. There aren't very many universities in a redwood forest on <laugh>, you know, so it's like having this connection towards what is already being constructed in the form of high-speed rail is gonna be super, super, super, super important for the U CSE students.
Speaker 3 00:22:17 And I'm gonna, oh wait, sorry. I'm sorry. I just wanted to hit on something too before when you're finished.
Speaker 4 00:22:23 Okay. Um, yeah, so like right now, like the way to get to LA is like, take the 17 over the hill and then get an Uber from Diridon to San Jose airport. Or if you're lucky and you know, someone with a car, get a ride to the airport and then fly if
Speaker 2 00:22:35 There is a bus from Diridon to the airport. I have not been able to find it, but I know there is
Speaker 4 00:22:40 One. There definitely is. But usually when you're going to the airport, you know, the last thing you want to deal with is like any more connections. So it's definitely a little rough, but like, you know, there's like a 45 minute flight from San Jose to LA that pe like, you know, it's super common for people going home for like, you know, breaks or anything to visit family or stuff like that. So, you know, like having passenger rail connections to the larger state system is gonna be really important. Come, you know, like 10, 20, 30 years down the line, once we have a high speed rail network connecting, you know, NorCal and SoCal.
Speaker 3 00:23:09 Yeah. And we had a lot of people in Measure D nursing, a lot of our nursing staff. We have people who are police officers, other folks who right now cannot afford to live in Santa Cruz County, and they live in places like Salinas and other places outside. Well, when they found out that there was a group trying to stop our rail system from being, from going forward, we had nurses and cyclists and people coming up here saying, we are so angry about that because we are looking forward to being able to come to work by rail because right now we're sitting two hours one way in traffic, and these are the people, people that serve our county, that serve us, and they can't afford to live here anymore. So that right now they commute from outside.
Speaker 2 00:23:52 Well, politics is messy as is transportation and housing and, and the like, as we all know. Um, listen, you wanted to talk about Transit Equity Day, that's why where we, we began, right? So why don't you tell us about that, how it started, um, who it honors and what's being planned for Santa Cruz County.
Speaker 3 00:24:12 Oh, thank you so much for asking that. Yeah. We, um, national Transit Equity Day is a large coalition of national, statewide and other organizations. For example, three fifty.org. Um, the Sierra Club is a big partner, uh, the naacp, elders for Climate Action, friends of the Earth Hip Hop Caucus, uh, the Sunshine Group, the naacp, uh, the list just goes on and on and on. And all of these issues that we're talking about, transit equity and how they have undermined opportunity, basically a lack of transit equity is the number one preventer of opportunity in this country. Access to jobs, access to education, and so forth. And it also impacts our environment. And so all these organizations came together and in 2018 held the first National Transit Equity Day. It was, uh, dated February 4th in honor of Rosa Parks, of course, for her great role in shifting the conversation around equitable transportation in this country and making it legal for people of all colors to ride transportation systems throughout our country.
Speaker 3 00:25:29 And that began in 2018, this event that goes on throughout the country now, um, throughout different cities. And we were the ones that first brought the, the event here to the county last year. And so we are planning a bigger event this year of a week of activities ending in Watsonville. And of course, Watsonville feels the biggest impact of the transit inequity. And so, uh, we had been asked by some people from Watsonville, um, uh, organizers and, uh, to please bring it down there this year. And we promised to do that, and that's what we're gonna do. And then we have a week of activities leading up to that main event on February 4th.
Speaker 2 00:26:09 Where can people find out about, about that?
Speaker 3 00:26:13 Yeah, we're gonna have more information coming out to the public, hopefully in the next couple weeks because our event starts January 30th at uc Santa Cruz. Michael's gonna help to put together, um, a panel of speakers and then we're gonna have a movie night in Live Oak, which is on Wednesday, the February 1st, and then a bike party for Safety Awareness, street Safety Awareness on February 3rd. And then the actual big event, the family fair on the February 4th in Watsonville at the, at the center. And we'll have more coming out, uh, in media in the, in a couple weeks.
Speaker 2 00:26:49 So they should look at your website, which right. Um, keep an eye on your website, I presume.
Speaker 3 00:26:55 Yes, please do. www.equitytransit.org. And we hope to also have some things come out in, uh, various venues in the media.
Speaker 2 00:27:05 Okay. Um, listen, uh, before we go to a break, I, I want to ask this pointed question. What is the single most effective thing people can do to force real change in our transportation and transit systems?
Speaker 4 00:27:21 Um, show up to meetings, talk to your board of supervisor representatives, talk to city council. Talk to Metro. Like, honestly, you know, just as a student here, one of the most, and you know, like I'm from around the area, so like I've been around this, you know, small town vibes for a long time and, you know, there's, there's pros and cons and one of the biggest pros is that you can absolutely reach out to most people involved in the decision making process and like literally voice your concerns. So like, I know like part of like what we've done with Student Housing Coalition is have students show up to city council meetings mm-hmm. <affirmative> and have students show up and just speak during public comments because it's like, you know, the reality is it's not that these, it's not that our elected representatives are trying to make our life worse.
Speaker 4 00:28:05 They're trying to make metro worse. That's not true. It's just that if we're not voicing our concerns and telling them like, Hey, as writers this is what's working and this is what isn't, they have no clue, you know, essentially what's going on. So it's like the most effective tool to actually get policy to change is to just show up to meetings when you can and go speak and tell them, or reach out to your representatives, reach out to your board of soups, reach out to these people cuz you know, someone's gonna respond to you and they're gonna get these like comments from you and they're really important for them to shape their policy making.
Speaker 2 00:28:37 Lonnie, do you have anything to add to that?
Speaker 3 00:28:40 I, I could, I agree wholeheartedly with Michael getting involved in whatever way possible. Now, I have a lot of empathy for a lot of people in these communities that are impacted about equitable transportation because a lot of them don't have the time. They're busy working two and three jobs, and so they can't attend the meetings, and that's really a struggle. Um, so if they can get involved in any way, which is staying in touch with us, staying in touch with other organizations that help them stay in touch when we say, Hey, can you, uh, here's a letter, here's a letter template, can you sign one and just send it in? Um, or can you attend this meeting at this time? Um, join in neighborhood actions, join at our event, and get to know people and organizations that you can get involved with in your own timeframe.
Speaker 3 00:29:32 Um, li find like minded people and groups that can help each other and help to volunteer in the community. One of the biggest, um, frustrations I find is that the voices of our leaders oftentimes are people that have absolutely no idea what's going on regarding the lack of public transportation. And I, I hear this all the time, this is what I hear. Well, I don't understand why we need public transportation at all anymore, because nobody rides public transportation. And most of those people are from more wealthier aspects of community, and they don't, you know, everyone's working from home now, and that's not true. We have essential workers that absolutely need access to robust public transportation. So shifting people's mindset by working together and collaborating is really essential.
Speaker 2 00:30:19 You're listening to sustainability now. I'm Ronnie Lipchitz and my guest today, Arani Faulkner, the founder of Equity Transit of Santa Cruz. I wanted to make sure I got that right. And Michael Wool, who is a transit activist, uh, up at uc, Santa Cruz, um, you know, I was just, oh, we were just talking about, about what people can do and Lonnie kindly provided me with a number of links to videos and, um, one of the, the videos talked about tactical urbanism, and do you want to describe that?
Speaker 3 00:30:53 Sure. I I love tactical urbanism or the idea of it. Um, basically it's, it's where the local people really get involved in making change to, um, low in low cost, fast, easy infrastructure that can shift the way our streets work. So part of the problem with the way our streets are designed in the United States is that they're designed for speed. And we know that we can either have streets designed for speed or safety, we can't have both. And in our, in our cities and in Santa Cruz County, we have the number one worst case of death and serious accidents by traffic collisions. Um, so it's really critical that we start working on the safe streets, and we do have organizations working on that, and I sit on with those commissions. But what tactical urbanism is, is for example, putting up bright yellow cones with flowers in it that people see these, um, as that are sort of blocking off the bike lane so that people slow down. Um, it's, it's a way of the community working with local organizations, local government, to help create affordable infrastructure. It doesn't have to be what I call gorilla tactical urbanism, but it can be gorilla tactical urbanism and gorilla, meaning you do it in the middle of the night without any permission. Oftentimes tactical urbanism can be done with the people and the local government working together to do things quickly and fun.
Speaker 2 00:32:33 Uh, isn't that though a form of private action that takes place with only limited public voice,
Speaker 4 00:32:41 Like yes and no, where it's like there's a community need for something. So like an example of something like tactical urbanism or gorilla urbanism would be like what happened in Toronto recently where residents who ride the bus painted a bus lane on the street and they just, the buses just started using them. And that was kind of like their form where it's like, this is something that community activists have been saying needs to happen for so, so long. And, you know, the bureaucracy of American and Canadian urban planning makes it so that that takes years and years and years and studies and all this. And it's like, just paint the bustling. And it's the same thing with like a bike lane, just like it's, it's paint, it's cones, it's things that we can absolutely do overnight and you know, like, obviously we're not advocating to go out and do this like, and go and like paint the streets and go do that.
Speaker 4 00:33:30 But like, people do it in like, communities, especially communities that don't feel like they're being listened to at all by their representatives. They do, you know, act out in response. And sometimes those get taken away and it shows how fast the city can actually act. If it's like they can spray, they can power wash off the paint in three hours, then it's like, why did it take you three years to paint the bike land in the first place? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> versus, you know, it's just, it's, it's just like we're not, you know, obviously we're not advocating to go and paint the streets, but like this is a response of a community that's not being listened to, if that makes sense. I kinda lost my train of thought a little
Speaker 2 00:34:03 Bit. It's okay. It happens all the time. Yeah, I I'd noticed that, that the, one of the tactical urbanism videos seemed to be co-sponsored or co-funded by Ford, which I thought was kind of odd. Um, but I won't say anymore about that. Ha. Have there been any cases of tactical urbanism here in Santa Cruz County? I,
Speaker 3 00:34:21 No, not that I'm aware of, but I think we need to have some <laugh>.
Speaker 4 00:34:25 I think the Portola, um, the Portola Road diet that was in coordination, that was, um, ecology action in coordination with the rtc, I believe.
Speaker 3 00:34:34 Yeah. But that was sanctioned and I, and again, I think it can be tactical or urbanism can be sanctioned. The problem, and part of the issue that we, um, deal with in this county is that we have a small, very aggressive group of people that don't, that they don't necessarily understand the problem that our entire community is facing. We don't see people being hit by cars all the time. We don't, um, we don't get the reports all the time. And so the community as a whole does not have the awareness of the severity of the problem. And so part of, um, what we're seeing, and I see this online on, on, uh, social media sites, is that the minute we do something like Portola Valley, you get this very aggressive small group of people that said, oh, those, those wealthy over the hill, uh, techies, they just want, you know, the roads for their bikes.
Speaker 3 00:35:29 And what they're not seeing is that this is a huge community issue. Our children are at threat. They can't go safely to school on their bikes are elderly are threatened because they're getting hit when they cross the streets. Or a gentleman just around the street from my house in a wheelchair was killed, hit by a car. Another guy was hit by a car on his bicycle just around the street all in the same week. And people aren't understanding that the tactical urbanism or what happened on Portola is necessary. And so what we're having to try to do now, I joined the, um, community Traffic Safety Commission because of this is, again, it's about talking to each other. It's about collaborating with different groups. It's about getting the word out on social media so that we start to change people's minds one conversation at a time and grow that, I call it the hundred monkey effect. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> is that people will start to talk and the, and the message will catch on fire every three days. We either lose someone in this county to getting hit by a car that's walking or on a bike every three days. Our rate of death and and serious injury has skyrocketed in the last few years. And that needs to change.
Speaker 2 00:36:51 You know, I, I have noticed that traffic seems to be much, much more, uh, dense in the last few years than it, than it was say 10 years ago, that there's a lot more sort of traffic backups. And I'm wondering, is that because there are more cars or more people or people have to travel farther? Do you, do you have any idea? Well,
Speaker 4 00:37:14 It's kind of a combination of all of it where the county's been growing, the whole state's been growing, the whole population of the world's been growing. I mean, even with, you know, the the cost population of California. Yeah. Even with the covid numbers, like, you know, where it's like, there was obviously like, you know, a few hundred thousand people that left the state of California, which, you know, that's normal. No, I know. Yeah. But this county of Santa Cruz actually was one of the counties that continued growth even through c um, and in the last 10 years, you know, the population's been increasing. It's a very, you know, appealing place to come and move. So it's like the population's always gonna continue to grow in Santa Cruz. Yeah. It's gonna continue to grow. That's a good thing where we want like people to, you know, come in and have a piece of this beautiful place.
Speaker 4 00:37:56 Um, I think you can attribute, you know, like people have to get where they're going and, you know, metro's had cuts, everyone's had cuts. The public transit's not going where people need to go necessarily. So it's like, you know, one of the, one of the externalities of, you know, the continual population growth that Santa Cruz, if we don't build more public transportation and make better active transportation routes is gonna be more traffic. And the only way you actually confront and solve the traffic issue is viable alternatives to driving and investing in a system of systems for transportation.
Speaker 2 00:38:31 Well, I mean, of course that connects to housing too.
Speaker 4 00:38:33 A hundred percent. Absolutely. Let's, we don't even need, need to go
Speaker 2 00:38:35 There. We don't, we don't. They're
Speaker 4 00:38:36 Very
Speaker 2 00:38:36 Connected. Um, one of the other, the other, um, uh, videos was talking about traffic calming as in C A L M, um, which is, is really about slowing down cars. Can you talk a little bit about that and do we have anything like that in Santa Cruz? We have,
Speaker 3 00:38:55 I think they're, they're starting to work on it actually. Um, I know that Clara Street is targeted for some traffic calming in terms of the greater, um, the, the county area. Um, I know they're gonna do similar in Watsonville and traffic calming actually is really essential. And there's a lot, again, we're gonna have to deal with people's misconception and aggressions when it comes to traffic calming, because people don't want to be slowed down. But what they don't realize is that when traffic calming is well designed, and I know Michael can speak to this because he lived in Utra for a while, is when traffic calming is well designed, people actually maintain a better speed at all times, even though it's slower at any one moment, they're not speeding up and then stopping at a traffic light and then speeding up and then zipping around a spot and then having to stop again. What good traffic calming does is that then they stay at a speed throughout the streets that remains at a safe speed for the pedestrians and the
Speaker 2 00:39:59 Bicyclists. I have, I have been a long time advocate of, of variable, uh, speed limits on highway one. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> so that, you know, it's lower when the, the highway is more crowded. And um, but you know,
Speaker 4 00:40:11 That's very Dutch. They do that in the alley. Oh no, I know.
Speaker 2 00:40:13 Yeah, I know you do it in the UK as well. Anyway, you wanted to say something?
Speaker 4 00:40:17 Yeah, so traffic calming. So like an example of a street that has implemented some tr form of traffic calming would be, you know, look at the west side, look at the mission corridor versus the King corridor, right? Yeah. So King Street has obviously the most obvious form of traffic, calming, it's a speed bump where you can't go more than 20 miles an hour over that speed bump. You know, that's something that's gonna slow you down. Um, you also see traffic calming in the form of, you know, like closing off certain streets to through traffic. So like, you know, like Olive Street where it connects to mission, you can't go through that, you know, so that's just, um, that's a street that's just dedicated for the residents. Um, traffic calming is something that when done really well is something you don't really think about that much.
Speaker 4 00:41:00 So you just don't feel like it's like when it's done poorly, there's a speed pump in a road where you feel like you can drive 50 miles an hour down it and be fine when it's done really well. You wouldn't even ever consider driving 50 miles an hour down the street. Um, well, Lonnie said earlier I did, I lived in, I actually lived in Amsterdam. I was there for about two months, um, doing like a study abroad. Um, we were studying urban planning and like, you know, like street design and all this. And it's like, you know, the way that they do it in the Netherlands is that they don't actually have to post a lot of speed limits on a lot of residential streets just because you wouldn't ever think to drive that fast on them. You know, this street is designed so that you're not like flying down, you know, like a residential street at 50 miles an hour.
Speaker 4 00:41:41 Whereas in the US the streets are designed insanely wide in and are, they'll put a 25 mile an hour speed limit on something like Mission Street, which is insane. Like why no one drives 25 miles an hour down mission. That's just a fact. Like, you can see people driving like super fast on it. And if you drive and you've been on mission, you know that that is not a street where people are going 25 miles an hour. And that is a street that would benefit from some form of traffic calming to make it so that the speed limit can actually come down on that and be safe for all the walkers and the residents who live along at.
Speaker 2 00:42:13 Absolutely. You know, I would, I would say, I wrote down that, that when I drive on King Street, I'm not particularly calmed by the traffic calming measures. I think it's not enough.
Speaker 4 00:42:24 A hundred
Speaker 2 00:42:24 Percent. I think Thank totally agree. Of course. Uh, actually I I also think we should tear up our streets and plant gardens. Uh,
Speaker 3 00:42:32 Yes. Yes.
Speaker 4 00:42:33 Well, it's bringing back that public space that we were talking about earlier. Yes. Where it's like we're subsidizing auto ownership and we're making this a primary mode of transportation by dedicating so much public space to it. So it's like if we were able to have streets that weren't completely lined with parked cars on both sides and that didn't have, like mission is a four-lane street running directly through a densely populated area.
Speaker 2 00:42:57 Well, it's old. Hi. It's highway old Highway
Speaker 4 00:42:59 One. It is Old Highway one, but you know, and there's people who live there and there's people who wanna shop there and want to like be around. I live right near Bay Mission. It's one of the loudest places in the county. Sure. It's, you know, it's one of those things where it's like, do we really want four lane highways running through the hearts of our cities? Do we want this? Do we want to dedicate the public space to
Speaker 2 00:43:20 This? Well, remember there was once a plan to run a freeway through Harvey West on the U CSE campus. This is true
Speaker 3 00:43:27 About
Speaker 2 00:43:27 That. We don't want that. So
Speaker 4 00:43:30 Be careful. It is better than that. Careful, careful. This road is a little better than the freeway.
Speaker 2 00:43:35 I need to take another break. You're listening to sustainability now. I'm Ronnie Lipchitz, my guest today, Arani Faulkner, uh, and Michael Wool, both of them transit activists in Santa Cruz County. And we've just been talking about calming the traffic.
Speaker 3 00:43:50 Yeah, yeah. I was hoping to add some things about the infrastructure that, um, I know Michael knows about, but didn't mention just to bring some new language into people's curriculum, <laugh> or words. Um, you probably have heard of like chicas and islands traffic circles. Um, wide pedestrian protected pedestrian spaces so that as people make right turns in their vehicles, um, they have to go wide to, um, that that basically protects the pedestrians and slow Yeah. Slows them down. And then also just visually narrowing the streets. So even though the streets actually stay the same width, the usage of those streets changes where you isolate, um, the bike lanes, the pedestrian spaces, and you create a visual appearance of a narrowing of the street.
Speaker 4 00:44:43 Yeah. And just to add on to that, it's like, you know, like when I lived in Amsterdam, it was like one of those things, you know, it's known for the bike infrastructure, obviously that's like one of the biggest things it's known for. And of course there's a lot of dedicated protected bike lanes and bike highways and all that jazz. But one of the things about the streets of Amsterdam is that a lot of the streets don't need dedicated bike lanes because the use of the street is so perfectly organized that like you can run traffic and bikes together and it's like, it doesn't feel as like scary and dangerous. Like, it's like that's kind of the, the real backbone of a good biking city is that even if you can't, if your destination's not along the bike highway, it's not like a death sentence to go bike down some four-lane super highway. You know, I have
Speaker 2 00:45:29 To object. I lived in Copenhagen for three months and Copenhagen I think has even more bicycles than Amsterdam. Almost.
Speaker 4 00:45:36 Not
Speaker 2 00:45:37 Quite. And I actually did bike back and forth from where I was working, but as a pedestrian, I was scared to death because of the volume of bicycles and, you know, yeah. Bicyclists are not always attentive to who's on the road and where they are going. It's
Speaker 4 00:45:54 Definitely a problem for
Speaker 2 00:45:55 Sure. I'm not, I'm not arguing against it, I'm just saying that it isn't quite the paradise.
Speaker 4 00:46:00 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:46:01 I think that you make it out to
Speaker 4 00:46:02 Be, I think that, you know, like definitely there is like a little bit of like, you know, especially us not coming from a place with all of that like bike infrastructure Sure. And just all of the bikers and just how common it is. It is definitely a little jarring at first to be like, oh my God, there is like, don't walk in the bike lane. Like there are bikers come in all the time, like, don't look both ways and then look again before you cross.
Speaker 2 00:46:23 I, I've been noticing that on the, on the bike trail, you know? Yeah. The rail trail that, that I have to keep an eye out
Speaker 4 00:46:29 For Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:46:30 Pedestrians, which, right.
Speaker 4 00:46:32 Yeah. So it's, it's one of those things, it's definitely one that you learn with time and it's like, it obviously like, there's definitely more that, you know, Copenhagen and Amsterdam and every other bike city can do to make pedestrians feel more included in that. And, you know, that comes down to like, you know, like one of the things that we talked about with the city planners and Amsterdam was just how many bikes there are just everywhere there. So it's like they're parked everywhere and that's something that is a problem if they're parked where, you know, there's ramps for people in wheelchairs and there's like stuff like that where that is something that the city needs to address for
Speaker 2 00:47:03 Sure. And, and you know, where they dredged the canals, they come up with
Speaker 4 00:47:06 Lots of, oh, so many bicycles.
Speaker 2 00:47:07 Listen, we're we're reaching getting to the end of the program and I wanted to give each of you a chance, uh, to, to tell us any final thoughts about the issue. Um, you wanna start Michael? Yeah,
Speaker 4 00:47:20 So I guess, you know, like we're trying to get more people involved in advocating for public transportation and active transportation. I think the most, most important thing to consider when we're talking about this is just how transportation in an urban setting works as a system of systems. So when I lived in Amsterdam, there were several ways for me to get from where I was staying to class. I could take public transportation, I could take my bike, or if I had a car, which I did not have a car, not that I needed it, you could drive. And the thing is, is that when you have a system of systems, they all kind of work better together. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> where it's like, if there's really bad traffic, jump on your bike. If it's pouring rain, get on the metro, if it's, you know, like stuff like that where you're able to take alternatives mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Speaker 4 00:48:03 And I think that's what is really missing in the American planning style is that people only think of it as, we need to make sure every place has access by car. We should be thinking about the larger system of systems and how when you only dedicate space to cars, you're taking away from the bike system and you're taking away from the public transport system. And we need to be thinking about it as a system of systems that works together and makes a city get to where they're going. You know, and that is, as Lonnie was saying earlier, getting transportation is the key motivator towards economic mobility, towards social justice and equity. It's like if you can't get anywhere physically, you can't get, like, you can't move up the economic and social ladder. Like that's just impossible. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 00:48:51 <affirmative>, speaking of economics, um, a lot of people don't realize that equitable transportation doesn't just impact equity, it impacts the environment economy, our safety and human connection, and those are all things we didn't even get a chance to touch on. But in terms of economy, for every $1 we invest into public transportation, to robust public transportation, it generates $5 in return into that community. For every $1 billion invested in public transportation, it creates approximately 50,000 jobs. Um, the amount of of financial benefits that we have, both personally and in terms of our overall economics is incredible. And so it's worth delving into that as well. Environmentally, I don't, we didn't even talk about, for example, toxic Tires, which is, I'm a biochemical endocrinologist, so that really hits my personal spot is that we have so much toxins, um, built into our tires and other, um, and then we have raw materials and things that we have to mine to keep our automobile centric society going.
Speaker 3 00:49:59 So we need to move towards public transportation to deal with our environmental catastrophes and climate change as well. Um, and on a personal note, I just wanted to give a little story that I used to work over the hill. I've worked in the corporate world for many years and, um, I rush, rush, rush, everything's a rush. You've gotta get to work because you gotta get there in time, you gotta get the job and then you gotta get back home, you gotta shop and then you gotta get your kids fed and all the thing is, everything is a rush. Every day is a rush and there's very little time to do anything else. And what really switched my, um, perception of the world in terms of public transportation and safety of the streets was when I began coaching, um, middle and high school kids, I got the kids on the bikes and we got on the streets and all of a sudden it was like a rock. It hit me in my head and said, oh my gosh, um, getting these kids out on the streets. Houston, we have a problem in our communities. Um, so the way that we can get more families to be aware of how dangerous the streets are is if we can get more families out on the streets walking and biking.
Speaker 2 00:51:11 Well, I know this is a topic that we could spend lots and lots of hours on and hours go quickly, but I want to thank you Lonnie and Michael for being my guests on sustainability now.
Speaker 3 00:51:21 Thank you so much, Ronnie, for your time. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 00:51:24 And if you wanna find out more about equity transit and transit Equity day, you can look them both up on the internet and there's lots of information there. If you'd like to listen to previous shows, you can find them at k squid.org/sustainability now and Spotify, Google Podcasts and Pockets among other podcast sites. So thanks for listening and thanks to all of the staff and volunteers who make Case Squid, your community radio station and keep it going. And so until next, every other Sunday, sustainability now
Speaker 1 00:52:08 Good planets a hot final, separate zones, tropics climbs not through current and thriving seasons. Wind blowing, some breathing trees, strong zone sunshine. Good planets are hard to find. Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:52:34 Good.
