Next TALC regional meeting — Feb. 15, 2006
TALC's staff and board wish you happy holidays. Our next regional meeting will be in February, so please mark your calendar. Wednesday, November 16, 5:30-7:30 pm. (Optional orientation from 5:00-5:30.) Sierra Club, 85 2nd Street, San Francisco.

At TALC's November Regional Meeting, two dynamic speakers highlighted the movement to connect public health to transportation and land use: Dr. Richard Jackson, former California State Health Officer, and Dr. Rajiv Bhatia of the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Notes from their talks and copies of their presentation slides are posted on TALC's website.

Meeting notes and presentations: www.transcoalition.org/cal/minutes_archive.html

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Save the Spillover -- protect state funding for transit operations
TALC is getting ready to kick off a new campaign to save millions of dollars of transit funds from being cut from the state budget. The goal of the campaign will be to ensure the “Spillover” is split evenly between capital improvements for transit and flexible transit funds that can be used for operations, as intended by statute. Unfortunately, California has gotten in the habit of suspending these Spillover funds in the budget, taking much-needed operating dollars away from transit operators across the state. Last year alone, the suspension of the Spillover denied the Bay Area $71 million of operating funds, at the same time almost every major provider was forced to cut service and raise fares.

Join us in our fight this year to preserve these much-needed funds. See TALC’s website for more information or contact Amber Crabbe, Program Director, at 510-740-3105 or amber@transcoalition.org.

Learn more: www.transcoalition.org/c/sus_spill

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Support TALC with a year-end donation
As the holidays approach, it's time to consider TALC as part of your year-end giving. Your donation will support our launch of the Great Communities Initiative and other exciting TALC projects. It's quick and easy to donate to TALC via Groundspring, a secure donation site (the same one used on the TALC web site). Your tax deductible donation will ensure TALC has the capacity to involve communities in planning for our common future.

Donate online: https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=3319

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Members in Action

Magazine and event focus on transportation justice and the Bay Area -- Dec. 5
Fifty years after Rosa Parks' refusal to sit at the back of the bus led to the Montgomery bus boycott, Urban Habitat's journal (Race, Poverty and the Environment) focuses on how working for transportation justice can help build the movement for civil rights and environmental justice. Featuring contributions from leading practitioners in the field and a cross-section of voices from the grassroots, the issue includes ten articles about Bay Area issues or written by activists in the Bay Area. The issue describes a transportation and land use system that harms urban quality of life, damages the environment, promotes wars for resource domination, and causes unequal racial and class-based impacts. This issue includes articles written by TALC staff and members that identify the pressure points in the system which present opportunities for progress.

To learn more and to subscribe to the leading environmental justice journal in United States, visit www.urbanhabitat.org.

Also, on Monday, December 5, join Urban Habitat and its transportation justice allies for a community event about the transportation justice movement in the Bay Area. Titled "Moving the Movement: Transportation Justice 50 Years after the Montgomery Bus Boycott," the event will honor the memory of Ms. Rosa Parks and will unveil the new issue of Race, Poverty and the Environment. The event features the Joy Gospel Choir, performers, speakers and more.

December 5th, 4:00-6:00pm
Frank Ogawa Plaza (Broadway & 14th St), Oakland
Rain location: First Unitarian Church, 685 14th St. @ MLK Way, Oakland

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Support Bus Rapid Transit in San Francisco -- Dec. 6, 8, and 10
Three critical opportunities to support Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) are happening in early December. The San Francisco County Transportation Authority is holding a public workshop to examine conceptual designs for BRT on Geary Boulevard aimed at faster travel times, more reliable service, and improved passenger comfort. The workshops will be held on December 6, 8, and 10 in San Francisco. Workshop details are posted online.

Learn more: www.sfcta.org/Geary/workshp2.htm

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New inclusionary housing email discussion group
Nearly 200 affordable housing leaders from across the country recently met in Washington, DC to talk about inclusionary zoning, one of the most promising tools available for creating mixed-income communities and offering housing choices for families. PolicyLink is launching an online discussion tool as a way to continue to share information and strategies that emerged from the event and that can help win and expand inclusionary zoning.

To join the list: www.policylink.org/discussions/InclusionaryHousing.html

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Sonoma-Marin rail project releases environmental report
The proposed Sonoma-Marin rail project (SMART), would offer passenger rail service on an existing rail right-of-way along the Highway 101 corridor between Cloverdale and Larkspur and create an associated bike/ped pathway. The SMART District recently released its Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR). The document presents detailed information about the environmental impacts, ridership estimates, and project costs. Public hearings on the Draft EIR will be held on January 17 at 6:00 p.m. at the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors Chambers and on January 21 at 9:00 a.m. at the Marin County Board of Supervisors Chambers. Written comments can also be submitted to the SMART project office.

Learn more: www.sonomamarintrain.org/project_details/impact.html