Future of Infrastructure: Sustainability is an Opportunity for Transportation
with Laura TolkoffLaura Tolkoff is the Transportation Policy Director at SPUR – the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association. Laura shares why sustainability is an opportunity for transportation.
Future of Infrastructure: Episode 14: Sustainability is an Opportunity for Transportation
Public Sector Future
Episode summary
Laura Tolkoff is the Transportation Policy Director at SPUR – the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association. Laura joined the Future of Infrastructure to talk about why sustainability is an opportunity for transportation, and how SPUR is shaping San Francisco’s transportation system.
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Sustainability is an Opportunity for Transportation
Laura Tolkoff is the Transportation Policy Director at SPUR – the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association. Laura joined the Future of Infrastructure to talk about why sustainability is an opportunity for transportation, and how SPUR is shaping San Francisco’s transportation system.
The challenges that we’re facing from this pandemic are the challenges that we had before the pandemic. And, we waited too long to try and solve them, but let’s use this opportunity to make a difference.
– Laura Tolkoff, Director of Transportation Policy at SPUR
Sustainability is an opportunity for better transportation
SPUR’s Director of Transportation Policy Laura Tolkoff told us that when COVID hit: “what we were looking to do was to try and use this as an opportunity, as so many cities around the world really did, to really think about how can we use this to transform our transportation network in a clean and sustainable and healthy way.
And we also really cared about how can we also use this to help employ people at the time. So we really wanted to pass a law that would accelerate clean and sustainable transportation projects, and effectively act as a no-cost stimulus for jobs and the economy.”
Overcoming resistance with positive impact
Tolkoff went on to explain that: “we think that we can overcome resistance or skepticism by demonstrating a positive impact. And one of the things that I’m really proud of is that, in its short life, this law is already having a real and positive impact in communities around California.”
Civic organizations making a difference
Tolkoff also told us about the way civic organizations are working to bring people together on transportation issues: “One of the things I’m most excited about is how organizations and people in the civic sector are working. I think San Francisco is sometimes known for its fragmented politics, but what I’m seeing in the transportation space is a real understanding about the moment of crisis that transit is in, and also the importance of clean and sustainable mobility, and access to our climate, our health, our equity, our ability to live independent and healthy lives, and a real recognition that it’s a very zero-sum game if we can’t set aside our differences and work together. So, I’m really energized by the way that my colleagues in this space are working together.
Another thing that I think is exciting here in the Bay Area is that we’ve been talking about fragmentation in transit for decades. We know it’s a source of our challenges for regional mobility, and it’s been hard to figure out what to do about it.
And the pandemic really precipitated a new way of thinking, led by transit operators and by our regional metropolitan planning organization, MTC, to really look at our governance system and think about how could we actually improve this for the benefit of transit riders.”
Note: In this episode, Laura Tolkoff talks about California Senate Bill 922, which has passed since the time of recording.
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