{"id":7078,"date":"2014-12-12T11:08:08","date_gmt":"2014-12-12T16:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myparkingsignblog.com\/blog\/?p=7078"},"modified":"2023-08-02T02:21:01","modified_gmt":"2023-08-02T06:21:01","slug":"caltrans-scrambles-keep-transportation-trends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myparkingsign.com/blog\/caltrans-scrambles-keep-transportation-trends\/","title":{"rendered":"Caltrans scrambles to keep up with transportation trends"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"caltrans

The Caltrans of old wouldn’t have touched a grassrootsy, environmentally conscious effort like Bike to Work Week. From ubrayj02.<\/p><\/div>\n

SNL\u2019s \u201cThe Californians\u201d pokes fun at the Golden State\u2019s obsession with freeways and car culture, but the show\u2019s writers may have to revise their scripts. Californians are walking and biking twice as much as they did ten years ago, according to the most recent household survey conducted by the California Department of Transportation.<\/p>\n

Caltrans<\/a>, as the organization is popularly known, has been shifting its priorities to align with transportation trends that buck auto-centered policies. Building more (and wider) freeways is no longer the answer, says Mark Dinger, media relations manager for the agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was, you know, our grandfather\u2019s Caltrans, where we thought about pouring more concrete all the time,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need a sustainable transportation system that\u2019s going to be good for our environment and good for our health, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

To that end, Dinger says that the agency has awarded millions of dollars to cities and counties for projects that promote biking and walking. Caltrans has also become more tolerant of street designs that encourage better bike lanes and crosswalks, he continued, and has instituted internal reforms to help the organization better meet state mandates for smart growth and the reduction of transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n

Dinger\u2019s description of institutional reform and new policies and practices may do little to repair Caltrans\u2019 reputation for incompetence and outdated initiatives. When asked to review the agency\u2019s performance, the State Smart Transportation Initiative<\/a> (SSTI), which sits at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, released earlier this year a report that blasted Caltrans for its inability to support the state\u2019s sustainability goals.<\/p>\n

Between 2003 and 2011, for example, lane-miles of non-interstate freeways in California rose 6 percent even as the number of vehicle miles travel dropped statewide. \u201cThe department has not come to grips with the reality of induced traffic and the relationship between transportation and land use,\u201d wrote the report\u2019s authors.<\/p>\n

Part of the issue, they continued, is an organizational culture resistant to change and poor management. SSTI interviewed more than 100 current Caltrans employees who described leaders that allowed underperforming colleagues to remain at their posts, non-engineering staff such as planners who were paid below market rate, and high-performing workers who left the agency after failing to be recognized with meaningful promotions, leading to a brain drain.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time that Caltrans has heard such criticisms, noted SSTI. Indeed, the department conducted a self-assessment not long ago that led to the creation of new committees, surveys, and offices in an attempt at improvement. \u201cIn all cases, however,\u201d wrote SSTI, \u201cthese efforts have not yet delivered.\u201d<\/p>\n

That skepticism didn\u2019t stop the authors from providing a long list of recommendations, chief among them repairing existing relationships and nurturing new ones, such as those with local partners. \u201cOn critical policy issues that would logically involve Caltrans, such as creating a high-speed rail network and reducing transportation climate effects, the legislature has worked around the department,\u201d lamented SSTI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SNL\u2019s \u201cThe Californians\u201d pokes fun at the Golden State\u2019s obsession with freeways and car culture, but the show\u2019s writers may have to revise their scripts. Californians are walking and biking twice as much as they did ten years ago, according to the most recent household survey conducted by the California Department of Transportation. Caltrans, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[637,577],"tags":[205,540],"class_list":["post-7078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-infrastructure","category-transportation-2","tag-california","tag-california-department-of-transportation"],"yoast_head":"\nCaltrans scrambles to keep up with transportation trends - MyParkingSign Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"SNL\u2019s \u201cThe Californians\u201d pokes fun at the Golden State\u2019s obsession with freeways and car culture, but the show\u2019s writers may have to revise their scripts.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myparkingsign.com/blog\/caltrans-scrambles-keep-transportation-trends\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Caltrans scrambles to keep up with transportation trends - 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