Quick Take
State Sen. John Laird introduced the Tuesday evening talk by Jeanie Ward-Waller, a former Caltrans official who says she was demoted for objecting to highway expansions. The event was in part a fundraiser for the Campaign for Sustainable Transportation, which earlier this week sued the state transit agency over Aptos Highway 1 widening.
State Sen. John Laird spoke at a Q&A and fundraiser this week for a local transportation advocacy group that is suing the state over its Santa Cruz County Highway 1 widening project, introducing a former California Department of Transportation official who said she was demoted for pushing back against highway expansion.
Laird introduced the Tuesday evening talk over Zoom by Jeanie Ward-Waller, a former Caltrans official who says she objected to highway expansions in the Sacramento area at the expense of exploring alternate forms of transit.
The event, which described Ward-Waller as a “Caltrans whistleblower,” was in part a fundraiser for the Campaign for Sustainable Transportation. A day earlier, the group filed a lawsuit in partnership with the Sierra Club against Caltrans over the state agency’s plan to add auxiliary lanes to Highway 1 between State Park Drive and Freedom Boulevard in Aptos — Phase 3 of the Highway 1 widening project. Attendees were asked to donate to the organization to participate in the Zoom session.
Laird told Lookout that while he is not necessarily opposed to the Highway 1 expansion, he thinks it’s important that Ward-Waller brought the conversation of transit alternatives into the limelight.
“It’s unusual for someone in a bureaucratic position to risk their job like that,” he said. “People have been trying to have the discussion statewide about transit and the routes we take from here.”
Laird said at the event that Ward-Waller made a “strong statement” with her action to speak out, and that he believes she has further galvanized a growing debate about the future of transit in the state and the country.
“Whether she’s totally right or wrong or whether it’s the direction we’re heading, it has triggered a conversation that wasn’t triggered in exactly the same way before she did it,” he said. “It’s sort of an act that needs to be appreciated and recognized.”
Ward-Waller was Caltrans’ deputy director of planning and modal programs until she was demoted in September 2023 after she said she believed an expansion project on Interstate 80 between Sacramento and Davis should be audited. She added that she had raised many questions about the necessity and benefits of the project, and stressed the need to explore alternatives, but “wasn’t getting good answers.”
Ward-Waller said she questioned whether widening the road was actually necessary, if it was legal to use maintenance funds for the project, and what alternatives the agency should consider.
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She said Caltrans does a good job with maintenance, but that it’s stuck in the mindset of expansion. “I think it is a culture of building, and building what you’re good at, that is really hard to change,” she said.
Ward-Waller moved to Sacramento in 2012 and worked for two nonprofits — the Safe Routes to School partnership and the California Bicycle Coalition — prior to joining Caltrans. She said she had a reputation within the organization as an advocate for alternate forms of transportation, and added that she always asked difficult questions about the agency’s projects. She referred to Caltrans as a “machine” whose main job is to simply execute the projects.
She added that, in her experience, that culture reflects on the engineers and project managers. Getting things done fast is the top priority in every project.
“Anything else that you might do to a project, like adding bike lanes, a new path, changing the design or looking at different alternatives or the environmental document can add time and potentially costs to a project,” said Ward-Waller. “So there’s just kind of a knee-jerk dismissal of doing more work and doing things that will slow projects down.”
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Ward-Waller said she finds this aspect of the business “frustrating” because she believes it limits engineers’ and advocates’ ability to find the best solutions.
“If we really get creative and imagine different ways people can get around, people will use the infrastructure,” she said. “That’s been proven with our roadways, but it’s also been proven when you give people open street opportunities, they will use it to bike and walk.”
Ward-Waller added that she recalls Caltrans engineers racing to find feasible, creative solutions to repair and strengthen highways after they sustained major earthquake damage. She believes that’s a testament to what the teams are capable of — if they have the opportunity to explore different solutions.
“But you also have to relieve a little bit of the pressure on everything else to be on time and on budget,” she said. “You have to empower them to think about the outcomes and be more creative in what you’re delivering.”
Ward-Waller left Caltrans in December to join Sacramento-based consulting firm Fearless Advocacy as director of transportation advocacy.
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