It was a conference that was somewhat under the radar (even on this blog!) but in October, Santa Clarita hosted the Valley Mobility Summit, a meeting of transportation & transit policy makers at the Hyatt in Valencia.
Our own Marsha McLean got a part in the celebratory feel-good video (about 1:44 in):
McLean says the SCV is making "huge changes" with "our current general plan OVOV, and make sure we implement projects we need to be sure we can move people along."
What are those plans? Well, in contrast to the other attendees at the conference, who are creating real alternatives to single person vehicle travel, Santa Clarita, as part of OVOV, will widen roads primarily. Take a look at the OVOV plan -highlighted last week at SCVNews.com- and you'll see the casualty list of Class II bike lanes, more than four of which will be sacrificed for six lane super-roads:
To McLean and others at the City, apparently "Moving people along" means moving them along swiftly in their personal vehicles alone on six lane super-roads.
This isn't surprising for the SCV. We have an auto-first approach to transportation in this valley. Read through the new OVOV General Plan and you'll see it; the City and County would like to encourage transit or non-motorized transportation where possible, but the only substantive changes mentioned are to roadways like the ones listed above.
Now contrast that plan with what the hated SFV is doing. In the SFV, the Orange Line busway system is nearing maturity. It offers a rail-like line all the way from Chatsworth through Woodland Hills to North Hollywood, complete with a Class I bike lane the entire way. We've got nothing like that in the SCV, or indeed, nothing like that conceptually as a way to cross from the SCV to the SFV. The only way for you to get from the SCV to the SFV is via a commuter bus with a $4 ticket.
Instead, what we have is bigger, higher-capacity roads and public/private partnerships advocating for a wider/faster 5 Freeway to carry freight from the ports to the rest of the state with hardly any benefit to us in the SCV. Oh, and a City Council that is dead-set against High Speed Rail transiting through the SCV.
It's a joke that we were the host for this summit. You'll see in 10 year's time how this works out for us as the SFV morphs into a transit-friendly valley and even the Antelope Valley begins to appreciate mass transit. Meanwhile, the SCV will be stuck building and expanding roads into six and even eight lane super-highways with $5 or $6/gallon gasoline to support all the private development on the west side of the valley.
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Valley Mobility Summit in SCV
Our own Marsha McLean got a part in the celebratory feel-good video (about 1:44 in):
An embedded Vimeo video appeared here in the original post. View the original — embeds are preserved as links in this archive.
McLean says the SCV is making "huge changes" with "our current general plan OVOV, and make sure we implement projects we need to be sure we can move people along."
What are those plans? Well, in contrast to the other attendees at the conference, who are creating real alternatives to single person vehicle travel, Santa Clarita, as part of OVOV, will widen roads primarily. Take a look at the OVOV plan -highlighted last week at SCVNews.com- and you'll see the casualty list of Class II bike lanes, more than four of which will be sacrificed for six lane super-roads:
To McLean and others at the City, apparently "Moving people along" means moving them along swiftly in their personal vehicles alone on six lane super-roads.
This isn't surprising for the SCV. We have an auto-first approach to transportation in this valley. Read through the new OVOV General Plan and you'll see it; the City and County would like to encourage transit or non-motorized transportation where possible, but the only substantive changes mentioned are to roadways like the ones listed above.
Now contrast that plan with what the hated SFV is doing. In the SFV, the Orange Line busway system is nearing maturity. It offers a rail-like line all the way from Chatsworth through Woodland Hills to North Hollywood, complete with a Class I bike lane the entire way. We've got nothing like that in the SCV, or indeed, nothing like that conceptually as a way to cross from the SCV to the SFV. The only way for you to get from the SCV to the SFV is via a commuter bus with a $4 ticket.
Instead, what we have is bigger, higher-capacity roads and public/private partnerships advocating for a wider/faster 5 Freeway to carry freight from the ports to the rest of the state with hardly any benefit to us in the SCV. Oh, and a City Council that is dead-set against High Speed Rail transiting through the SCV.
It's a joke that we were the host for this summit. You'll see in 10 year's time how this works out for us as the SFV morphs into a transit-friendly valley and even the Antelope Valley begins to appreciate mass transit. Meanwhile, the SCV will be stuck building and expanding roads into six and even eight lane super-highways with $5 or $6/gallon gasoline to support all the private development on the west side of the valley.
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