Campaigns
Since 2020, Transbay Coalition works to create a broad grassroots movement for equitable, sustainable public & active transportation. Read about our current and past campaigns below!
Current Campaigns
Traveling around the Bay Area on transit should be a smooth and easy experience so we work with Seamless Bay Area to help get the region’s 25+ transit agencies in sync with each other so that riders can have a world-class transit experience.
There are so many things that need changing in order to make transportation the best it can be in the Bay Area. From rail line electrification to subway building to freeway removal, we need to do big things. We need to reform how we do big things so that we can do big things better. Projects need to get done better, faster, and at lower cost so that residents are all better off and so that our region can do even more!
Stevens Creek Boulevard is a vital corridor in Santa Clara County and it is in desperate need of a redesign. The redesigned corridor should be made safer for everyone to travel along and across it through including physically protected bike/mobility lanes, expanded sidewalks, protected intersections, and shorter crossing distances. It should also be made more efficient, equitable, and climate-friendly by dedicating a lane in each direction to be for buses-only which would significantly improve bus speed, time, and reliability. Sign the petition here to support a Safer & More Transit-Friendly Stevens Creek Boulevard.
The East Bay communities of Pittsburg & Antioch are losing their Amtrak station despite it being a well-used station on the San Joaquins route. Transbay Coalition has been supporting Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) Antioch in the push to keep the station open. Sign up here to get involved in the effort.
The Capitol Corridor train service connects San Jose, the East Bay, Solano County, Davis and Sacramento, but the current diesel service is slow, infrequent, and polluting. By electrifying the corridor through overhead wires like Caltrain did and the California High Speed Rail is doing, Capitol Corridor service would become significantly better. Sign up here to get involved in the effort.
A healthy democracy depends on a well-informed citizenry. As transportation issues affect the health, safety, and economic prospects of everyone in our Nine-County Bay Area community, it is vital that candidates for local, state, and federal office be asked about their stances on this important topic and for voters to be informed about candidates’ answers. That’s why each election, the Transbay Coalition leads “The Sustainable Transportation Questionnaire Project” to get Bay Area Candidates for office on the record about their transportation priorities and get that information to voters.
Local governments have a huge role to play in making transit more reliable and making it so transit riders are never stuck in traffic behind cars. When local roads are designed to put people first, transit, biking, and rolling/walking are better safer options for all. Transbay Coalition is working to get local governments to adopt policies and road designs which puts people first.
Transit riders deserve shelter from the elements and a place to rest while waiting for the bus. Improving bus stop conditions honors the human dignity of transit riders and is proven to significantly increase transit ridership at relatively low costs. Transbay Coalition seeks to get shelters, benches, and other bus-stop amenities throughout the Nine-County Bay Area.
Currently The Napa-American-Canyon-Vallejo corridor is one of the most heavily populated areas of the Bay that is without train service. It is separated from the SMART train to the west and the Capitol Corridor to the South and East. By connecting the corridor into the Capitol Corridor and to the SMART train system, travel in and to the sub-region will become drastically easier, faster, and sustainable.
Transbay Coalition is an ally of the local advocates at the San Antonio Station Alliance who are working to get a new infill BART station in their neighborhood between Lake Merritt and Fruitvale. Learn more at https://www.sanantoniostation.net/
Past Campaigns
In 2023, California’s transit agencies were in dire need of state funding to fill in the gap left by federal COVID-relief funds drying up. Transbay Coalition worked with allies to build out and activate a statewide pro-transit coalition. Together we reversed $4 billion in proposed cuts to transit and won $1 billion in additional state funding for California transit agencies.
In the Fall of 2024, the City of Oakland suddenly announced a plan to remove 100 bus shelters without any plan to replace them. Bus shelters are key for making transit better so we leapt into action to defend them. Transbay Coalition and East Bay Transit Riders Unions mobilized a rapid response coalition, got a huge turnout to the meeting where the plan was being presented and got the city to back down. Instead of removing 100 shelters in January 2025 with no plan, the City of Oakland committed to limiting the shelter removals to a small limited number of shelters who are in such a derelict state that the pose an immediate hazard, pursue an alternate replacement shelter design with lower maintenance needs and will move to replace shelters – not simply remove them, and the City of Oakland and AC Transit will pursue a cost-sharing funding proposal between them so that more shelters can be built and maintained.
In Spring 2024, Transbay Coalition led a successful campaign to get weekend evening bus service restored to the Broadway Corridor in downtown Oakland. Read more about the evening bus service campaign.
In 2020, the Transbay Coalition led an effort pushing for a bus-only lane on the Bay Bridge and its approaches. At the time over 80 bus routes traveled across the Bay Bridge, bringing tens of thousands of passengers in and out of San Francisco every day. The effort led to Assembly Bill 455 written by Assemblymembers Rob Bonta, David Chiu, and Buffy Wicks just before the start of the COVID pandemic. Through the tumult of the pandemic, the bill eventually passed the State Assembly but got held in the Senate Appropriations committee and was not brought to the Senate floor for a vote.
Transbay Coalition in partnership with the East Bay Transit Rider’s Union supported the creation of AC Transit’s Tempo rapid bus line which has significantly improved travel times and ridership. After the line was installed, Transbay Coalition worked with the Oakland group Traffic Violence Rapid Response to successfully add street safety improvements to the corridor.
As part of the 2022 State Highway Operation & Protection Program, (SHOPP) Caltrans will spend twenty billion dollars on highway & interchange projects. By advocating alongside Bike East Bay for these projects to include complete streets elements we pushed to shift the program to help improve sustainable transportation