Check out this week's featured stories:

1. Our next Membership Mixer on September 19 at Civita! 

2. National Senior Citizens Day in Chula Vista 

3. Planning for Women – Women Walk PB

4. Traffic Calming Pop Up at Harbor Fest Demonstrates Safe Streets 

5. MTS Fare Changes Begin September 1st 

6. Nominations are Now Open for Circulate Momentum Awards 

MTS will be updating its fare structure starting on September 1^st, 2019. Our Executive Director Colin Parent spoke about it with KPBS.

Changes to fare policies are often a mix of good and bad. As a general matter, as costs go up, agencies must either raise fares or reduce service to balance the books. Surveys of MTS riders show that 65% indicated they preferred higher fares over reduced service eventually fares. Still, agencies can make choices to minimize impacts to the most cost-sensitive riders.

On the Pros: MTS is keeping fares constant for those who purchase monthly fares. Costs are also reduced for Day Passes for youth passes and Senior Disabled Medical riders. Some redundant passes were also eliminated in in interest of simplicity and clarity.

On the Cons: MTS is raising one-way and Day Pass fares. The fare policy continues to preclude free transfers between bus routes. In fact, the policy expands that inequity by eliminating free transfers between trolleys.

As Circulate San Diego has detailed in the past, and again this week on KPBS, MTS is one of only two of the nation’s largest transit agencies to not allow free or reduced transfers between buses.

MEDIA ADVISORY - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Maya Rosas, Circulate San Diego
310-804-5256
mrosas@circulatesd.org

Check out this week's featured stories:

1. Safe Streets for All Bike Ride

2. California Western Law Review publishes “City-Wide” article by our Executive Director Colin Parent 

3. Moderate Income Bonus Program Adopted After Years of Advocacy from Circulate San Diego 

4. CPG Reform Update 

5. Are Cities Designed for Women? 

Last week the San Diego City Council adopted a Moderate Income Bonus Program advocated for by Circulate San Diego. This policy will create new incentives to build mixed income homes near transit.

Due to our advocacy, the program allows developments to receive up to a 75 percent bonus above base density if they dedicate homes for low and moderate income families.

Last week the California Western Law Review published an academic article authored by our Executive Director and General Counsel Colin Parent. The piece titled “City-Wide: A strategy for Sustainable Growth,” is available online here.

Over the last few years, Circulate San Diego has been guided by a theory of change that land use reforms are more easily adopted when they are applied city-wide. This is in contrast to many other approaches that try to focus change through community plan updates, or even updates for subsets of community plans. 

We have focused our advocacy on city-wide changes like affordable homes bonus programs, parking reforms, and other programmatic policy. Our successes have been numerous, proving the value of a city-wide approach. People have taken notice. Even Mayor Faulconer’s Housing-SD plan largely focuses on city-wide changes.

In this recently published piece, Parent outlines the thinking behind Circulate’s theory of change. He examines how city-wide policies create the right political economies for reform. In contrast, land use reforms on smaller geographic scales are more likely to attract effective opposition from anti-housing forces and the defenders of the status quo. The piece also discusses recent experiences with land use reforms in San Diego, and lessons policymakers and advocates can draw both locally and in other regions.

Circulate San Diego submitted a letter on Sub-Item G, consideration of a ballot measure to add Community Planning Groups (CPGs) and the Community Planners Committee to the City Charter. 

Read the full letter [PDF]

Check out this week's featured stories:

1. Captain VZ at Comic-Con!

2. Key findings from our Comic-Con Walk Audit

3. July Membership Mixer Recap

4. The Sustainable Growth Community Planners Launches

5. New Protected Bike Lanes on 6th Avenue and Beech Street

As part of our Move Free SD project, funded partly by SANDAG and the City of San Diego, Circulate SD hosted a Comic-Con walk audit. We invited downtown residents and workers to observe and think critically about how the built environment functions at peak use.

Circulate San Diego submitted a letter in support of the Morena Corridor Specific Plan. The Specific Plan proposes safe street improvements like a two-way cycle track along Morena Boulevard and new sidewalks, improvements that are consistent with the City’s Vision Zero commitment. Circulate does not support the recommendation from the Land Use and Housing Committee to reclassify Morena Boulevard from a three lane collector to a four lane collector because the added lane will increase motor vehicle capacity and decrease the space committed to creating safe bicycle infrastructure.

Read the full letter here [PDF].