San Diego gas prices among the highest in the U.S.

“San Diego gas prices are among the highest in the U.S.” That was the front-page headline in Monday’s U-T San Diego.

When gas prices are high, more people, particularly seniors, students, others on fixed incomes, and people who drive older cars, turn to public transportation for a reliable, affordable way to get to work, school and around town.  Yet earlier this month, House Republicans, with incumbent Congressman Brian Bilbray in lock step, proposed a highway bill that ends three decades of support for public transportation.

It guts funds for bike lanes and sidewalks, and ends the critically important “Safe Routes to School” program which helps neighborhoods pay for infrastructure improvements that keep kids from getting hurt or killed while walking and bicycling to and from school every day.

House Republicans are trying to de-fund the Safe Routes to School Program.

So less money for public transit and more money for freeways when gas prices are skyrocketing – this makes no sense. And it doesn’t get us any closer to a practical and sustainable national energy policy that reduces our nation’s dependence on fossil fuels and foreign oil.

As a member of Congress, I will make development of a sustainable energy policy a priority.

We must work toward a long-term energy policy that: 1) creates new American jobs; 2) emphasizes greater energy independence; 3) invests in the development of alternative fuels; 4) promotes clean energy technology like wind and solar; 5) ensures greater national security; and 6) provides automakers with incentives for producing fuel-efficient vehicles.

We also need to do a better job of building housing and employment centers nearer to one another to reduce commutes. And we need to invest in making all our communities more pedestrian- and bicycle- friendly.

There are also things we can and should be doing now.

For starters, Congress can act now to stop price-gouging at the pump by holding Wall Street commodities traders and speculators more accountable. Many experts agree that speculation in energy markets drives up the price of oil, which raises the price of gas for consumers. Last year, House Democrats tried to increase funding for the agency in charge of policing price manipulation in oil markets. But Republicans, Bilbray included, voted to slash these funds by almost half.

We’ve also got to stop subsidizing oil companies.

Last year, the five largest oil companies posted record profits of $137 billion. That’s a 75% increase over 2010. Yet, House Republicans, Bilbray included, continue to support enormous tax breaks, deregulation, and subsidies for them, while taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from them.

Brian Bilbray alone has taken almost $190,000 from the oil and gas industry. Are the votes and the contributions connected?  The voters are smart and they’ll decide for themselves.

Scott leading planning professionals on a tour of Bird Rock in La Jolla, one of America's "Most Re-Made Neighborhoods"

Last week I got to lead groups of planning professionals in town for a national smart-growth conference on walking tours of the Bird Rock neighborhood in La Jolla.  Bird Rock is now considered a model for how cities can re-make older, urban neighborhoods and turn them into thriving, walkable places where small businesses can flourish. In fact, the conference program book posed the question, “Could Bird Rock be America’s Most Remade Street?”

I wrote about Bird Rock in this blog last fall, about how, as a City Councilman, I worked with residents and business owners who created a new vision for what was then a dreary corridor of empty storefronts that drivers treated as a thoroughfare.  A portion of this $5.6 million project was funded with federal transportation funds aimed at building pedestrian and bike-friendly communities.

Last week, the House Transportation Committee, supported by the Republican leadership, proposed to gut the alternative transportation fund, jeopardizing not just funds for neighborhood projects such as these, but also for all forms of public transportation — and for projects that support alternative transportation like biking and walking — that many Americans count on to get to work and school.  This assault on transit couldn’t come at a worse time. When the economy is struggling and gas prices are high, people need all types of affordable and reliable transportation.

Roundabouts made Bird Rock more pedestrian friendly

The bill also takes away the small portion of Federal Transportation funding sent aside for bike paths, to make communities friendlier for pedestrians, and to create safe passage ways for kids to walk to school. Yet, it leaves completely intact funds for more monstrous highway projects that will lead to more cars on the road, more air pollution, and more dependence on fossil fuels. It’s just bad policy all the way around; it’s bad for our children, our neighborhoods, for small businesses that rely on foot traffic to succeed, and it’s bad for our environment.

This outrageous move essentially rolls back 30 years of federal transportation policy that sets aside a small share of gas tax revenues to fund transit. If approved, long-term stability for public transportation projects, which often take years to build, will be gone. States, cities, communities and their transit systems could lose billions.

For more information about this terrible proposal, go to this link http://t4america.org/blog/ and let your representatives know that you support neighborhoods, walkable communities, bike paths and dedicated funding for affordable mass transit.

It took 15 years to get here, and the road was bumpy at times along the way, but today construction began on the first phase of the North Embarcadero Visionary Plan, or “NEVP.”  Hundreds attended the groundbreaking ceremony;  many had worked for more than a decade to make it happen.

cott Peters addresses NEVP Groundbreaking Event

When construction is complete, San Diego Bay will connect with downtown San Diego in an inviting and spectacular way worthy of our dynamic city and of this beautiful waterfront property.  It will be a unique and dramatic gateway between the city and the water, and a brilliant testament to what can be accomplished when people with different points of view are brought together to find common ground for the common good.

Here’s where it is: NEVP Phase I encompasses the area on North Harbor Drive, near the Navy Pier, north to the B Street Pier, and east up a portion of West Broadway. It will create a 105-foot wide esplanade, or walkway, and a total of about 12 acres of public space complete with formal gardens, plazas, shady pavilions and public art by renowned artists. It will be a place where people can meander along the waterfront, take a jog, or bike ride or just enjoy the view!

Eventually, it will be popular not just as a pretty place to pass through, but also as a destination in itself that will draw residents and visitors to special events such as art exhibits and concerts and festivals.

The hardscape and utilities will have special features that define it and make it exceptional among the other sidewalks and streets downtown with distinct paving and medians, and rows of decorative palm trees and lighting. It will be such an extraordinary place that it will draw nice new developments adjacent to it, creating more public spaces for people to enjoy downtown.

Projects of this scale and grandeur never happen quickly, and they don’t happen without spirited public discussion and debate. That can definitely be said of this project.

Many agencies and people contributed to NEVP Phase 1

First, there were several agencies involved: The Port of San Diego, the City of San Diego, and the Centre City Development Corporation, together formed a Joint Powers Authority. So it required a lot of cooperation and compromise, and ultimately approvals from all of these agencies, and from the California Coastal Commission. It also rightly required input from members of the public, many who had really strong opinions that didn’t always line up with the original plans put forward.

And that made it really hard at times; but I very much believe that it will be a better project because of the changes we made to address concerns raised by the public. That’s the way it’s supposed to work! I extend a big thank you to everyone who paid attention and offered suggestions and stuck with it for so long.

When I first started serving on the City Council in 2000, our priorities for downtown were completing the ballpark, building the library and renovating the waterfront with the NEVP.

Look at what we can accomplish when our public leaders listen, bring people together, and forge consensus. We created for San Diego something that will benefit the public for decades to come.

This weekend I traveled to Port Townsend, Washington, for the annual meeting of the Walkable and Livable Communities Institute. I became interested in neighborhood livability and walkability through my work as a city councilman, representing the La Jolla neighborhood of Bird Rock. In 2000, as I campaigned for office, I heard residents complain about La Jolla Boulevard – it was unattractive, unmaintained and the businesses mostly failed. Worst of all, the street was a four-land highway so wide and the traffic speeds were so high that it was absolutely dangerous to cross from one side to the other, especially if you were pushing a stroller or a walker. At that time, Bird Rock was a place you merely drove through.

Bird Rock Before the Overhaul

After I was elected, I worked hard to find a fix for Bird Rock, but the community was adamant that the solution would not come from City Hall. In the middle of the turmoil, I happened to hear Dan Burden (now the executive director of WALC), a presenter at a seminar on safe and walkable streets. Dan agreed to meet me in Bird Rock on a Sunday morning and we walked the community. Dan had technical expertise – he had been the bicycle coordinator for the state of Florida — and had helped solve traffic problems around the country. He was an empathetic listener and understood the issues, and I became confident that with Dan’s help we could solve our problems.

I hired Dan with funds from my Council office budget and we got to work. First, Dan offered residents a walking audit of the area, followed by a design meeting with residents. Dan returned two weeks later with designs created from the input from the community. Soon, the community had, with Dan’s help, created a Bird Rock Traffic Plan. Since roundabouts were safer and more efficient – and nicer-looking – than traffic lights, the community chose to add five of them on the Boulevard, with more traffic calming measures throughout the neighborhood. The changes would be dramatic, but since the plan had been both created by and within the community, it had strong neighborhood support and the City Council approved it unanimously. Over the following years, we funded the $5.6 million plan from a mix of sources, including development fees, bicycle grants, street repair funds and a federal smart growth grant.

Bird Rock Today with Installed Traffic Slowing Roundabouts

Seven years after we began, the Bird Rock community has been transformed into one of the best walkable communities in San Diego. La Jolla Boulevard went from four lanes to two. The average vehicular speed dropped from 45 mph to 25 mph. We added five, beautifully landscaped roundabouts and installed state-of-the-art pedestrian safety technology at all five crosswalks. New businesses have opened and neighbors have re-emerged from their homes in Bird Rock to find a very cool community right in their midst. It’s been held out as a case study by federal transportation authorities, and was the subject of their workshop last year. And it has won awards from public works associations, engineers, the Urban Lands Institute and Walk San Diego.

There are a lot of reasons to want neighborhoods to be great places for walking, with destinations nearby. It’s great for avoiding traffic congestion, getting exercise, lowering air pollution and building community with your neighbors. And as the work of the Walkable and Livable Communities Institute grows, people will be talking about La Jolla Boulevard and Bird Rock across the country. And maybe you will be inspired, as I have been, by Dan Burden’s vision of community empowerment and neighborhoods for people. Here is his TED presentation:

How do you feel about having a walkable and livable community?