TransForm assembled a group of bike advocates and grassroots groups from across the Bay Area to encourage an inclusive and equitable rollout of the Ford GoBike system, including a deeply discounted membership option, more locations in disadvantaged communities, and the creation of a cash payment option.

TransForm then coordinated a region-wide outreach project with bike coalitions and locally led bike groups. As the end of 2018, low-income memberships are now at 21%, or 3,573 members -- the highest among any system in the nation. Of residents who joined the low-income membership through the outreach effort, 86% had an annual income less than $25,000 and 97% were people of color. While 34% of bike share members in the U.S. are female, 47% of those who signed up through this outreach identified as female or “other.” Learn more.

Measure W in San Mateo County was a big priority for TransForm in the 2018 election. We worked closely with Youth Leadership Institute, Friends of Caltrain, Urban Habitat, and other groups to build a powerful coalition that created a great measure and helped get it passed — it wasn’t until nearly 20 days after the election when the ballots were fully counted that it received the ⅔ vote needed. That means our coalition outreach campaign with 120 volunteers and 30,000 voter contacts made the difference.

Measure W raises $80 million per year to improve public transit, create safer bike and pedestrian routes, reduce traffic, repair roads, and address other urgent community needs. An impressive fifty percent of the revenues are aimed at maintaining and improving SamTrans, Caltrain, and paratransit services. Measure W also allocates 10% for regional transit connections, such as improvements along the Dumbarton corridor and express buses on Highway 101 to better connect San Mateo County to the rest of the region.

In its first 10 years, the GreenTRIP program has certified over 6,500 units in almost 50 projects, and diverted over $100 million from parking spaces to transit and other benefits for residents.

Meanwhile, cities, transit agencies, and other jurisdictions are adopting GreenTRIP policies into their planning and building codes. The cities of Emeryville, Sunnyvale, Berkeley, and Richmond, as well as BART all encourage or require GreenTRIP certification or its equivalent for new multi-family development. And in 2017, the Governer’s Office of Planning and Research added a recommendation of GreenTRIP Connect in the state’s General Plan Guidelines for all cities.

After nearly two years of negotiations, California’s state leaders approved a massive spending package intended to fix up our state’s aging and dilapidated transportation systems. Thanks to years of advocacy from TransForm and our allies, the final bill — known as SB 1 — included dramatic increases in funding for the things we care most about: public transportation, walking, and biking.

SB 1 included nearly $1 billion — or nearly 20% — for sustainable transportation, from dedicated (and therefore more reliable) funding sources. That’s a stark contrast to early versions that would have invested only 5% from unpredictable sources like cap-and-trade revenues.  And the roadway investments in the bill were largely restricted to repairs, which should be our top priority after years of neglect.

SB 1 wasn’t perfect by any means. In fact, TransForm officially opposed the bill with a coalition of over 80 organizations after a last-minute deal with the trucking industry resulted in a provision to weaken air pollution regulations.  And lawmakers were unable to include even a basic statement of values for environmental justice.  

But the positives in the bill showed the impact of our state-level efforts over the past eight years to build a movement in Sacramento for real transportation choices. Overall, SB 1 represents a giant leap forward for state transportation spending that will make California’s communities safer, healthier, and more connected.

Of the 17 measures we took positions on in this election year, 15 of them went our way! This included statewide propositions and local measures on everything from transportation funding to affordable housing, renter protections, and sidewalk repair. We worked especially hard to pass Measure RR, a bond that raised $3.5 billion to invest in repairing and improving BART's core system.

TransForm was very involved in getting BART to put a measure on the ballot in the first place, and finally do what we've been calling on the agency to do for years — fund the billions of dollars of maintenance work needed to keep the core system up and running safely and reliably. We worked closely with allied organizations, and community partners  in Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Francisco counties to pass Measure RR with more than 70% of the overall vote.

For more than twelve years, TransForm worked with city officials, local businesses, residents, transit riders, and transit agencies to bring a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line to the East Bay. In 2016, the project broke ground along International Boulevard in Oakland, with plans to open in 2019.

It is no accident that BRT came to this corridor first: International Boulevard is the most heavily trafficked AC Transit route, and 72% of AC Transit’s ridership is low-income. BRT is faster and runs more frequently than traditional bus service, and will reduce the trip along International Boulevard by as much as 30%. It will be an affordable and time-efficient alternative for low-income people to stay connected without a car. BRT will also attract new riders to the line, eliminating thousands car trips per year and sparing our air from harmful greenhouse gas emissions.

In February, TransForm and our partners celebrated an advocacy win when BART's Board of Directors passed their monumental affordable housing policy.The policy requires developers building housing at BART stations to make at least 20% of the units affordable. In addition to adopting a high minimum requirement for new affordable homes on BART property, BART also set a broader goal that at least 30% of all housing near BART stations system-wide should be affordable.

Building affordable housing at BART stations will not only help alleviate the Bay Area’s housing crisis — it will also increase BART ridership and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. TransForm's advocacy and research on this topic, along with the hard work of East Bay Housing Organizations (EBHO), Nonprofit Housing Association (NPH), the Sierra Club, Greenbelt Alliance, and the Great Communities Collaborative, helped shape this strong policy and get it passed.

TransForm proudly co-sponsored this revolutionary bill, which promises to help address our state’s growing threat of displacement and impacts of climate change.

AB 744 (Chau) requires cities to dramatically lower parking requirements for affordable, senior and special needs housing near public transit. AB 744 will also create a powerful incentive for market rate developers to maximize the number of affordable homes they include.

In July 2015, TransForm launched ClimateBenefitsCA.org, a searchable online map to show how investments from California’s cap-and-trade program are improving people’s lives.

ClimateBenefitsCA.org is the only place you can see the full impact of cap-and-trade investments in one place.  It makes the case for strengthening California’s climate program - not just for our own benefit - but also so others around the world are inspired to adopt a climate protection program that is rooted in justice, tackling economic inequality as a strategy for environmental success.

California’s first-in-the-nation cap-and-trade program is projected to generate billions of dollars over the coming years. These funds must be used to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs).  TransForm, through our work with the Sustainable Communities for All Coalition, advocated for the state to prioritize investments in more transportation and housing choices, especially those that benefit low-income Californians.

The state budget approved in July 2014 reflected our efforts, allocating 60% of cap-and-trade revenues to public transportation, sustainable communities, and affordable homes near transit for the first three years of the program.  These investments are poised to bring transformative change to communities throughout the state.

San Jose will soon enjoy a seven-mile stretch of exceptional bus service on the busiest transit corridor in Santa Clara County along the Capitol Expressway, Alum Rock Avenue and Santa Clara Street.

Bus Rapid Transit is revolutionizing bus service around the world by harnessing the best features of rail, including bus-only lanes. TransForm has been engaging community members in the planning of the San Jose project for several years. The final adopted project strongly reflects what the community wanted, including how it will integrate bike/ped improvements, art, and local history. 

Too often, opportunities for good development near transit ends up as projects with massive parking structures, pricey units, and more traffic. That’s why we started GreenTRIP, TransForm’s certification program, in 2008. 

Garden Village, a proposed 77-unit building in Berkeley with 10% very-low-income units, faced a lot of local opposition due to concerns about traffic. So our GreenTRIP program worked with the developers to rethink the project. They eliminated an expensive parking garage in favor of car sharing, free transit passes for residents, and 200 bike parking spaces.  Opposition turned to overwhelming support.

TransForm supported the California Bicycle Coalition in building intense grassroots pressure on legislators and the Governor in support of this common-sense law, AB 1371.

Three years of advocacy yielded a groundbreaking victory when the Bay Area adopted its Sustainable Communities Strategy, Plan Bay Area. The plan is bolder than any regional plan in the country in terms of reining in sprawl, and directs all new development within the existing urban footprint. Also part of the plan, the groundbreaking OneBayArea Grant Program will reward cities that build more compact homes affordable to all incomes near transit. 

TransForm started a pilot project of the Safe Routes to Schools program in 2006 at two schools in Oakland in hopes of bringing the success of the Marin County program to more urban and low-income areas. Today, the Alameda County Safe Routes to Schools Partnership works in more than 100 public elementary, middle, and high schools – and is seen as a national model.

This first-in-the-nation Safe Routes to Transit grant program, conceived by TransForm and Bike East Bay, has funded over 50 projects from the Berkeley Bike Station to a bike/ped highway overcrossing in Santa Rosa to bike sharing in San Jose. See all the projects.