Via Verde - Chicano Park Museum

What's in Store...for 2024?

Museum Wins Grants to Bring Free, Zero-Emission Shuttle Service to Barrio Logan
La Via Verde Launches In 2024

Fasten your seatbelts! CPMCC is delivering on a much-needed innovation to reduce traffic, parking and mobility challenges for the community while improving air quality. It’s a free, on-demand, all-electric shuttle service called La Via Verde.

Run by the community for the community, La Via Verde is an app-based, door-to-destination microtransit service that will provide transportation to and from the market, post office, local restaurants, cafes, breweries and other businesses, clinics and places of worship without contributing to the toxic air quality and parking congestion that have been imposed on our community for decades. The service will also provide free rides to local bus and transit stops, an important consideration in the surveys CPMCC administered to determine service priorities.

“For the first time since the 1960’s when the state cleaved our community in two to make way for the I-5 freeway, we are reconnecting the families of Logan Heights and Barrio Logan with life-changing transportation options,” said CPMCC Founder and Board Chair Josephine Talamantez.

Plans are for Via Verde to park and charge at the Chicano Park Museum and Cultural Center. To keep La Via Verde free to the community, CPMCC will be constructing a solar/storage canopy at the museum and charging the up-to-six-vehicle fleet with stored solar energy. Stored solar energy will also slash CPMCC utility bills by thousands monthly, allowing the museum to redirect monies to artista platicas, STEAM workshops and environmental justice programming in service to the community.

“ To keep La Via Verde free to the community, CPMCC is constructing a solar/storage canopy and charging the fleet with stored solar energy. ”

CPMCC was notified in December of 2023 that it was being awarded up to $5.5 million in funding to accelerate the launch of La Via Verde, one of two proposals the museum prepared as part of a Transformative Climate Communities (TCC) collaborative led by the San Diego Foundation and the Environmental Health Coalition. This Historic Barrios proposal will receive a total of $22.125 million in grant monies from the Governor’s Strategic Growth Council and $26 million in matching funds for a total investment of $48 million in support of 11 initiatives in the neighborhoods of Barrio Logan, Logan Heights, Stockton, Grant Hill, Mt. Hope, Sherman, Southcrest, and Shelltown. The map below provides information on Via Verde’s inaugural service area.

Others supporting the effort include former Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez – who allocated CPMCC $10 million in support of building improvements for its 2022 Grand Opening and CPMCC’s transition to solar and restoration of Chicano Park’s historic murals – as well as County Board of Supervisors Chair Nora Vargas, who awarded CPMCC grant monies to purchase Via Verde’s first shuttle and help expand its Barrio Logan/Logan Heights service areas into all TCC neighborhoods.

La Via Verde is wheelchair accessible and will serve the community seven days a week beginning this fall. Hours will be adjusted according to community demand. While the service is app-based, CPMCC will also be introducing a Spanish-English call center so that those without smart phones or who aren’t comfortable using the La Via Verde app (similar to a Lyft or Uber) can hail a ride with a simple phone call.

The project will create up to 16 well-paying jobs for bilingual driver/ambassadors. Driver/ambassadors will be hired from within the community after July 1, 2024.

Local businesses will also be able to use the Via Verde phone app to offer riders special deals and discounts. Public Service Announcements on museum exhibits, special events and scholarships will also be shared.

Via Verde is anticipated to deliver 26,000 free zero-emission trips a year for area residents.

We’ll keep the community posted on key project milestones. Questions? Comments? Please Contact Terri Steele: ViaVerde@ChicanoParkMuseum.org. Pedal to the metal!

What Is MicroTransit:

Service Area Map:
La Via Verde will provide free, zero-emission, door-to-destination shuttle services that interconnect the communities of Logan Heights, Barrio Logan, Mt. Hope, Stockton, Sherman Heights, Grant Hill and Shelltown to shops, public transit, places of worship, restaurants, educational, social and recreational hubs.

TCC Project Map:
CPMCC produced two winning shovel-ready proposals as a part of an Environmental Health Coalition-inspired Transformative Climate Communities grant proposal that brings an investment of $48 million to Logan Heights, Barrio Logan and other portside communities.

CPMCC Sustainability Initiatives: