Next Wednesday, February 8, 2017, VTA’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee will discuss draft guidelines for the 2016 Measure B Bicycle and Pedestrian Program. You're encouraged to attend the meeting or submit your comments and questions to VTA ahead of time.

In November 2016, Santa Clara County voters approved Measure B, a one-half cent sales tax to fund transportation projects, collected over a 30-year period. In addition to a bicycle and pedestrian category of projects in the measure, there was also a requirement that Local Streets and Roads (pavement) projects funded by the measure implement Complete Streets (CS) practices to maintain and improve access and safety for bicyclists, pedestrians, and transit users on the roadway network. Since Measure B was passed, SVBC has been working on multiple fronts to ensure the CS requirement is adhered to.

The City of Sunnyvale hosted a “Community Kickoff” meeting to discuss a proposed Mary Avenue overcrossing of Highways 101 and 237 on Tuesday, January 17. SVBC helped spread the word about the project and attended the meeting to learn more.

Before landing my dream job running SVBC, I worked for 14 years as an advocate for affordable housing. In that role, I collaborated with affordable housing developers, an interesting and somewhat masochistic group of people. When I moved over to SVBC, many of these do-gooder developers followed me. At the same time, a new grant program came down from the State called the Affordable Housing Sustainable Communities (AHSC) grant program. This program was one more way of implementing the State’s landmark greenhouse gas reductions legislation, Assembly Bill 32, and its companion land use legislation, Senate Bill 375, by linking dollars for affordable housing with sustainability. What better way to create greener housing than to put the infrastructure and programs in place to encourage bicycling over driving?

As we work more on making our organization more diverse, equitable, and inclusive, staff members are taking the opportunities to learn and understand more of these issues. Last week, we had the chance to attend the Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition's first Complete Streets conference, Street Lights: Illuminating Implementation and Equity in Complete Streets as well as Urban Habitat’s Stage of the Region: Planning for the New Geography of Race and Class.