Environmentalists and community activists say that Measure B1 will help finance the rebirth of cities.
The Bay Area’s transportation-infrastructure deficit is enormous. It’s felt most immediately in potholes, crowded roads, broken-down buses, and stranded passengers. While the exact sum of the under-funding is subject to interpretation, most parties agree that it’s in the range of many billions of dollars that are needed to maintain our roads, railways, bike lanes, and sidewalks. And that doesn’t count necessary investments in new and more efficient transit to replace crumbling infrastructure and disappearing services. The fact is, the Bay Area has infrastructure that is designed for a fraction of our current population, using dinosaur technologies that pollute far more than necessary. The crux of the problem isn’t technology, though, it’s money and politics.
This measure will literally complete a county bikeway network,” noted Dave Campbell of the East Bay Bicycle Coalition. “Some are paths, some are lanes, some are bike boulevards, but everything built will be safe and comfortable bikeways.