Congestion is a poor measure of mobility.

Congestion management, or building us out of congestion, is a poor way of measuring mobility, which is why access issues for bicycle and pedestrian mobility get locked out of the funding and design streams. CCAG has not been able to implement many of its bicycle master plan provisions over the last two iterations since 1995, and is looking for a new plan, because congestion management has wiped out the routes and created the need for expensive replacement which lack any funding capability in TDA-3. One example is Ralston over 101 where the two right turning lanes on 101 northbound wiped out access and a replacement with the Ralton bike bridge is now more than eight years late and seriously funding challenged. Greg Marsden has proposed alternate measures.

Looking in the TEP for alternate funding is also wrong. SMCTD Transportation Expenditure Plan Program Categories Pedestrian and Bicycle 3 0% $45.0 million $25 million (page 7) to implement either Millbrae Avenue/US 101 pedestrian/bike overcrossing (Millbrae)
or US 101 near Hillsdale Boulevard pedestrian/bike overcrossing (San Mateo) are replacement funding for not providing routine accomodation. Both Pedestrian overcrossings should have been included as Routine Accomodation fundings when Caltrans and Bart completed the projects that left these projects up to the local municipalities. When all is said and done, there would be all too little money left in the pot to fund any other project that the 19 other Cities might propose.

In the Economist building out, or Braes Paradox, was recently described and the following letter received:

SIR – It may be of interest to your readers to know that it was actually economists who first figured out that an individual's selfish behaviour when selecting an optimal travel route would yield different traffic flows and times than if one were to assign flows in a centralized manner to try and minimize the cost to society ("Queuing conundrums ", September 13th). Arthur Pigou wrote "The Economics of Welfare" in 1920, by which time he was well aware of the distinction between different traffic behaviours.

Curiously, traffic and queuing problems keep on getting (re)discovered by different disciplines; now it seems to be the turn of the physicists.

Anna Nagurney
Director
Virtual Centre for Supernetworks
Isenberg School of Management
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, Massachusetts

Note the solution- permanent Sunday Streets!

Comments on the CCAG agenda 7/12/08

Comments by Agenda item for CCAG 7/12/08

4.0 Pull from CONSENT AGENDA items 4.2, 4.5, 4.10

4.2 El Camino Real Incentive Program Planning Grant process.
Comments- Extend the electric buses down the El Camino from Mission St in San Francisco at Top of the Hill, Daly City. Electric buses are cheap, quiet, and zero pollution- the only zero pollution large vehicle in the mass transit choices. They are an established technology used in Seattle, San Francisco and recently designed in by numerous Latin American cities like Bogota, Mexico City and Curitiba that have attained fame for their low CO2 mass appeal in transportation. Electric ZAP buses would complement the walkable goals of El Camino by lowering noise and air pollution for the admirable housing goals in the Grand Boulevard Initiative.

4.5 An agreement with Bottomley Associates for the Context Sensitive Design Practice & Guidelines and the MultiModal Access Strategy in an amount not to exceed $140,692/-
Comments- Please consider true multimodality. Take one example at Ralston and El Camino. Fast turn lanes create unique opportunities for automobiles to collide with pedestrians. Wide streets force seniors to try and jog unsuccessfully, frequently arriving stranded in the middle of the intersection, on a tiny median, as their train or bus pulls out. Bicycles are challenged to take lanes to the left of stopped buses or vehicles parked for free in front of the multimodal station, impacting fare box recovery and ZAP accessibility. Cities in turn respond with expensive enforcement fixes like video cameras to nab offensive drivers enabled by poor multimodal designs.

4.10 List of projects for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) for consideration in the Regional Transportation Plan (RTP).
Comments -A big thank you to MTC for adopting ambitious greenhouse gas, VMT, congestion, safety, and affordability goals for the RTP-2035. Please ensure that CCAG now prioritize investments that support these goals. With transportation contributing fully half of all of the Bay Area's greenhouse gas emissions, I'm urge you to help us reduce our automobile dependence by investing in great transit, safe biking and walking, and the land uses that support these transportation choices.

Specifically, I'm asking you to:
• Increase funding to complete the Regional Bicycle Network and Comprehensive Bicycle Plan in San Mateo to $200 over the next 25 years. Make sure that CO2 intensive projects when funded, like the Ralston 101 Interchange, do not penalize bicyclist and pedestrian, by removing access today for a future project like the Ralston 101 bicycle bridge. This bike bridge has found less than 20% of its funding in the last eight years and is not even prioritized in the Comprehensive Bicycle Plan list of projects.
• Increase funding for Safe Routes to Transit by investing an additional $2 million/year for the next 25 years.
• Create a new Safe Routes to Schools grant program and fund it at $2 million/year for the next 25 years.
• Increase funding for the TLC land use program to $300M over 25 years.
• And finally develop working strategies to meet air quality goals for PM10 and PM 2.5 because NONE of your options are remotely expected to succeed by 2035.

5.0 REGULAR AGENDA
5.2 Cooperative Agreement for the County Smart Corridors project.
5.2.1 Status report on funding for the Smart Corridors project.
Comments- The smart corridor program has a negative impact on zero CO2 modes creating accessibility problems for pedestrian, transit users, the disabled, and bicycles. Please ensure that the subsequent EIR, which the attorney general has fortunately enforced, takes the water and air pollution issues from restricted multi modality into consideration.