Get Moving: Alameda County's Legislative Support for Active Transportation Campaign

Alameda County has joined the national 2010 Campaign for Active Transportation, which seeks to empower dozens of communities to make focused investments in infrastructure and programs to shift automobile trips to walking and biking. The goal is to create a new $2 billion federal program as part of the next federal transportation bill. We urge your support of this effort to make Alameda County one of the 40 communities around the country to receive $50 million to invest in walking, biking and improved transit access.

As the second most populous county in the San Francisco Bay Area, with 1.5 million people, Alameda County has over 700,000 walk trips and almost 100,000 bike trips every day. We also have six of the ten most heavily congested freeway corridors in the Bay Area, and delays are on the rise. With rising fuel costs, global warming, increasing auto congestion, and the poor health of our community, now more than ever we need to make it safe and convenient to walk, bike and access transit.

Join ACTIA and our more than 40 partners in supporting this effort in Alameda County by having your organization or agency adopt a resolution or sign an endorsement letter. If your organization would prefer to support the national effort only, please use one of these sample documents. Read a fact sheet about the effort.

Our active transportation effort has started to receive local media coverage:

• Op Ed by Supervisor Nate Miley, 06/24/09

Through a collaborative effort, Alameda County has made the case for why we are an ideal place to make a strong investment in walking and biking, and how it will make a difference. In our Active Alameda Case Statement, we outline an Active Transportation Plan that will:

ADVANCE Pedestrian & Bicycle Access to Transit by:

• Making it easy and safe to get to transit by walking or biking.
• Advancing and increasing transit ridership through better transit access.

CONNECT Communities with Urban Greenways by:

• Filling the gaps in existing inter-jurisdictional multi-use trails, like the stellar Bay Trail and the Iron Horse Trail to connect people to jobs, shopping and schools, as well as nature.
• Building a new East Bay Greenway through the heart of the county that connects communities to each other and to transit, work and schools, and provides a new green space for communities that lack it.

INSPIRE the Community to Walk and Bike by:

• Expanding the current successful Safe Routes to Schools program to inspire even more students to become more active.
• Developing a new Safe Routes for Seniors program to inspire seniors to feel empowered to walk, and even bike, especially as they transition out of driving.

For more information about the Alameda County effort, contact Tess Lengyel, Programs and Public Affairs Manager, Alameda County Transportation Improvement Authority (ACTIA) at (510) 267-6111 or tlengyel@actia2022.com. Contact the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy Regional Office at (415) 814-1100 for information about the national campaign.

Other efforts to support Active Transportation: