Caring about Drivers

On August 23, the Editors of the Sentinel once again accused "rail proponents" who oppose Measure J ( the tax measure to widen Highway One) of not wanting to spend "big money" on "improving life for people who drive cars or trucks." That hurts.

I have spent the last 13 years trying to create transportation alternatives to the automobile and to encourage people to take advantage of them—as the coordinator of Bike to Work Week, as the founder of Pedaler's Express, and as the director of People Power. It's not an easy avocation and it doesn't pay well—less than minimum wage on average. I do it because I care about my community, most of whom, including my closest friends and family, drive cars. As do most of the people opposed to widening Highway One.

Here's where I'm coming from. My perception is that Californians are unhappy with the amount of time and energy we spend driving. My perception is that we have created an economy/society/transportation infrastructure which is coercive; one in which people drive not because we want to, but because we feel that we have to. Everyday someone tells me that they'd love to ride a bicycle, or take a train, or walk to work, if they only had a route that felt safe. I'd like to help them to do so.

Building a rail trail and putting in a commute train on the rail line that runs a mile or so from half the residents of this county would certainly help people of this county have an alternative to driving, while a tourist train would give an alternative to tourists, which isn't a bad thing at all. One obvious way to get people out of congestion is to stop forcing them to drive. In Germany, where I recently went bike touring, there are trains and trolleys and bike paths and buses everywhere. There are also cars everywhere and people seem to enjoy them. Automobile congestion is rare. And that's great. Being stuck in traffic isn't some weird punishment thought up by me and the Sierra Club. It's the undesirable consequence of forcing nearly everyone to drive a car.

I oppose Measure J—the proposed sales tax to widen Highway One—because I don't think that it will improve the lives of people in Santa Cruz County, including drivers. The measure would, all budgets considered, slightly reduce funding for transportation alternatives. It would not significantly reduce congestion on Highway One. It would certainly, unavoidably, increase air pollution and the risk of global warming. I have hundreds of pages of documents, many of them produced by the Regional Transportation Commission (RTC), that support this opinion. Of course I could be wrong. Each voter should study the issue for themselves in the widest context. Has spending so much money and space on roads really made our lives better? Do we want to keep doing it? Will widening One work?

Clearly, the idea that we cannot build our way out of congestion is a difficult thing for us to admit to ourselves here in America. It runs contrary to our national sense of optimism. It brings up the idea that a hundred years of restructuring our society around the personal automobile may have been a mistake—an uncomfortable thing to imagine. Maybe, just maybe, the Sentinel is lashing out at the messenger because it doesn't like the message. Please don't do that. It hurts.

Please do help us bring this debate to the public in a passionate, thoughtful and well researched manner. And hey, thanks for caring.

Micah Posner
Director
People Power