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TRANSPORTATION THINK TANK NOTES FROM JANUARY 26, 1999

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** NEXT MEETING: Tuesday February 16, 5 pm at CAFE BRASIL, **
** 1410 Mission Street in Santa Cruz. All are invited. **
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NOTES FROM TRANSPORTATION THINK TANK'S SECOND (Jan 26) MEETING...

Ten people attended: Emily Reilly, Peter Beckmann, Les White,
Mark Taylor, Peter Littman, Richard Stover, Peter Scott, Kim Chin,
Jim MacKenzie and Vicki Winters.

Emily facilitated the meeting. Many thanks are due to Joao
Luis, the owner of Cafe Brasil, who is donating the space for our
meetings. It is ideal.

Following introductions, we reviewed the text of our Mission
Statement, with the desire to both shorten it and make it more
"inspirational", as Peter Beckmann put it.

Les noted that "effective" transportation might be more accurate than
"efficient" transportation, Richard noted that generally people in
their cars (for example outside on Mission Street) are not driving
because they like to, but because they want to get somewhere. Peter
Beckmann felt we should give emphasis to the quality of life, noting
that people complain about OTHER PEOPLE'S cars. During the course of
our discussion, we all felt that a central part of our mission should
be to reduce the impact of automobiles. After considerable discussion
we agreed to adopt a new draft of our Mission Statement, with text
largely suggested by Peter Beckmann.

NEW DRAFT OF A MISSION STATEMENT:

** To improve the quality of life by reducing the impact of
automobiles:

** by educating ourselves and the public;
** by generating ideas for more effective transportation;
** by crossing traditional political, geographical and mental
boundaries.

Next Steps: (1) Finalize this Mission Statement, incorporating any
revisions if necessary; (2) Revise and set priorities for the list of
goals suggested by Debbie and Kim following our first meeting, and
assume needed responsibilities for tasks. (Those goals were
distributed earlier.)

Peter Littman suggested that we pick an achievable modest local goal
and work to accomplish it. (A "successful local nugget".)

As a starting point, Peter Beckmann distributed copies of the
Circulation Element from the General Plan for the City of Santa Cruz.

On the first page is the introductory statement that

"Increased automobile traffic congestion on City streets, during
peak commute periods and summer and holiday weekends, is a major
concern. ... Regional population growth, increasing numbers of
visitors, growth of UCSC, increased car miles traveled per person,
and development and population growth within the City are all
factors with the potential to increase traffic. With these
potential traffic increases come increased fuel consumption, air
pollution, noise, traffic accidents and impacts upon residential
neighborhoods."

Goal C1 of the City's General Plan states:

"Develop a comprehensive, multi-modal circulation planning program
that takes as its highest priority reduction of automobile trips
by the creation of viable alternative transportation modes,
effective transportation systems management programs, and
integration of land-use and circulation planning."

Succeeding pages of the Plan describe the need to give attention to the
PEDESTRIAN SYSTEM, the BIKE SYSTEM, and MASS TRANSIT, with detailed
descriptions of ways to proceed.

Kim noted the importance of land use planning: "Marry land use and
transit planning".

Les remarked on the ironical situation that while not long ago our
nation was focused on fuel efficiency standards, we now are focusing
on the attractiveness of SUVs and minivans (gas guzzlers), describing
them as facilitating family values, giving maximum safety and
versatility. The rub comes when we start to breathe the exhaust, when
pavement takes over, when tens of thousands of people are killed.
It is difficult to sell public transit. The empty bus is "bad"; the
empty road is "good".

Peter Scott remarked on the urgency of maintaining options---that the
current political thinking in our region seems dominated by the desire
to abandon "alternative modes" in favor of still more automobiles, and
that if this trend is not altered, the undesirable impact of the
automobile will be even stronger than it now is.

We decided to meet next on February 16, again at 5 pm at Cafe Brasil.

We hope at that meeting to pick a definite goal to pursue. (Should we
sponsor a forum?)

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<> If interested people find the first and third Tuesdays of the month <>
<> at 5 pm inconvenient or impossible, please let us know. Other meeting <>
<> times and dates are possible. (For example, would Wednesdays at 5 pm <>
<> work better?) We would like to meet twice per month. <>
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-- Peter Scott, note-taker (drip@cats.ucsc.edu or 423-0796).

p.s. After our meeting, Richard noted that our society allocates a very
large space just to PARK our cars. Not just our garages (which are
bad enough), but all that space adjacent to our street curbs, all
those public garages (Santa Cruz is now constructing its fourth), and
all those big parking lots to accommodate shoppers (Costco, the
Gateway Project, Circuit City, etc., even Safeway)---all that space
just waiting there so we can park our cars in it. It's probably a
good fraction of an acre PER CAR. And of course this does not include
the road pavement on which we travel.

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