Melanie Curry

A coalition of bike and pedestrian advocates are inviting organizations to sign on to a letter [PDF] asking the state legislature to recommend allocating $50 million of the state's cap-and-trade revenue towards the Active Transportation Program. Currently, none of the $850 million in cap-and-trade funds are allocated specifically for walking and bicycling in this year's budget.

Doubts about the High Speed Rail Authority's ability to fund its estimated $68 billion program dominated last week's Senate Transportation and Housing Committee hearing (see the background report in this PDF). Committee Chair Senator Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) said he was “somewhat skeptical” about the Authority's 2014 Draft Business Plan and questioned CAHSRA CEO Jeff Morales on the authority's reliance on uncertain funding sources.

California's legislative season is heating up, and both the Assembly and the Senate are beginning to read and discuss the bills wending their way though the session. Here's Streetsblog's weekly highlight of events and legislation related to transportation at the capitol.

Streetfilms featured Los Angeles' Orange Line BRT and bike path in 2009. A new UCLA report says infrastructure projects like the Orange Line are a better way to invest cap-and-trade funds than CA High-Speed Rail.

A series of hearings in Sacramento have been revisiting California's Global Warming Solutions Act, Assembly Bill (A.B.) 32, which calls for a statewide reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) to 1990 levels by 2020. Two recent hearings have opened discussions of Governor Jerry Brown's proposed spending plan for the revenue received so far from the state's cap-and-trade program, implemented as part of A.B. 32, and another recent Senate hearing discussed the program's impacts to date.

[UPDATE: Here is a link to a video of Professor Shoup's talk and here is a link to the Q&A portion of the evening.]

Bike San Diego won this year's Advocacy Organization of the Year award from the Alliance for Biking and Walking at the National Bike Summit earlier this month in Washington, D.C. Pretty good for an all-volunteer-run organization that has only been around for a little over a year.

The news from Caltrans' 2012 California Household Travel Survey is not too surprising: Californians are making more trips by walking, bicycling, and transit than they were in 2000. The survey found the percentage of trips by these modes doubled in ten years and make up nearly 23 percent of all trips in the state.

The UC Berkeley Faculty Club meeting room was packed on Tuesday evening with people who came to hear Ethan Elkind talk about his book, Railtown: The Fight for the Los Angeles Metro Rail and the Future of the City.

The California Assembly's Public Safety Committee voted 7-0 Tuesday to approve A.B. 1532, which would require an automatic license suspension for drivers who flee the scene of a crash where a person is hit, even if that person is not injured.