Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Bike people try to undermine CEQA

Our East Bay correspondent writes:
After we (the coalition to save Telegraph Ave) successfully sued Oakland about 5 yrs ago in Alameda Superior Court for failing to do a required CEQA-EIR study on the likely negative impacts from their bicycle lane plan that would shrink 2.5 miles of busy Telegraph Ave. between 27th & 55th St by removing about 40 center left turn lanes, the bicycle coalition's Sacramento CBC lobby got two SoCal legislators (one was a Republican who was a ex cop!) to submit a bill to the state Senate transportation committee that would have granted cities or government agencies and authorities an exemption from CEQA law when adding or making bicycle or pedestrian (so called) improvements. We contacted committee staff and told them why the CBC was pushing for the exemption. Fortunately that bad bill got stopped, though I'm not sure if it was due to our opposition.

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