TALC's Summit on April 1, 2006 was a big success, with over 200 attendees.

See below for details on the campaign sessions.

Transportation Funding: What’s Hot in 2006
TALC staff opened the session by updating participants on what to watch in this year’s state budget (namely the diversion of Spillover funds and the funding and repayment of Proposition 42 dollars). TALC campaign actions on the budget include a phone call and letter-writing campaign and a lobby day on April 25. Additionally, this session reiterated the Coalition's continued commitment to passing Assembly Bill 2444 (Klehs), which would reinstate a $10 fee for vehicle registration to be used for transportation and clean air and water projects.

The rest of the session was spent discussing strategy for a new campaign idea raised earlier in the Summit -- indexing the gas tax to inflation. The state infrastructure bond identified $107 billion in transportation needs, and this campaign could provide a new revenue stream for the bond to prevent borrowing from the general fund. TALC will begin working on this in the near future. 

Can We Turn the Region Around?
This session focused on TALC's three main land use campaigns. The first part focused on the Great Communities Initiative (GCI), a collaborative effort to foster more informed and effective involvement in land-use planning processes near transit. GCI is described in detail at www.transcoalition.org/gci. Participants discussed ways they could get involved in these planning processes and what help they might need from TALC and other regional groups. Starting this fall, the Association of Bay Area Governments and Metropolitan Transportation Commission will ask cities to identify Priority Development Areas as places to focus future growth. Participants discussed ways to make sure there is local support during this process. Several people volunteered to help set up community meetings to rally support. Finally, we discussed opportunities to get smart growth incentives from the state level -- either in a new infrastructure bond or state legislation. The Planning and Conservation League will help organize people to lobby their legislators.

Transportation Justice: Celebrating Success, Looking Ahead
The session primarily addressed Community-Based Transportation Plans (CBTPs). Two themes emerged: be more strategic, and keep the CBTPs alive through implementation and accountability. Attendees wanted to seek better leverage by holding MTC accountable, and agreed on the need for leadership development and aligning regional and county funding.

Wheels of Change: Regional Bicycle and Pedestrian Movements
Attendees agreed on the need for "complete streets" that consider the needs of pedestrians and bicyclists. Although Caltrans and the Department of Transportation support complete streets, they need to actually address the issue by enforcing a policy of Routine Accomodation for bicyclists and pedestrians on new/upgraded roadways. San Francisco provides examples of better bicycle and pedestrian accommodation. Also discussed was conditioning funding of services on reaching accommodation levels -- such as a gas tax, flood districts, or redevelopment law.