Outstanding People and Projects in Transportation Honored at Awards Ceremony

Four innovative climate-education programs scattered around the Bay Area are taking top honors in the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s 2010 Transportation Awards Program.

By Georgia Lambert
Published: November, 2010 

 
Four innovative climate-education programs scattered around the Bay Area are taking top honors in the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s 2010 Transportation Awards Program. Based in Marin County, Alameda County and San Jose — and making waves far beyond their home turf — the four Grand Award winners are helping schoolchildren of all ages to make smart transportation choices while also giving them the tools to travel safely by foot and bicycle. Collectively falling under the umbrella of “Transportation Education for the Next Generation,” the winners are:

•      Cool the Earth, a Bay Area-based climate change education program whose mission is to educate students about simple actions that they and their families can take to reduce carbon emissions.

•      Marin County’s Safe Routes to Schools initiative, honoring both the Transportation Authority of Marin and its Marin County partners, as well as the Marin County Bicycle Coalition for their collaborative efforts to integrate safety, fitness, congestion relief and emissions reduction in a single program.

•      Street Smarts, a traffic safety education program of the city of San Jose, for its effectiveness not only in teaching children to be safer pedestrians and bicyclists, but also in raising awareness among adult drivers.

•      Cycles of Change in the East Bay, for promoting bicycling and bike safety, along with top-notch sustainability and employment skills programs.

      In all, 11 awards honoring exceptional contributions to Bay Area transportation were presented by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) at a ceremony on October 27 in Oakland. The 2010 program marks the 29th presentation of the now biennial Excellence in Motion awards, which began in 1977.

 

John T. Foran Legislative Award

— California State Senator Darrell Steinberg

      Senator Steinberg (D-Sacramento and currently president pro tempore of the state Senate) is the author of SB 375 (2008), California’s forward-thinking legislation requiring that regional targets be set for reducing greenhouse gas. While the focus of SB 375 is climate change, the policies that will help achieve the targets will deliver critical benefits such as improved mobility, social equity and public health. John T. Foran is the former Bay Area legislator who authored the bill creating MTC in 1970.

 

Doris W. Kahn Accessible Transportation Award — Brian McLean, Fleet and Transit Manager, City of Vacaville

      McLean’s leadership role in establishing the Solano County Taxi Scrip program and his strong consensus-building skills earned him the Doris W. Kahn Accessible Transportation Award (named after a former MTC commissioner who championed equal access to services).

 

Miriam Gholikely Public Service Award

— Jim Gleich

      A champion of equal access, Jim Gleich’s daily work at AC Transit over the course of 16 years, particularly in his capacity as AC Transit’s deputy general manager from 1999 until his death at 66 in March 2010, focused on keeping fares affordable and avoiding service cuts. Miriam Gholikely was a longtime MTC advisor and community activist.

 

Greta Ericson Distinguished Service Award

— Henry Gardner

        Henry Gardner, who recently stepped down as executive director of the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) after nearly eight years of service, was recognized for the breadth of his public service with the city of Oakland and ABAG. The 2010 Distinguished Service Award, named after the found­er of MTC’s awards program, was  given to Gardner in recognition of a lifetime of achievement in the public sector.

David Tannehill Special Employee Award

— Alec Melkonians, Caltrans Project Manager

      Alec Melkonians, an engineer with Caltrans for 19 years before his untimely death at age 44 in February 2010, exhibited unwavering dedication to all of his projects and teams. The Tannehill Award recognizes an employee who exemplifies the day-to-day dedication to duties that are essential to keeping the region moving.

 

      In addition to the awards named in honor of outstanding individuals in Bay Area transportation, MTC also presented two Awards of Merit:

 

Award of Merit

— Mike Rosenberg/Bay Area News Group

      “Running on Empty: Bay Area Transit in Trouble,” a five-part series, appeared in the San Jose Mercury News, Oakland Tribune, Contra Costa Times, San Mateo County Times and other Bay Area News Group papers from January 10-14, 2010. Reporter Mike Rosenberg led a five-month-long journalistic investigation and delivered a timely series that tracked the falling ridership and declining revenues of troubled Bay Area public transit operators.

 

Award of Merit

— Highway 101 Ramp Metering Project

                The City/County Association of Governments of San Mateo County and Caltrans District 4 have been selected to receive an Award of Merit for their roles in building consensus around the operation of ramp meters on U.S. Highway 101 in San Mateo County.

 

See video  profiles of the winners at www.mtc.ca.gov/about_mtc/awards. MTC is the regional transportation planning, financing and coordinating agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area.