As in years before, Earth Day 2012 was a fun and feel-good event. We thank the many volunteers who made the COAST booth a success:
Sarah Grant, Deborah Schwartz, Chris Sobell, Suzanne Michaud, Courtney Dietz, Eric Kirsh , Diana Blanchard, as well as Alanna, Kaytee, Juan and one more UCSB student whose name we don’t know, further Caitlin Carlson, Alex Pujo, Greg Janee, Mark Bradley, Lee Moldaver, Tracey Singh, Mickey Flacks, Dick Axilrod, Ken Hough, Doris Phinney and Eva Inbar. A special thank-you to Kim Stanley who organized our helmet program both days. If we missed anyone, please let us know! We fitted 65 helmets and gave out lots of information about COAST. For more photos,visit our facebook page.

Kids check in at school and receive a healthy snack, sticker, and enter their name in a raffle for a chance to win a big prize!

On Thursday, February 9th, Vieja Valley Elementary kicked off their monthly Walk and Bike to School Day! On the 9th of every month, kids, parents, and teachers will ditch their cars to walk and bike to school!

They had a great turnout this month, with loads of kids walking and riding their bikes to school. Many families who typically drive to school, rode their bikes instead. Some came from as far as the LaCumbre area, biking over the LaCumbre overpass and onto Modoc road, over a mile away! Families enjoyed the morning air and exercise, and it was a great opportunity to spend time with their kids before heading off to work!

Kids who participated in Walk to School Day got a healthy snack of granola bars and orange juice, a sticker, and entered their names in a raffle for a chance to win a big prize! The class with the highest average participation will also receive a treat.

We’d like to thank Sasha McGibben, a mom who organized the first event, and will be organizing all of the monthly Walk/Bike to School Days!

With the aid of the crossing guard, kiddos walk their bikes across the crosswalk to get to school!

In addition to Vieja Valley’s Walk/Bike to School Day, COAST’s Safe Routes to School Program is really taking off this year! We’re expanding into schools we’ve never been before  including those in Carpinteria. We also started pilot programs in Isla Vista Elementary and Franklin Elementary. We are so excited, and can’t wait to share our successes with you!

On January 11, representatives of COAST attended a very special ribbon cutting ceremony. It was for the footpath on San Ysidro Road leading to Montecito Union School that COAST helped bring about. MUS Superintendent Tammy Murphy and Supervisor Salud Carbajal led the ceremony together with all the students of the school. The kids actually cut the ribbon. They had placed thank-you notes on all the mailboxes on San Ysidro Road and left a sunflower at each one. Large groups of up to 50 children and their parents walked the new path to school that day. Later, when the kids were in school, dog walkers and joggers enjoyed it as well.

We thank Supervisor Carbajal who rolled up his sleeves and got things done. We thank our County Public Works staff, above all Matt Dobberteen, who worked hard on this. We thank all the parents who did not stop pushing for this. Most of all, we thank Stephen Murdoch for getting the ball rolling and for his generosity to COAST. He is still in London and so could not be with us on this special day, but his parents, Joan and Bill Murdoch, were present. Exactly five years ago, in January of 2007, Stephen and I first had coffee at Pierre Lafond’s in the Upper Village to talk about a path because he had no safe place to walk to school with his two young daughters. Afterward, we walked along San Ysidro Road together, clambering over rocks and tree roots. Now the path we imagined has become a reality. I hope that one day, Stephen will be back and walk to school on this path with his daughters. (Report by Eva Inbar)

Photos by: Lisa Valencia

Walking Wednesday Tour: UCSB Sustainability
When: Wednesday, May 23 5:30pm – 7pm
Where: Campus Point Beach, at the bottom of the stairs. Click here for more details about directions, parking, etc. People can park in Lot 6 at the end of Lagoon Road.
Follow Lisa Burns around the lagoon and UCSB for a great walk along the beach and an exciting look on the latest UCSB restoration and sustainability projects: dunes, coastal sage scrub, bird habitats, wetlands, and more!

Something we missed? Please email Caitlin to let us know!

In order for a community to make shared decisions, it must be in possession
of shared FACTS and not proceed from misunderstandings and prejudice. That
is the message that COAST forwarded to City representatives at the May 17
presentation. How do you elevate the discussion from the usual rhetoric
(i.e., “Preserve the quality of life”, “Live within our resources”) to more
concrete topics?

Policy questions should be focused and informed instead of asking about
people’s “feelings”. COAST requests that the City provide updated
statistical information about population and development patterns as
background for these discussions. The community needs factual information
to evaluate how our population and region are evolving.

~To see COAST’s comments to City Staff click link below~

COAST LETTER TO CITY STAFF REGARDING THE PROPOSED “PLAN SANTA BARBARA”
WORKSHOPS.

The twin issues of “elevating the quality of the conversation” and “dealing
with facts instead of emotions” were discussed at the May 17 meeting. We
understand and concur with your desire to “hear what different people have
to say” and that “this is not the time for education”. Nevertheless, we
remain concerned that fear and bias can quickly overcome the City’s best
intentions, as they arguably did in the recent 2nd District Community Plan
process.

At a recent community forum, renown journalist Lou Cannon quoted that
“Opinions are cheap, but FACTS ARE PRECIOUS”. That’s the point: the City
needs to PRESENT THE FACTS in order for the planned workshops to be
meaningful. We recommend the preparation of a short Power Point presentation
based on graphics showing, among other things, how the following has
affected Santa Barbara in the past 30 years:

1) Crime. The stabbing of a young boy on State Street may give the
impression that gang activity is rampant but… What do crime statistics
say? Per crime type? Per population type? Per neighborhood?

2) Safety. The killing of young Jake Boysel while biking to school
may give the impression that bicycles are dangerous but… What are the
accident statistics? Killed? Injured? Kidnapped on their way to school? And
how do they compare with statistics for child obesity and diabetes?

3) Congestion: What are the traffic counts on Upper State, Milpas,
De La Vina, West Mission, Anacapa, Lower Chapala, Cabrillo Boulevard,
Highway 101 at La Cumbre, Mission and Cabrillo, and how have they changed?
Vehicle miles traveled per year? Number of trips per household, in the past
30 years?

4) Parking: We hear that “There is never a parking space!” but…
How much parking is there downtown? Uptown? Waterfront? Increase/decrease
over the years? Public versus private?

5) Measure E: Your presentation stated that Measure E, about to
expire in 2010, curbed commercial development in Santa Barbara but… How
many years did the proposed development exceed the annual cap? In other
words: Has Measure E reduced any SUBSTANTIAL amount of commercial growth
since its adoption in 1989?

6) Bicycles: Scott Wenz claims that less people ride bicycles every
year. Is he right? What are the bicycle counts for the last 30 years?

7) Transit: How many Santa Barbarans (city only) ride MTD now? In
the last 30 years? How many of them are students? Hispanics?

Pedestrians: How many people actually walk to work? What is the
percentage if you only consider the city grid? How has it changed over the
years? Is it true that people in mixed-use projects use their cars less, and
walk more? What is the data on that?

9) Population: We read editorials about “rampant growth” and “dense
development” but… What are the population counts (census + correction
factors + surveys) for the last 30 years? By race? By age? How does Santa
Barbara compare with the rest of the South Coast? With the rest of
California?

10) Gentrification: How has the socio-economic make-up of our City
changed in the past 30-years? In the past 12 years?

11) Commuting: How many commute from Oxnard-Ventura? From North
County? How has it changed in the past 12 years?

12) Housing: How have the numbers changed? How many legal residences
are there? What is the possible total? How many illegal units exist? How
many LEGAL “Granny units” are there in Santa Barbara?

13) Affordable housing: We read a lot of editorials about the County
and the City subsidizing affordable units but… How many units are there?
How many units were actually built, versus rent subsidies?

14) Dense development: We read about “an avalanche” of tall
buildings under construction and in the pipeline but… How many “big”
buildings were actually built in Santa Barbara since Father Lassuen built
the Mission? How many are currently proposed? What are the percentages of
one, two, three and four story buildings in El Pueblo Viejo? How many
parcels are there in EPV? If you include all non-residential properties in
the City, what are those percentages?

This partial list is a necessary framework to address the challenges and
opportunities that we face as a community. Most of this information is
readily available. Presenting these facts in simple form will greatly
improve the quality of the oncoming workshops.

Plan Santa Barbara Workshops

Please attend one or more and express your support for alternative transportation and sustainable land use policies.
*Round 2 Workshops: Dates available shortly*

Faulkner Gallery, Santa Barbara Public Library

Informational discussion with panel of prominent city residents and employee including Mayor Blum, David Landecker of the County Steering Committee for Yes on Measure D and Jim Kemp who is the Executive Director, Santa Barbara County Association of Governments (SBCAG)

Please join us for a great opportunity to learn more about this initiative; what projects will be funded with its passing and what is at stake if it fails at the polls

Admission is free

Discussion is co-sponsored by COAST and SB CAN

This morning’s Memorial Ride for Jake provided an outpouring of sympathy from our bicycling community to the family of Jake Boysel who was killed while biking to school. Over 100 bicyclists formed a half-mile stream along Calle Real and State Street, filling the lane in Downtown Santa Barbara.

Jake Boysel’s family attended and was moved by this expression of sympathy from their community. The ride ended in De la Guerra Plaza where County Supervisor Susan Rose, City Councilmember Helene Schneider, and COAST representative Eva Inbar spoke for greater efforts to make sure all children are safer walking and biking to school.

More evidence of everybody’s concern over this sad loss is that our web site has had over 1000 visitors in the past 5 days — more than double our record weekly total. People care, they are disturbed, they are looking for safer conditions. Today’s ride wasn’t the end of action, it is the beginning of a challenge to us all to energize our collective abilities and make sure that this tragedy will not happen again. We can, indeed we must make it so.

~~ Ralph Fertig, President
~~ Santa Barbara Bicycle Coalition

“Jake’s death demonstrates the tragedy that follows careless and aggressive use of the roads and may sober some folks up on their own behavior, but what a price to pay to accomplish this.”

Curtis Ridling

Be sure to stop by our table to learn more about our current projects