Help Bring National Attention to Central California Transportation Issues

If you’re reading this blog, you know that Central California is not all sunshine when it comes to planning, development, and transportation. You also probably have a strong desire to see improvement.

For example, Fresno’s half-cent transportation tax has been devoted almost entirely to highway expansions and roadway widening. Road diet projects have been halted due to right-wing elected officials. Fresno’s pedestrian mall is being ripped up, and the BRT project is no longer BRT. Sprawl, of course, continued unabated. This pattern is true across the valley. Sure, there are bright spots and individual wins, but since I started this blog over five years ago I’ve seen much more bad than good.

One way to combat these problems is being active politically. Calling council members, attending meetings, and getting involved.

Unfortunately, sometimes these efforts are fruitless. When a developer holding bags of campaign donations is on one side of the issue, and hundreds of concerned locals are on the other, the bags of money tend to win out. That’s how you get statements like this, which fly in the face of reality:

“This doesn’t perpetuate the legacy
of sprawl,” he said. “Gunner Ranch is contiguous; it’s a logical
expansion for urban development.”

So what’s the solution, if you care about smart planning, good transportation, and sustainable development?

Media attention.

A group of 100 advocates can easily be ignored when the electorate is made up of 100,000 people who are unfamiliar with the issues of transportation and development. But when headlines are generated, the elected official no longer has to worry about the 100 advocates, but how the headline reads to the general public.

That’s why I am encouraging you to visit Streetsblog California and consider supporting their work.

My blog has a nice core of engaged readers who are interested in planning, development and transportation in the Fresno area. However, I’ll be the first to admit that the subject matter of my blog is incredibly niche. And that’s before even accounting for Fresno’s dwindling blog scene, which includes mainstream subjects such as music events and food.

That’s where Streetsblog California comes in. They take important issues brought up by dozens of blogs such as this one and shine a national light on them. The fact is, politicians – especially those with larger aspirations – care about how the media portrays them. Taking a local story that is noticed by 100 Fresno activists and elevating it to a national level does have an impact.Thanks to Streetsblog, posts about Fresno have made the rounds from a small planning circle all the way to the BBC.

Check out their post which summarizes some of the great stories they’ve done in the past two years, and consider providing them some support.