ABAG/MTC

Drawing of a proposed string of high-density, bike- friendly, mass transit-oriented developments along a stretch of El Camino Real between Daly City and San Jose.

A sweeping “green” vision for the future of transit and housing in the Bay Area inched a step closer to realization in Oakland last night.

Officials from the Association of Bay Area Governments and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission voted on portions of Plan Bay Area, a 25-year strategy for land use and transportation for the Bay Area’s growing population, which is expected to surpass nine million by 2040.

The plan also proposes ways to meet the state’s greenhouse gas reduction target of 15% by 2035 outlined under SB 375, the Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act – namely by encouraging high-density housing near transit hubs and along corridors.

“What this strategy is about is trying to be more efficient in our use of land,” MTC executive director Steve Heminger told KQED’s Cy Musiker before the meeting, “and also trying to be more cost-effective with our transit investment. As repeated studies have shown, if people live near BART they’re much more likely to use it than if they have to drive a long distance to get there.”

But the meeting was not without its share of contention. Some in attendance viewed the plan as an example of bureaucratic overreach. One resident called the document a “utopian masterplan.” Another said it was “quasi-dictatorial” and “collectivist.”

Others in attendance, such as Carl Anthony, co-founder of Oakland-based Breakthrough Communities, said the plan does not go far enough to address long-standing historical inequality in housing and access to transit across the region. His group was part of a larger coalition of social and environmental justice groups in attendance called Six Wins for Social Equity.

“Many people are very disappointed,” Anthony told me. A high-profile figure in the Bay Area environmental justice movement, Anthony said that among other things, the current version of the plan does not take public health into consideration, nor does it ensure that proposed investments in high-density housing won’t displace poor communities near transit hubs.

“We want to make sure the public participation we’ve invested for the last 18 months means something,” he said.

A 2011 analysis of the goals of SB 375 by the Public Policy Institute of California suggested that policy should make driving more expensive to get people out of their cars, and that it’s just as important to co-locate transit with jobs, as with housing.

A final draft of the Bay Area plan is expected later this summer, said Napa County commissioner and president of the Association of Bay Area Governments, Mark Luce. From there, he said, completion of the Environmental Impact Report is expected to take about six months.

Craig Miller/KQED

Critics say that San Diego's regional transportation plan focuses too much on freeways.

The spotlight is on San Diego to lead the way on regional transportation planning that reduces greenhouse gas emissions. But critics say that the regional planning agency’s proposal is anything but a model for sustainable planning.

San Diego’s regional planning agency, SANDAG, is the first to develop a plan since California passed a law requiring that regions try to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through land use and transit planning. The law, SB 375, went into effect in 2010, and falls under the Air Resources Board’s Sustainable Communities program. The ARB approved SANDAG’s plan when it was submitted in November of 2011, saying it would meet short-term greenhouse gas reduction targets for 2020-2035.

Critics of the SANDAG plan, including the Cleveland National Forest Foundation, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club, say that the plan focuses too much on expanding freeways that extend into the far-reaches of the county and not enough on improving public transportation, bicycle infrastructure and pedestrian walkways in the more urban areas. Today, the State Attorney General’s office put out a statement agreeing that:

“…the plan does not adequately address air pollution and climate concerns and prioritizes expanding freeways while delaying public transit projects.”

The statement also cited the region’s poor air quality and the need to invest in a healthy future for its citizens.

The SANDAG plan has been carefully watched by planners and governments across California because it’s the first plan adopted under SB 375. “This is the first SCS [Sustainable Community Strategy], it’s a 40-year plan and it’s flawed,” claims Rachel Hooper, a managing partner at Shute, Mihaly and Weinberger, the firm representing the environmental groups. “It should not serve as a precedent for other transportation agencies as they adopt their SCSs in the future.”

For its legal clout, the suit draws on the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) which requires an environmental review of government projects, including impacts from air pollution and global warming. According to the Attorney General’s statement, the crux of the legal argument is that SANDAG cut corners with its Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and “did not adequately analyze the public health impacts of the increased air pollution.”

“What we have is a plan that is rooted in the past, in transportation planning that we saw in the 1960s,” said Hooper, who claims SANDAG ignored suggestions for ways in which the plan could be improved to comply with state law. She said that the Attorney General’s decision to join the suit underscores the importance of getting this first plan right, so that it will be a sound model for other transportation agencies to follow.

A representative from SANDAG told Forbes that his agency worked hard to come up with a good plan that he believes is in compliance with CEQA.

Report says driving needs to be more costly to get us out of our cars

By Marie C. Baca

Drivers now pay $6 to cross the San Francisco Bay Bridge during peak traffic hours. "Peak pricing" is one strategy to push commuters to alternative transit. (Photo: Craig Miller)

California faces significant obstacles in complying with a 2008 state law aimed at reducing passenger vehicle usage, according to a report by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.

The report points to unrealized rail transit investments and resistance to pricing tools like fuel taxes as factors that have slowed reduction in car usage.

The two-year-old SB 375 mandates that California’s major metropolitan areas reduce per capita emissions from driving by 7 percent by 2020 and by 15 percent in 2035. While the primary focus of the bill is a reduction in the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, the legislation places a special emphasis on addressing traffic and public health concerns by reducing the number of miles residents drive.

In a prepared statement, Ellen Hanak, a senior fellow at the institute, summarized the findings, which were based on interviews with government officials and city planners as well as data from the state:

The law encourages an integrated approach to reducing emissions – changing land use patterns to reduce the need to drive, investing in mass transit and other alternatives to driving, and increasing the cost of driving and parking to encourage the use of these alternatives. But it will be up to regional and local leaders to turn the vision into reality,

The report lauds California officials for encouraging public transportation ridership, but outlines several issues that must be addressed before the state can meet the 2020 and 2035 targets:

* The number of jobs per square mile in California is lower than the national average and declining, so local governments need to find ways to encourage the growth of jobs near public transit.
* SB 375 encourages residential instead of commercial development near transit; this should be amended.
* Local governments need to improve access to areas surrounding major transit hubs by providing feeder bus services.
* Officials should consider mileage fees, which are used in other countries and are extremely effective at reducing vehicle usage.

Read all posts and hear companion radio reports in our series, Miles to Go: Building a More Sustainable California.

(Photo: Mark Strozier)

Transportation is the top source of greenhouse gas emissions in California. So in a state where car culture rules, what will it take to get us out of our cars?

That’s the goal behind SB 375, a bill passed in 2008 that links greenhouse gases to urban sprawl. Under this first-in-the-nation policy, the state’s 18 regional planning organizations must reduce the emissions coming from vehicles through land use and transportation planning. This week, the Air Resources Board is expected to release the draft emission reduction targets that the agencies must meet by 2020 and 2035.

While the chances of getting Californians out of their cars completely are slim, the idea is to reduce the number of miles traveled through more public transit, more “walkable” communities and denser development. (Learn more about that in this Quest story about transit villages).

According to a report released today, that development approach can have some dramatic benefits, considering how California is expected to grow. By 2050, some projections put the population at 60 million, adding seven million new households.

The planning firm Calthorpe Associates looked at those housing needs and ran a number of growth scenarios, in a study funded by the California Strategic Growth Council and California High Speed Rail Authority. They compared a business-as-usual approach of low-density suburbs (30% urban and compact growth) to a “growing smart” scenario with more urban in-fill and transit-oriented development (90% urban and compact growth). While that last scenario may sound like the land of endless condos, according to Peter Calthorpe, it would still be 53% single family homes. Calthorpe calls it “a shift back to what California used to build–bungalows.”

Here are some of the benefits they found for the scenario by 2050:

• Reduces the number of vehicle miles traveled  by nearly 3.7 trillion
• Saves more than $194 billion in capital infrastructure costs
• Saves 19 million acre-feet of water
• Prevents the release of 70 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, or 25% less than business-as-usual
• Saves California households $6,400 per year in auto-related costs and utility bills.

In-fill development can often cost more than low-density development and this report doesn’t take housing prices into account. Indeed, costs may be one of the biggest challenges for SB 375, since both the state and cities are facing budget crises  and a lull in the housing market.

Under the bill, state transportation funding will be prioritized for projects that meet the SB 375 goals. But according to Hasan Ikhrata, Executive Director of the Southern California Association of Governments (one of the regional organizations doing the planning), financial incentives will be key to reaching the goals. “I think the biggest challenge is to find incentives to help cities, because cities want to do this, but they don’t have the resources to do it without help,” he said.

Next 10 is essentially using California as a case study, showing that you can have it both ways; growing and greening at the same time (the same argument advanced by President Obama and Al Gore, among others), and that other states can choose to follow California’s lead. According to the report, California’s “energy productivity” is 68% higher than the nation as a whole. Next 10 defines energy productivity as the total economic growth produced per unit of energy.

Much of the story is told in one especially interesting graph (p. 14 of the report), which shows diverging trend lines for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and GDP (gross domestic product, by which they really mean gross state product). The graph shows that since 1990, GHG emissions, measured per capita, have dropped, despite a fairly steady rise in GDP.

Next 10 interprets that divergence to mean that emissions need not be linked to prosperity. By extension, they’re also saying that prosperity and energy efficiency do go hand-in-hand. Next 10′s economists argue that a good chunk of those economic gains came from energy savings, as the state became more efficient.

There are some flashing yellow lights in the report. For instance, while Calfornians have been able to reduce the number of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per capita, total miles keep rising with the growing population. Reducing vehicle miles is one of the most effective (and challenging) ways of reducing GHG emissions. The newly passed anti-sprawl legislation (SB-375) aims to reverse–or at least slow–this trend.

Loaded to the gunwales with  wonky goodies, the report is more a rear-view mirror than a predictive tool. When I reminded Next 10′s lead economist Doug Henton of the old investment caveat, “Past performance is not an indicator of future returns,” he said he sees no reason to think that California’s energy productivity curve is topping out, i.e. reaching that “point of diminishing returns” that they teach you in Econ 101. He cites a record $3.3 billion in venture capital for related technologies last year.