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.)