Marin Independent Journal Tuesday, July 22, 1986
Guest opinion
Traffic Management
A
group to help move people
By
George Haskell and Dwayne Hunn
ON JAN. 8. more than 80
local employers gathered at Hamilton Air Force Base to listen to 14 experts
review transportation issues and opportunities facing the North Bay.
By April 16, this group had founded the North Bay Transportation
Management Association, with Ed Weber of Novato as executive director. That
same afternoon, $20,000 in start-up funding was committed by the California
Department of Transportation.
The rapidity of the association’s organization, funding and
growth indicates its no-nonsense business approach to fulfilling its mission
statement: “To advocate, promote, develop and implement innovative traffic
reduction and ridesharing strategies throughout the region.”
Though only three months old, the association has:
• Worked with a major North
Bay shopping center to develop ridesharing programs that will reduce parking
demand and traffic congestion.
• Begun work on a school-district ridesharing program for 800
employees, beginning this fall.
• Sponsored a presentation in the Canal Area of San Rafael of a
demand-responsive transportation system now, operating in West Germany.
• Arranged and hosted a day- long tour of the Highway 101 corridor
for the federal government’s Private-Public Transportation Partnership Program.
The tour used a 14-passenger vanpool and examined regional transportation
problems and opportunities from Hewlett Packard in Santa Rosa to vanpool lots
in San Francisco.
• Helped form a traffic solution oriented partnership in San Rafael
between the city and the Chamber of Commerce to avoid a punitive transportation
ordinance and to help San Rafael manage its transportation systems better.
• Initiated the development of regional broadcast media advertising
program to raise public awareness of transportation management and how
implementing it can help unlock 101 gridlock.
• Provided research and
conceptual assistance to San Anselmo and Fairfax officials in bringing local
jitney service closer to reality.
• Held discussions with Novato city officials to implement management
of transportation systems so that parking development costs of’ the planned
Novato Civic Center can be reduced.
• Assisted Assemblyman William Filante, R-Greenbrae, in drafting
Assembly Bill 4071, which reduces taxes by thousands of dollars for individuals
and companies who operate vanpools and carpools.
The North Bay Transportation
Management Association uses the entrepreneurial spirit to make what we have
work better. Oftentimes that translates to coming up with a more cost-effective
solution more quickly than a large committee or institution could.
In 1981, Bill Dance of Rohnert Park thought of the commute he
put himself into each day and realized it cost him money and sanity.
He learned that a well-designed van takes 15 riders out of the
headaches of traffic and takes 13 cars off the road.
Today Bill Dance is one of approximately 450 Bay. Area van-pool
entrepreneurs whose second businesses produce significant after-tax income
while they drive to and from work.
They are part of the solution. When enough of these little
innovations are implemented, a more sensible and economic commute pattern will
emerge. The North Bay’ Transportation Management Association is dedicated to
implementing those little innovations.
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George Haskell is the president of the board of the North Bay
Transportation Management Association. Dwayne Hunn is its vice president.