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This story falls into the unusual but persistent overlap between pedestrian advocacy and vandalism. In Vallejo, California, last week, one man saw the need for a crosswalk at a dangerous intersection, and decided it was his job to make it happen.

Antonio Cardenas got arrested for trying to keep his community safe. Photo: NewsTimes

Anthony Cardenas, 52, grabbed some white paint and got to work at dawn to create his own makeshift crosswalk at the intersection of Sonoma Boulevard and Illinois Street. And he did a pretty decent job, according to the news photos. Maybe the geometry wasn’t perfect, but Cardenas definitely got his point across. And then he got cuffed.

Acting on a tip from a witness, police found Cardenas in his home last Thursday, where the retired U.S. Marine freely admitted to his paint job and explained that his goal was public safety. The cops placed him in the Solano County Jail with a $15,000 bail. As one officer told KTVU, the rogue crosswalk qualifies as vandalism.

Cardenas still faces felony charges. A Streetsblog reader forwarded a statement from the Solano County district attorney, who said the case is under review and Cardenas will be arraigned later.

But it hasn’t turned out all bad for him. An anonymous donor bailed him out of jail and he got a hero’s welcome once he got home, with neighbors hooting in support and TV news crews heaping attention on his cause.

A bandana-masked Cardenas told reporters he was simply trying to make the intersection safer after witnessing several crashes and almost getting hit a couple of times himself. “I got tired of seeing people get run over here all the time,” Cardenas told CBS Sacramento. He said he’d tried to voice his concerns before to public officials, to no avail.

Many neighbors who spoke to the press supported Cardenas and agreed that the intersection – four lanes and “easy for drivers to barrel through” according to the KTVU video – is a real hazard for pedestrians. “All you see is accidents, all day long,” one woman said. Neighbors also say the DIY crosswalk was getting a lot of use before authorities caught wind of it. Vallejo police dispute that collisions are common there, saying none have been reported.

According to KVTU, Caltrans will “grind and repave [the] intersection to erase any remnants” of Cardenas’ paint job, and has no plans to put in a permanent crosswalk.

This isn’t the first time Cardenas has painted a guerrilla crosswalk. He told reporters that after his first attempt painting markings at the same spot about a year ago, he hid out in LA for a while to evade arrest. But he doesn’t plan to try again. “This is not worth it,” Cardenas told the Times-Herald. “Even though I hate for people to be hit … I am not going to pursue this.”

This is the second installment in Streetsblog’s series on transportation demand management at American colleges and universities. Part one gave an overview of TDM techniques that schools employ. This post looks at how Stanford University has used TDM to reduce driving and realize huge savings in the process.

Stanford graduate engineering student Matthew Haith made the switch to bike commuting after his wife had a baby, and the family needed to tighten their belts. For Andrea Corney, a faculty member in the school of business, it was parking shortages caused by construction that convinced her to try transit.

Stanford's shuttle system, the Marguerite, serves 160 stops on 13 routes. Image: Stanford

At Stanford, encouraging people to switch from solo driving to biking, transit, and carpooling is a science the university has been perfecting for more than a decade. Transportation demand management at Stanford is a multi-pronged effort that includes everything from free bus passes to actual cash payments for ditching the single-occupancy vehicle commute.

The program is paying off, both financially and in less tangible ways — not the least of which is employee and student health and satisfaction, school officials say. The university’s “Commute Club” even keeps a record of stories, like Haith’s and Corney’s, explaining how non-automotive commuting has improved the lives of students and employees.

“It made financial sense to save money on gas, car insurance, and maintenance for me to bike the 16-mile round trip to campus,” said Haith. “Plus, it’s nearly a $600 net gain to avoid the parking fee, and I receive incentives from being in the Commute Club.”

“I bike on beautiful residential streets and across campus, rather than sitting in traffic on El Camino,” Corney said, referring to the car-choked transportation artery of Santa Clara County. “It clears my head on the ride home. I’ve lost weight. I can go days without driving my car. I save money on gas and parking and get Clean Air Cash.”

Stanford began its TDM programs with a push Santa Clara County in 2000, when the county offered the university a general use permit to expand the campus significantly — but only if the school could keep rush-hour car commuting rates at the current levels. The county also gave Stanford the option to pay for redesigns to some 15 nearby intersections instead.

Stanford chose to get a handle on driving. The university started out by researching what kept people from taking transit or riding a bike to campus. Then, the university designed its programs around the responses.

“We tried to put together a program that dealt with as many of the barriers as possible,” said says Brodie Hamilton, the school’s director of parking and transportation services. “What were the excuses out there? The reasons people have: ‘I would use alternative transportation but …’”

Since then, Stanford has made great strides, reducing the share of its faculty and staff that car commute alone from 72 percent to 47 percent. (Since almost all undergraduates live on campus, along with 60 percent of grad students, most of the programs are focused on the staff and faculty.)

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With Milwaukee, Tulsa, Dallas, Louisville, Cleveland, and Atlanta advancing to the second round of Parking Madness, there are only two spaces left in the Elite Eight of parking disasters. In this installment, we’re looking at two very different cities, each of which is extremely car-centric in its own way. It’s San Bernardino versus Houston.

Let’s start with San Bernardino. Here’s an old postcard of 3rd and F Street in downtown:

And on this site right now are a mall and its assorted parking lots, which obliterated the street grid:

Reader Kevin Dumler writes:

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The Government Accountability Office says key details are missing from the California High-Speed Rail Authority's cost estimate. Image: GAO

California Republicans from Fresno and Bakersfield put their foot down in a House hearing yesterday, rejecting the high-speed rail project whose initial segment would run between those two cities.

Rep. Jeff Denham, whose district includes Fresno, is the author of an amendment, passed in June, to ensure that no more federal money gets spent on the project. And Bakersfield Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the Majority Whip in the House, suggested it may be time to “cut our losses” and stop spending money on the project.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, testifying before Congress on his 67th birthday, rushed to the defense of the proposed rail line. “Investing in rail is a priority for President Obama and this administration,” he said, “and most importantly, it’s a priority for the American people.”

The cost estimate has fluctuated between $33 billion and $98 billion, and is now set in the middle, at $68 billion.

The high-speed rail authority is seeking $38 billion in additional federal funds to fill in some of the gaping difference between the full cost and the $11.5 billion in state and federal funds already pledged.

As McCarthy pointed out, now is a difficult time to make the case for more federal spending on rail, when fiscal cliff negotiations will result in spending cuts and tax increases. Congress hasn’t appropriated a dime toward high-speed rail since the GOP gained control of the House in 2010. So far, the federal government has allocated just $3.5 billion to the project.

The state is trying to raise capital from pensions and sovereign wealth funds, but LaHood said Denham’s provision barring federal funding makes it harder to court investors. “As long as there’s language in bills that prohibit us from funding, we’re going nowhere,” LaHood asserted.

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Nonprofit reporting group California Watch recently looked at how Californians travel to work and concluded that free parking provided by the state’s employers is leading to a lot of street-clogging solo car commuting.

The Boeing campus in Seal Beach, California. Photo: LA Times

Californians are only slightly more likely than the average American to carpool (11.4 percent) or ride public transit (5.2 percent) to work, and their rates of driving alone are about the same (73 percent), according to the U.S. Census’s American Community Survey.

In response, parking guru and UCLA professor Donald Shoup pointed the finger directly at company parking perks. ”If you can park free at work, it’s an invitation to drive to work alone. And almost everybody who does drive to work has this invitation,” he told California Watch.

The evidence is apparent in the outcome of a 1992 state law that Shoup helped enact. California’s “parking cash-out” program requires companies that provide free parking to employees to also offer a cash payment to those who forgo the incentive. There’s a major difference between companies that comply with the law and those that don’t, California Watch reported:

A study Shoup conducted 15 years ago for the state Air Resources Board found that employers who offered cash-out programs saw solo driving to work drop by 17 percent, carpooling increase by 64 percent, walking and biking grow by 33 percent, and transit ridership jump by 50 percent.

The cash-out program is not well-known or widely enforced in California, according to California Watch. If it was, said Shoup, the biggest beneficiaries would be women and minorities, who are less likely to commute alone by car.

There are other reasons so many of the state’s commuters choose to drive. Californians who opt for transit or carpooling are likely to have longer commutes; solo drivers spend an average of 25 minutes getting to work, while carpoolers clock just over a half hour and transit riders report 47 minutes in average travel time.

San Francisco residents commute by transit the most, while Contra Costa County commuters do the most driving alone.

On the local level, the night’s biggest win for sustainable transportation was the victory of Kirk Caldwell over Ben Cayetano to be mayor of Honolulu. Caldwell had won just 29 percent of the vote in the three-way primary race, facing a steep uphill battle in the general election versus Cayetano, a popular former governor who had pulled in 44 percent of the primary vote.

Former Gov. Ben Cayetano failed to convince Honolulu to join him in killing a long-awaited transit project. Photo: KHON2/Facebook

Cayetano had come out of retirement and joined the race for the explicit purpose of stopping construction of a rail line that’s been decades in the making. Caldwell remains a staunch supporter of the transit line and promised to see the project through. He won 54 to 46 percent — handing Cayetano the first loss of his political career.

Meanwhile, Republican Carl DeMaio has just conceded the San Diego mayor’s race, which was still too close to call just a couple of hours ago. DeMaio held a slim lead through most of last night, but the balance flipped early this morning and U.S. Rep. Bob Filner pulled off a narrow victory.

As we mentioned in our story on the race, San Diego bike/walk groups did an impressive job getting the two candidates to fight over who could be the most supportive of active transportation. While DeMaio put together an admirable plan for making San Diego a top-50 bicycling city and creating an environment more conducive to walking, Filner has a decades-long record of supporting sustainability. His passion for active transportation and the need to reduce car dependency in San Diego came through in his at times acerbic debate with DeMaio on transportation issues.

It appears Filner’s offer to settle the mayor’s contest with a bicycle race won’t be necessary.

The election is less than a week away. Americans have a choice between a) a president who has overseen notable transportation and land use innovations but failed to provide leadership when the national transportation bill could have been reformed, and b) a former governor who enacted a progressive, pro-smart-growth agenda but who has renounced those positions as a candidate.

City Council Member Carl DeMaio has a plan to make San Diego a more walkable, bikeable city.

So the San Diego mayoralty probably isn’t what’s keeping you up at night, glued to Nate Silver’s election forecasting. But it’s been a nasty and surprisingly close race between U.S. Rep. Bob Filner, a Democrat, and Republican City Council Member Carl DeMaio. According to some (admittedly confusing and poorly conducted) polls, it could go either way. So it may be reassuring to know that no matter who is elected mayor of San Diego, the victor says he will wholeheartedly support biking, walking, and sustainability.

Three San Diego active transportation organizations – Move San Diego, WalkSanDiego, and the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition – did an impressive job not only getting these candidates on the record, but getting them to spend an hour battling over who could be the walkingest, bikingest, livabilityest mayor San Diego had ever seen. (The debate they sponsored is available for your viewing pleasure here.)

U.S. Rep. Bob Filner wants to know where that plan was three years ago.

Remember that according to one of San Diego’s members of Congress, non-automobile modes of transportation are “not feasible” here. (Side note: Rep. Duncan Hunter, who told me nearly two years ago that bicycling isn’t real transportation and highway building is enshrined in the constitution, just switched districts as a result of redistricting, and he now represents a far more urban portion of San Diego County. Perhaps he’ll be educated on active transportation by the great folks who hosted the mayor’s debate.)

But in this city where, according to Rep. Hunter, no one could ever possibly get around without a car, both major candidates fell all over themselves to prove that they would build the most bike lanes and bulb-outs.

Before a mayoral debate sponsored by the walking and biking groups last month, DeMaio released his bike plan for the city [PDF]. Filner said he was willing to “stipulate” that it’s a great plan – but he countered that DeMaio is a new kid on the sustainability block, whereas he’s been doing the work for years. DeMaio’s plan includes everything from pedestrian master planning to making San Diego “the most bike-friendly city in the world.” (During the debate, the candidates only agreed that it should be among the top 50 in the country.)

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A professor at San Francisco State University recently developed an econometric model to study how smart growth affects travel behavior. His finding: quite a bit.

If Bakersfield, California enjoyed the same density and transit amenities as the San Francisco Bay Area, households would drive 55 percent less, according to a recent study. Photo: Bakersfieldcarealestate.com

Dr. Sudip Chattopadhyay measured the impact of certain smart growth indicators on 18 metro areas across the U.S. He found that a 10 percent increase in smart growth amenities — measured by residential and job density and per-capita transit spending — leads to a 20 percent reduction in miles driven.

“This is a huge impact,” said Chattopadhyay. “Success is gradual and long lasting.”

The study, published in the B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy, set out to determine if smart growth or taxation strategies like increasing the fuel tax has a bigger impact on driving behavior. His finding was that smart growth produced a bigger return: 18 percent reduction for taxing versus 20 percent for smart growth.

Further, the study found that if mid-sized California cities like Modesto, Fresno and Bakersfield had similar density and transit amenities as some of the state’s larger cities — the Bay Area and Los Angeles — they could expect to see a 55 percent reduction in per household driving activity, or about 5,238 miles per year.

Chattopadhyay said his findings lend support to California’s State Bill 375 and Assembly Bill 32. Both laws promote efficient land use to help curb global warming. The study did not examine other benefits of smart growth, such as better health and environmental outcomes.

In a pivotal vote Friday, the California Senate approved $4.5 billion in bonds to begin construction of CA High-Speed Rail (CAHSR) connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles. The funds will help fund construction of the line’s initial segment in the Central Valley and upgrades for the Caltrain and Metrolink commuter rail lines in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, respectively.

CA High-Speed Rail depicted sharing tracks with Caltrain in the Bay Area. Photo: CAHSRA via igreenspot.com

The vote, which reached a majority by just one senator, came as a major relief to high-speed rail advocates. The project, which has been increasingly scrutinized since voters approved over $9 billion in bonds for it in 2008, could have been scrapped without the approval. Had the vote failed, California could have lost another $3.2 billion in matching federal funds.

“Building high-speed rail in California could reinforce cities as the hubs of our economies, significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, get commuters off congested roads, and cost much less than highway and airport expansion,” said Stuart Cohen, executive director of TransForm, which lobbies for smart growth and sustainable transportation in California.

“It will provide Californians with an improved transportation option that has for decades been available in other nations,” added Cohen, who noted that the vote comes exactly 150 years after the Transcontinental Railroad was authorized. Although high-speed rail is popular — and expanding — in other countries in Asia and Western Europe, CAHSR would be the first such system in the United States.

The previous plan from the CAHSR Authority lacked support even from TransForm, but the group praised the revised plan released in April, which reduced the project’s cost from about $100 billion to $68 billion, reduced the impacts on communities which it would run through, and provided funding to upgrade Caltrain and Metrolink tracks, which would be shared with CAHSR. “This new plan is simply much better,” said Cohen after it was released.

In San Francisco, funds approved in the Senate bill would help electrify the Caltrain tracks by 2019 and extend them to the Transbay Transit Center currently under construction. Friday’s vote was widely praised by SF officials.

The approved Senate bill “provides not only the beginning of the nation’s first high-speed rail line that will connect its diverse and growing communities, but also the local connections that will deliver the economic growth from high-speed rail into our towns and cities in the form of travelers be they commuters, tourists or students,” said a joint statement from SF Municipal Transportation Agency Director Ed Reiskin and Chairman Tom Nolan.

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Before and after: Sidewalk on Marshall Avenue, St. Paul. Source: Bike Walk Twin Cities

If you ever doubted whether a small investment in biking and walking could have a large impact, here is your proof.

The last transportation law, SAFETEA-LU, provided four communities with four years of funding to build an infrastructure network for nonmotorized transportation (a fancy way of saying “sidewalks and bike paths”). It wasn’t a lot of money — $25 million each to Columbia, Missouri; Marin County, California; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Sheboygan County, Wisconsin.

The program built 333 miles of on-street biking and walking routes, 23 of off-street facilities, and 5,727 bike parking spaces in the four municipalities — not to mention some outreach and education. Not bad, especially when you consider that $100 million would only buy about five miles of new four-lane highway in an urbanized area [PDF].

Total two-hour bicycling and walking counts for all pilot communities, fall 2007 and fall 2010. Source: FHWA Report to the U.S. Congress on the Outcomes of the Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program

FHWA summed up the results in its report on the outcomes of the pilot program [PDF]:
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