Nūz: Once again, Highway One divides the latest transportation tax effort.
Metro Santa Cruz
Road Warriors
As members of the Transportation Funding Task Force (TFTF) left their seats at the end of the group's final meeting on Nov. 14, there was a whiff of success in the air. Cake was served and Martinelli's sparking cider bottles were popped to celebrate the TFTF's hard-won achievement: consensus, sort of, on a new transportation plan.May Nūz suggest some whiskey instead, to fortify all for the coming months? Trouble is a-brewing.
The group was reveling in the fact that it had mustered over two-thirds of its members to support a proposal to raise the county's sales tax by a half-cent over 30 years. The money would fund a total of $600 million worth of projects, including highway widening, establishing train service, improving bus service and repairing pothole-ridden streets. If the proposal makes it through the Regional Transportation Commission (RTC), it will be placed on next November's ballot. It would need the approval of two-thirds of voters to pass.
After 26 months of tense debate, the level of consensus reached during the TFTF's last meeting was in fact cause for celebration. But not everyone was in a celebrating mood. As soon as the vote had been tallied, the environmentalist contingent within the TFTF vowed to organize an opposition to the tax measure, and possibly even field its own proposal on the November ballot.
"It's a lot of work, but we can get our own initiative on the ballot," says Paul Elerick of the Campaign for Sensible Transportation. "I think we could do it. There are a lot of people who are willing to do that work."
The environmentalists don't like what they see as an unbalanced proposal that would allocate $300 million to widening Highway One, $35 million for train service, $130 million for bus service and $135 million for street repairs.
The opposition movement, which has essentially the same composition as the opposition movement created to fight the failed 2004 transportation tax Measure J, was also disturbed by the rejection of an amendment proposed by Virginia Johnson of Ecology Action during final negotiations. Johnson's amendment would have required the overall plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and individual projects to be at least carbon neutral.
Elerick suggested the amendment might in fact form the foundation of a competing measure. "The initiative might be focused around global warming, requiring that no project shall be undertaken that doesn't result in a lower amount of greenhouse gases," he said.
Johnson refused to comment on whether or not she would join in an opposition movement.
The local chapter of the Sierra Club and local bicycle advocacy group People Power have both indicated they will join a campaign to defeat the measure as it stands.
"We have a transportation system that's over-dependent on the automobile and foreign oil," says James Danaher, transportation committee chair for the Sierra Club. "This vote from the task force was a vote to expand that dependency. I think the majority ignored the desires and concerns of the people."
For People Power's Micah Posner, the decision to fight the TFTF's proposal was rather cut and dry.
"If you care about global warming, you shouldn't support a proposal sponsored by people who don't care about global warming," he says. "If you widen the road you induce traffic. Because it's a 30-year project, you slowly create the impetus for sprawl. If you put in a train, you also encourage development, but it's more of an infill, nodal style of development."
As the opposition movement begins to organize, it's clear that decreasing greenhouse gas emissions will be one of its main rallying cries. However, some supporters of the TFTF proposal believe the global warming issue is a "sound bite" hiding the environmentalists' true motivations.
"I don't think you can claim to be against this because of global warming. That's very transparent," says county Supervisor Ellen Pirie. "That's not the issue. This opposition has been going on for over 30 years. It used to be, a long, long time ago, it was an effort to control growth. That's how the opposition to widening Highway 1 started. I don't know why they're opposing it now [after the implementation of growth control measures in the late '70s]. I guess they've just always opposed it, so they're going to continue to oppose it." When asked what she thinks is motivating the environmentalists now, Pirie said, "I can't answer that question."
For Pirie and many others in the pro-widening camp, the environmentalists are asking for too much. Pirie cited the $35 million allocated to train service as an example of the compromise anti-train activists had made, and added that she would have liked to see more compromise on the part of the environmentalists.
"I'm not surprised the campaign will organize against it because they want everything their way," says Pirie, referring to Elerick's organization. "All the experts say an organized campaign against [a tax measure] can bring it down, and I believe it's true. Then none of us will have anything. No money for a train, no money for rail trail, no money for road repairs, and no money for buses."
Yes, whiskey. And make it a double.
Indeed, pass the bottle.
Two-thirds of the committee passed the proposal. One-third want to scuttle the proposal and will do everything in their power to destroy it.
Tyranny of the minority. And if they can't get their way, throw a fit and make everybody else suffer.
A train in Santa Cruz? I seriously doubt there is a market for a train.
The bus system sucks(and I doubt any of these environmentalists ride the bus) and the roads in Santa Cruz County are 3rd Worldesque--if not worse.
Bad roads are not good for the environment and not good for cyclists either.
Commuters need Highway 1 because people commute from San Jose, because that is where the jobs are. The job market in Santa Cruz is abysmal, because these same activists who are worried about global warming run every business that makes any money out of the county.
This is Santa Cruz political idiocy at its worse: The Nimbys and environmentalists force business away from Santa Cruz because capitalism is evil and disruptive to their lifestyle, then blame other Santa Cruzans for destroying the environment because they commute over the hill so that they can afford to live in Santa Cruz.
After I saw this column, I made a conscious effort to see what people drive. It seems everybody and their mother drives an SUV, not many folks taking the bus, and hardly anybody riding a bike.
The thing I really hate about Santa Cruz politics is that you have a hand full of people with a cause. They are true believers. They are right and everybody else is wrong. But they make no effort in convincing people that their cause is in the best interest of everybody in the community. Instead, they want to impose their beliefs on the polity through government fiat, and if anybody disagrees with their fanaticism, they either thrown a temper tantrum, encourage riots, or do everything in their power to sabotage any compromise.
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