I care deeply about protecting the environment, but environmental protection laws are being weaponized to prevent projects that would markedly improve the environment. That's rather perverse.
For one recent and on-going example, look at the San Francisco Van Ness BRT project. This project merely adds dedicated bus lanes and center median boarding/unloading. Along with that work, there's some utility relocation, and sidewalk improvements.
This route is entirely along an existing major thoroughfare in heavily-urbanized San Francisco. The entire route is already entirely paved. Anyone can look at this and conclude there is no risk to the environment from this project. Yet the CEQA process for this project took ten years to complete.
The project would improve public transit, reduce traffic, reduce pollution. It's really ironic that laws meant to protect the environment are what held up this project for a decade.
There needs to be a way to short-circuit laws like CEQA for certain categories of projects, like transit in heavily-urbanized areas.
note that ceqa covers more than just trees and fields. it includes views, soundscapes, air quality, and more, which is why it's so productive when used to slow or deny development. the variety of potential challenges is staggering.
that wouldn't be such a big deal if reviews took days rather than years, but bureaucracies aren't designed to handle unbounded variety. that makes the process excruciatingly slow and expensive (bureaucrats are risk averse so are loathe to take responsibility in more than small chunks at a time).
That's interesting thank you for sharing. However, this is just environmental laws being used to serve the same monied interests that I was complaining about. Private industry doesn't want mass transport, they want to sell cars. Landowners will always use their property rights to enrich themselves at the public expense.
For one recent and on-going example, look at the San Francisco Van Ness BRT project. This project merely adds dedicated bus lanes and center median boarding/unloading. Along with that work, there's some utility relocation, and sidewalk improvements.
This route is entirely along an existing major thoroughfare in heavily-urbanized San Francisco. The entire route is already entirely paved. Anyone can look at this and conclude there is no risk to the environment from this project. Yet the CEQA process for this project took ten years to complete.
The project would improve public transit, reduce traffic, reduce pollution. It's really ironic that laws meant to protect the environment are what held up this project for a decade.
There needs to be a way to short-circuit laws like CEQA for certain categories of projects, like transit in heavily-urbanized areas.