Cars are California’s largest source of carbon emissions and that is just the tip of the melting iceberg on the justice and environmental impacts cars have on communities throughout the Bay Area. Transit is a powerful, but under-used tool to clean our air and bring environmental justice to our streets. What’s more is transit’s potential as a major vehicle for climate justice is often overlooked. To help fix that for Earth Month, the Transbay Coalition put on a special webinar with the Greenbelt Alliance, the Richmond Progressive Alliance, and California Environmental Voters.
Kyndelle Johnson of the Richmond Progressive Alliance shared about the impacts cars have on our health, communities, greenspaces, and climate. Joran Grimes of the Greenbelt Alliance spoke on how cars enable sprawl and how sprawl locks people into car dependency and thus higher demand for oil. While California Environmental Voters’ Aaron McCall brought in the federal perspective sharing the view from DC and how grassroots organizing is pivotal to winning the big changes we need from Washington.
The Bay Area has a long way to go until our communities are just, healthy and environmentally sound places. Transit has a pivotal role to play in that transformation and the Transbay Coalition is committed to continuing to strive for that future. The Bay deserves it.
