This is a statement to address the recent COG (Fresno County Council of Governments; which handles all of Fresno County’s transportation funding) effort in its RFP (Request for Proposal) to study a sustainable transportation plan. The qualifications to produce such a study excluded the best opportunity to provide COG with a viable plan by only accepting requests from previous or traditional sources.
There is already a 250 page business plan by Central Transit & Development Corp (CTDC) to provide Central California with a viable transportation alternative from the automobile. For the City of Fresno and COG to continue their conscious effort to ignore CTDC’s project displays an irresponsible disservice to the residents of Central California.
Legislators in the State of California have initiated environmental mandates to each MPO (Metropolitan Planning Organization: COG is the regional MPO) that creates a sustainable communities strategy (SCS) within the MPO’s regional transportation plan (RTP).
The CTDC plan was established to adapt the existing automobile centric urban land-use design to an economically viable automobile alternative. The CTDC business plan utilizes a New Technology Transit system that is environmentally, economically and socially sustainable. For the City of Fresno and COG to continually ignore the CTDC plan that includes a viably sustainable transportation and urban growth plan that provides economic stability and social equity shows a level of governmental ineptness that is beyond comprehension. COG’s response to the CTDC plan is to solicit one of the established consultant groups and give them $250,000 to provide COG with a study that is supposed to give them an idea of how to achieve a SCS utilizing the same techniques that the consultants have used to get us to where we are.
CTDC has taken a position of responsible development with its approach to provide social equity, environmental justice, and economic stability. This combination has staggered the bureaucratic procedure into unprecedented shock. It is unheard of for a private entity to include social equity into a development that benefits the community. There is no procedure for a private entity to provide a contemporary environmental solution that includes building a sustainable transportation system. It is unprecedented for a development project to establish a viable local economic generator capable of stimulating the regional economy through the nature of its project. The CTDC project is such a startling concept to the bureaucratic process they are dumbfound into a reaction of disbelief because it is outside of their procedure.
