There are going to be a lot of great people at the Streetsblog SF 15th/Streetsblog CA 10th Anniversary party, and we’d love for you to join us. The party starts at 6 p.m. on Thursday, September 12 at Manny’s in the Mission. Reserve your space at EventBrite right now! Don’t wait!
Last week, we announced all ten of the award winners that we’ll be honoring at the event, and this week we’re proud to tell you what award they’ve won and a little more about why we’re honoring them.
Senator Scott Wiener is a staunch ally for safe streets in his district and statewide and that’s why he’s the winner of our Complete Streets and Livability Champion Award. He has not given up on his efforts to get Caltrans to follow its own Complete Streets policies despite strong resistance from the state agency and the Governor’s vetoes of bills that had a lot of support in the legislature. He was also able to streamline CEQA approvals for bike and pedestrian projects, and has championed funding for public transit, speed governors on vehicles, and transparency on climate emissions from industry.
Assemblymember Phil Ting is the winner of our Gets the Wheel Turning Award because he has been a strong and thoughtful ally at the state capitol for bike riders and people on foot. Among his wins are adding protected bikeways to the Highway Design Manual, decriminalizing jaywalking, legalizing the use of cameras to enforce speed limits (via a pilot program), and a ban on bridge tolls for bikes and pedestrians. He also has pushed forward the conversation about whether bike riders should have to come to a complete stop at stop signs when there is no other traffic present, and he secured funding for active transportation projects including protected bike lanes on Arguello Blvd in San Francisco. Even when his bills were vetoed, he didn’t give up, and kept coming back to keep the conversation going.
California High-Speed Rail Authority CEO Brian Kelly is the winner of our Faster Than a Speeding Bullet Train Award. Kelly took over the agency when it was facing challenging lawsuits and taking a beating from media and lawmakers. In his six years at the Authority, Kelly settled the lawsuits, completed 463 of 494 miles of environmental clearance between San Francisco and Los Angeles, created nearly 14,000 jobs, protected nearly $1B in federal grants and won $3.3B in new federal funding, and advanced construction on the project’s first operating segment. Under his leadership, the Authority is poised to award a contract to build train sets by the end of the year.
Jeanie-Ward Waller is the winner of our Fearless Advocate Award. She has been a lot of things over her career, including Deputy Director for Planning and Multimodal Programs at Caltrans, but one thing she never stopped being was a strong advocate for active transportation funding and policy. She's taken a few hits - Caltrans dumped her when they realized she was not going to stop pushing for the right things - but she has not backed down, and she is an inspiration to other advocates when she tells them: Don’t take “no” for an answer.
John Bauters has been called “America’s Bike Mayor,” which is a great name for an award, but we thought it was already taken. So we’re honoring him with the Safe Streets Champion Award for what he’s accomplished in transforming the streets of Emeryville in a very short time. No bus benches? He fixed that. Wide, industrial-era streets not safe for people outside of a car? He fixed that. Train tracks dividing Emeryville in half? He built a bridge [well, okay, he had help, but he certainly led the way]. Bauters’s accomplishments are too long to list here.
Most recently, Rebecca Saltzman helped change BART policy to allow bikes on escalators. She has served as BART Director, District 3 since 2012. She pushed to change BART's focus from expanding to far flung suburbs to reinvesting in the existing system. As part of this shift, she helped pass Measure RR, a $3.5 billion bond measure that has been core to getting BART infrastructure into a state of good repair. She pushed for getting more frequent train service, with waits on all lines now limited to a max of 20 minutes. She helped push BART’s Ambassador Program, which is now being used as a model for transit agencies across the country. And that’s just a fraction of the list of her accomplishments. That’s why we’re giving her a Bikes Movin’ on Up Award.
Some people, we’re not saying who, think it’s a good idea that somebody traveling from, let’s say, West Portal to say, Bay Farm Island, should pay a full Muni fare, a full BART fare, AND a full AC Transit fare. Seamless Bay Area was formed a few years ago by some advocates who had the novel idea that maybe the customer should come first and that if you ask someone to take a trip by transit, they should just pay once. Their work is far from complete, but they’ve already gotten thousands of people on the BayPass program, a pilot test of universal fare media in the Bay Area. That’s why we’re giving a How the Hell Don’t We Have a Network Manager Already! Award to everyone’s friends at Seamless.
Traffic Violence Rapid Response is a stealthy group of underground operatives who organize vigils for cyclists and pedestrian victims of our auto-uber-alles transportation system. They’ve also been known to work with other groups to, you know, help install posts and paint to try and do what cities fail to do: make cities safe. They’ve been incredibly effective at getting the safety deficiencies of our streets mentioned on the nightly news and into the larger public consciousness. And they often embarrass cities into doing their jobs. That’s why we’re giving TVRR the first ever Guerilla Urbanism Seal Team Award.
Luke Bornheimer is a safe-streets machine. He works tirelessly advocating for No Turn on Red, protected bike lanes, bike buses, and helping Streetsblog call bullshit on paint-and-plastic post-protected bike lanes. That’s why we’re giving a Safe Streets Machine Award to Luke.
The Oakland/Alameda water shuttle, a little yellow boat named Woodstock, was supposed to connect Western Alameda and Jack London Square for people not using a car. People are complaining that they can’t ride the boat because it’s always too full. Seriously though: after a few weeks in service, it frequently fills up and they have had to leave people on the dock. The two-year pilot is already an undeniable success and a really strong argument for more funding, a second boat (or maybe a different boat designed for short ferry runs), and a purpose-built dock. It also shows that you can’t judge the need for a bike/ped bridge by the number of people swimming across an estuary. That’s why we’re giving a You’re Going to Need a Bigger Boat Award to Woodstock.
OMG! What an amazing group of people (and a boat). Don’t you want to hang out and party with them? You can. Click here to make your reservation.
