The names and addresses of folks I wrote to about changing the Bay Area's Transport system.

State Level

Governor Jerry Brown

c/o State Capitol, Suite 1173

Sacramento, Ca, 95814

Malcolm  Dougherty

Director, Caltrans

P.O. Box 942873

Sacramento, Ca,94273-0001

Brian P. Kelly

Director, CalSTA

915 Capital Mall, Suite 350B

Sacramento, Ca, 95814

Susan Bransen

Executive Director, California Transportation Commission

1120 N Street, MS - 52

Sacramento, Ca, 95814

Bob Alvarado

Chair, California Transportation Commission

NorCal Carpenters Regional Council

265 Helgenberger Road, Suite 200

Oakland, Ca 94621-1480

Steve Heminger

Executive Director, MTC

Bay Area Metro Centre

375 Beale Street, Suite 800

San Francisco, Ca, 94105-2066

Alix Bockelman

Deputy Executive Director, Policy: MTC

Bay Area Metro Centre

375 Beale Street, Suite 800

San Francisco, Ca, 94105-2066

Mayor Tom Bates

MTC Commissioner.

2180 Milvia Street

Berkeley, CA 94704

Libby Schaaf

MTC Commissioner, Oakland Mayor

1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, 3rd Floor

Oakland CA, 94612

Dave Cortese

Chair of the Commissioners: MTC

County Government Centre

10th Floor, East Wing

70 West Hedding Street

San Jose, CA 95110

Randy Rentschler

Director of Public Affairs, MTC

Bay Area Metro Centre

375 Beale Street, Suite 800

San Francisco, Ca, 94105-2066

National Level

President Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington DC 20500

Anthony Foxx - U.S. Secretary of Transportation

Office of the Secretary

U.S. Department of Transportation

1200 New Jersey Ave, SE

Washington, DC 20590

Victor Mendez - Deputy Secretary of Transportation

Office of the Secretary

U.S. Department of Transportation

1200 New Jersey Ave, SE

Washington, DC 20590

Blair Anderson - Undersecretary for Policy

Office of the Secretary

U.S. Department of Transportation

1200 New Jersey Ave, SE

Washington, DC 20590

Greg Winfree - Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

Office of the Secretary

U.S. Department of Transportation

1200 New Jersey Ave, SE

Washington, DC 20590

Suzi Emmerling - Director of Public Affairs

Office of the Secretary

U.S. Department of Transportation

1200 New Jersey Ave, SE

Washington, DC 20590

Shoshana M. Lew - Chief Financial Officer

Office of the Secretary

U.S. Department of Transportation

1200 New Jersey Ave, SE

Washington, DC 20590

Molly J. Moran - Legal Head

Office of the Secretary

U.S. Department of Transportation

1200 New Jersey Ave, SE

Washington, DC 20590

Dana Gresham - Government Affairs

Office of the Secretary

U.S. Department of Transportation

1200 New Jersey Ave, SE

Washington, DC 20590

Civil Society

Susan Shaheen

Co-Director, Transportation Sustainability Research Center

University of California Richmond Field Station

1301 S. 46th Street, Building 190

Richmond, CA 94804-3580 (University mail code 3580).

Timothy Lipton

Co-Director, Transportation Sustainability Research Center

University of California Richmond Field Station

1301 S. 46th Street, Building 190

Richmond, CA 94804-3580 (University mail code 3580).

Arpad Horvath 

Co-Director, Transportation Sustainability Research Center

University of California Richmond Field Station

1301 S. 46th Street, Building 190

Richmond, CA 94804-3580 (University mail code 3580).

Stuart Cohen

Director, Transform Ca

436 14th St #600

Oakland, CA 94612

Joshua Stark

State Policy Director

Transform CA

436 14th St #600

Oakland, CA 94612

A letter I sent to the 25 leaders of our transport system

After I came back from hiking among the dying forests of Lassen Park, California, and returned to Bay Area Traffic (6 lane highways backed up in each direction, not in rush hour), I tracked down the 25 people who seem to have the most control over the Bay Area's transport system, and I wrote them each a version of this letter.

Steve Heminger

Executive Director, MTC

Bay Area Metro Centre

375 Beale Street, Suite 800

San Francisco, Ca, 94105-2066

Dear Steve

I am writing to ask for your powerful leadership at this time.

I write this freshly back from the Sierras, where I have been hiking among dying forests, dry rivers, a desiccated ecosystem; realising myself to be a witness to, and participant in, ecocide.

I return to the Bay Area, to this. (It wasn’t rush hour.) 

I know you know the graphs; transportation in California is almost 40% of our CO2 emissions, (in blue on the pie chart); 90% of that is from our cars. It’s California’s biggest single contributor to climate change. 

I’m one of those drivers!

Climate change is devastating California, not to mention other parts of the nation and world. It’s like we’re in an Epic war.

We seem to have at least three scenarios to pursue, which I will outline below, but my point is this.

We need to change the transport system sooner or later, and sooner is much better than later. 

The time is now. We’re on your watch, Steve, and we need your leadership.

I want to feel your leadership, as a driver, as a citizen.

I’d love to see billboards on the freeways. Please talk to us. Could you say something like:

>  Our highways are a major cause of California’s drought and fires.

>  Things need to change.

>  We are working to address it.

>  Work with us.

>  This is our California.

>  This is our world.

>  www.the_transport_project_or_whatever.gov.us

The top 3 scenarios are perhaps:

1. Business as usual. Congestion, CO2 emissions, climate change, big profits for car, gas, tyre and concrete companies, but what of the commuters, residents and ecosystems?

1. Electric Driverless Cars. Will that really tackle the congestion, and the % of our towns allocated to roads and parking? Concrete, concrete, concrete.

1. Fast trains between cities, clean quiet trams on the major N-S, E-W arteries within cities, swipe-in, swipe-out city cars and bikes for the first and last mile. A smaller, lighter road system for folks who really need to drive, in their electric driverless cars.

There may be more scenarios and I am a musician not a transport planner. But Steve, something has to change, doesn’t it? 

The solution has to be not what the car, gas, concrete and tyre industries are lobbying for, but what is really right for California in the long term. The organisations, products and services can change, and can be supported to change. The need to have mobility within a healthy ecosystem is bigger, and paramount.

If you crack this, cities and countries the world over will say, hey, they did it in California, we can do it here. For decades. You’d be a hero.

Hiking among the dead and dying trees in Lassen park yesterday, I was really struck by, wow, we’re in something of an Epic war, the scale of which, all things considered, vastly exceeds the destruction of the holocaust, and this is what we are living in, right now. It’s like being German citizens in 1942. 

And going with business as usual is like saying, well, the gas chambers are already built and the systems are already in place, so let’s let them run their course.

And someone - me, we, you, has to stand up and say, No. 

There’s something really important to protect here.

And it’s our waters, our children’s future, our forests, all the creatures that live in them, and ultimately our ability to survive and thrive in California.

Steve, I look to you for your leadership.

Please stand up to this crisis and opportunity with all of the courage, integrity, ingenuity, power and intelligence that you have.

We could move from ‘me’ to ‘we’ as we think about mobility. We could take the best technology from other nations: Japanese bullet trains, clean quiet Swiss city trams; swipe in, swipe out cars and bikes for the odd little ends of the journey. It’s really possible for us; we’re a brilliant State.

We need you, and I for one am counting on you.

Do you need anything from me? Let me know.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Briony Greenhill

(Graph: California EPA Air Resources Board, May 2014: California Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventory: 2000 - 2012, p16.)

Brilliant Stuff Other Cities Have Done with Transport and Public Space, Public Beauty

Street Trams in Vienna - light, quiet, fast - where it costs 1 Euro to go anywhere in the city, all day.

This is a consequence of the Vienna / Austrian government's "relentless approach towards modal shift."

 In Stockholm, Sweden, 93% of people walk, bike or take public transport to work. (Source)

So, the city is not all concrete and highways.

Madrid, in Spain, has created a car-free square mile in the city. Shalom. (Source)

In Bordeaux, the 7th largest city in France, they closed parking lots, narrowed the roads, installed a great tram network, and planted a bunch of trees. My Dad, a British retired urban planner, told me all about it.

Public space can be So Much More Beautiful. Cities can be so much quieter, safer, and peaceful. 

We can be happy and healthier.

Good for the drought, fires, carbon and climate change, too.

Peace.

Amsterdam has more bicycles than people. (Source)

In Curitiba, Brazil, 85% of people use the Bus Rapid Transit system (BRT). They're proud; it transports 2 million people a day (London's moves 3 million people a day). Then, they could pedestrianise many parts of the city.

Bogota, Colombia. "You have a human right to water. You do not have a human right to parking," said former mayor Enrique Penalosa. So he removed parking lots, installed extensive walk-bike ways, and a BRT (Bus Rapid Transport System.) "A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars," he said. "It’s where the rich use public transport." (Source). 

San Francisco Bay Area, center of innovation and ingenuity; listed as one of the "Greenest Cities in the World" has... highways! And this famous "Bay Area Traffic."

And a rising population. And massive drought and fires.

What's possible for our motion? Let's Do This :)

Just sayin': today I'm having my car serviced. It's costing $400. Last month I changed the battery. It cost $325. I paid $7200 for the car. I pay $100 a month for insurance, maybe $60 a month for gas.

There are about 8 million of us living here, with many / most of us paying something like this for our cars.

What if all that money were pooled.

We could do something f*****g amazing

What is a "we"?

So, I talk with nature.

Walking alone in the woods recently at Lassen volcanic park, the woods seemed to say to me, "well, do you have an intention for today?" Humm, I thought. "How about, how am I doing?"

The woods looked back at me, reflecting in their gaze my intense individuality. Looking at life from an ecological and cross-cultural, historal position, this modern western individualism is... strange.

"We are a we," they said. "To ask how I am doing, ask, how are we doing?"

I began to wonder, and have been wondering ever since, who the we is, who the we might be.

A standard we is a nuclear family. But I'm sceptical about the nuclear family. This needs its own post.

The ways of the we

Returning to Berkeley after 10 weeks away, visiting family and friends, being in retreats and camps and the wilderness, it felt shocking to "grab" dinner at Wholefoods, alone, eating out of a little cardboard box, food grown perhaps by underpaid immigrants, prepared by brown skinned people, sold to white me at the Wholefoods premium, they profit. I eat alone among other people eating alone with laptops or newspapers. We are tribe-less, atomic consumers.

Tribe-less Atomic Consumers

How might we describe this? You're self responsible. You earn money and use it to get dinner, housing, clothing, your car. You live quite privately. Your life is your own affair. You make social arrangements privately. There is no place where you can just go, to just be with people.

A family I teach recently moved into a new development of 80 houses. There was no one place for people to gather together. "There are two stores," said the father when I asked about it.

To meet our needs, we shop, we use technology, we medicate.

Some of the downsides: my 86 year old neighbour, Roger, hadn't spoken to anybody for two weeks when I met him on the street. Nuclear families struggle. Widows and widowers can struggle. Single people can be lonely, couples can be unsupported. Folks use a fair bit of porn, it seems. Each household has its own dishwasher, set of tools etc - lots of Stuff. We each buy our food in its plastic wrappers, etc etc - I could go on but you Know This Picture. And it sucks. We each drive our private cars out of the driveway on to the big concrete roads and freeways that dominate our public space and kill our planet. And eventually us. Bye bye.


Temporary, partial tribes

I've lived and loved in a few tribes since arriving in California 4 years ago. The Stepping Stones Project is a beautiful multi-generational tribe who gather around the project of youth initiation. They aim to be, a "village" as much as an organization. Gosh when I arrived, a recent immigrant from a big British family, these people became by uncles and aunts, brothers sisters and cousins, and it was beautiful.

Until my work in the world changed, I lost devotion to the project, and had a conflict with the ED.

So people go in and out of that tribe, in different rhythms, basically depending on whether it is part of their work in the world right now.


The Ecology of Leadership Program at the Permaculture Center in Bolinas, the Regenerative Design Institute, made a beautiful little "village" for the 10 month duration of the program, and a little while afterwards. But in the end, the village was pop-up, baseless in the long term, organised around a short term program.



Family tribes

I am in a big family. We enter through birth or marriage, and we leave through death. We come together around weddings, funerals, major birthdays, Christmases and Easter. We are all, pretty much, equally a part of it. We track each others lives and stories over the long term. We support one another emotionally, practically, financially. We share Stuff; family gifts and wounds, inheritance, shadow and healing potential, should we choose to go there. It's deep and important.

And, we mainly get together and sit, talk, eat and drink, and go on walks.

We kind of... don't do any other ways of relating so much, and....... humm.... there's potential for more... intimacy, connection, depth, fun. Alcohol and food seem to take some of the place of that.

And, the family web has in it the struggles of the nuclear family.


Utopian Tribes I might imagine...

Ok this is its own blog post.