Interstate 680 through the Sunol Grade. Courtesy of John K.
When last updating the Bay Area’s Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) in Spring 2009, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission reserved a distinguished place in the RTP for its planned regional network of high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes. The plan envisions freeway motorists paying tolls via FasTrak to beat the traffic jams, by entering specific lanes otherwise designated for high-occupancy vehicles. Tolls would be priced dynamically throughout the day– increasing as freeways become more congested at peak travel times, and adjusting in order to maintain a relatively free-flowing traffic lane.
At full build, this network would comprise some 800 lane miles of toll lanes on most major freeways throughout the region. About 500 of those lane miles would be built by converting existing carpool lanes to toll lanes, but the plan also calls for the construction of about 300 new lane miles. In September 2010, the first segment of the network is expected to debut — a 14-mile southbound HOT lane on Interstate 680 through the Sunol Grade, between Route 84 in Alameda County and Route 237 in Santa Clara County. It will be followed in Fall 2011 by the second segment — a 12-mile eastbound HOT lane on Interstate 580 in the Tri-Valley, between Hacienda Road and Greenville Road.
Optimistic assumptions paint a rosy view of the HOT network as a major new source of money for transit. Although it would cost about $7.6 billion to finance, construct, and operate the HOT network over the next 25 years, the network was projected to generate $13.7 billion in the same time period, yielding a net revenue of $6.1 billion. In other words, a veritable bank account overflowing with gold coins that could be used to deliver an expanded transit network. Already, before lanes are even in place, MTC has planned to use theoretical HOT revenue to close anticipated funding shortfalls, and the tolls will no doubt be regarded as a possible funding source for BART to Livermore and other projects.
The State Air Resources Board (ARB) is required to set emissions reduction targets this year for the initial planning cycle set in motion by Senate Bill 375. These targets reflect regional goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from passenger vehicles and light duty trucks. The bill requires that ARB release draft targets by June 30 in preparation for final targets, which will be set by September 30. ARB met the first deadline, releasing draft targets yesterday.
The greenhouse gas targets are expressed in terms of percentage per capita reduction from 2005 levels. Here are the draft targets:
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| Region (MPO) | 2020 [RTP] |
2020 [ARB Draft Target] |
2035 [Placeholder] |
| Bay Area (MTC/ABAG) | -5% | -5 to -10% | -3 to -12% |
| Sacramento (SACOG) | -4% | -5 to -10% | -13 to -17% |
| San Diego (SANDAG) | -11% | -5 to -10% | -5 to -19% |
| Southern California (SCAG) | -4% | -5 to -10% | -3 to -12% |
| San Joaquin Valley1 | -7 to +12% | -1 to -7% | -1 to -7% |
1 San Joaquin Valley counties (Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Merced, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and Tulare) were assigned a collective target.
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The first column of numbers represents MPO projections of what might be achieved in each region by 2020, under currently prevailing regional transportation plans. The second column is ARB’s draft target, expressed for now as a range. The third column represents a best guess as to the reductions that are possible by 2035. At this point in time, though, there is an insufficient technical foundation to produce serious 2035 estimates. It’s a work in progress.
How did ARB arrive at these numbers, and what should we make of them? Probably not too much at this point, as they are just preliminary. But they offer, if nothing else, insight into the upcoming challenges posed by SB 375.
The past few months have been unbelievably busy, so I never got a chance to write a post covering the discussions that have taken place in the past several weeks in the East Bay, regarding the Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA) of AC Transit’s bus rapid transit project. I trust that many or most readers have followed this in the news.
In a key decision on April 20, the Oakland City Council unanimously approved Oakland’s segment of the LPA, which comprises the great majority of the full BRT route. Oakland’s LPA includes dedicated median transitways on Telegraph Avenue (south of the Berkeley city limit to 20th Street) and on East 14th Street (south of 14th Avenue to the San Leandro city limit), with some shared and mixed flow lanes in Eastlake and along Broadway in downtown Oakland.
On May 17, the San Leandro City Council also approved its own segment of the project LPA. The San Leandro LPA proceeds south of the Oakland city limit, featuring dedicated lanes and station platforms in the median of East 14th Street as far south as Sunnyside Drive, where it transitions to mixed curbside operation for the southernmost segment of the route, then terminating at San Leandro BART station.
SB 375 and the AB 32 Ballot Measure
Earlier this month, it was revealed that a ballot measure proposed by the so-called “California Jobs Initiative” had obtained more than enough signatures to allow it to be added to the November 2010 ballot. This ballot measure, if approved by California voters, would require that Assembly Bill 32, the state’s global warming law, be suspended when the unemployment rate is too high.
In light of the connection between Senate Bill 375 and AB 32, a blog reader wrote in with a question, asking whether suspension of AB 32 would also require suspending SB 375. I believe that even if AB 32 is suspended, it should not be necessary to also suspend SB 375. Supposing that other readers might be interested in this question, I have added the question and a more detailed answer to the SB 375 page — you can click here to jump straight to discussion of the AB 32 question.
The “Big Four” among California’s metropolitan planning organizations — SCAG (Los Angeles/Southern California), MTC/ABAG (San Francisco Bay Area), SANDAG (San Diego), and SACOG (Sacramento) — govern regions that feature urban population densities and relatively mature transit networks. Abundant opportunities exist in the urban cores of all four regions to ratchet up the intensity of land use in locations that are well-served by both existing and planned transit. These MPOs also share skills and expertise that will be valuable while implementing Senate Bill 375, including blueprint planning, congestion management, pricing mechanisms, and funding incentives. Despite possessing these relative advantages over other MPOs in California, there are still challenges, as well as myriad unique local distinctions that could conceivably be taken into account by the Air Resources Board (ARB) when it issues draft regional targets in June.
- Cal/EPA and ARB in Sacramento.
Courtesy of Capitol Weekly.
In Senate Bill 375, the Legislature required the State Air Resources Board (ARB) to establish regional targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in California attributable to vehicles and light duty trucks. ARB will release draft GHG targets by June 30, 2010, and will continue to cooperate with the state’s metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) throughout the summer to refine those targets to meet the final deadline of September 30, 2010. ARB is authorized to select an appropriate metric, and the agency has so far favored a percent per capita GHG reduction from 2005 levels as its preferred metric for expressing the targets.
SB 375 gives MPOs the opportunity to suggest their own recommended regional targets to ARB. ARB will certainly consider that input, but it is not bound to adopt those recommendations. MPOs throughout California have mobilized, analyzing different land use and transportation scenarios that could reduce GHG emissions in their respective regions. There will be opportunity to carry out this analysis using more robust models in the future. For now, the goal is simply to get a sense of what scale of emissions reduction we can expect to see from regions throughout the state. What level of reduction would be ambitious, and what level of reduction would be merely achievable? What are the ideal targets that are ambitious, yet still achievable? Should the goal be to have every region in California meet its regional target right away, to help generate broader support for SB 375 — or would that require setting the bar too low, thus undercutting the urgency of addressing climate change? Would it instead be better to reward regions that are interested in setting ambitious GHG reduction goals for themselves? To what extent should the economic downturn be taken into account when setting the interim draft target, for the year 2020? ARB must consider these difficult questions, among others, as it works towards the fast-approaching June 30 deadline.
New Feature on SB 375
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| Sprawl in Rocklin, CA, outside of Sacramento. Courtesy of Flickr user neighborhoods.org. |
I’ve written before about Senate Bill 375, California’s recently enacted anti-sprawl land use planning law, on this blog, but the bill passed back in 2008. Since it’s been awhile, a refresher seemed in order. Towards that end, I’ve written a new blog page, which goes into some detail explaining the various provisions and requirements of the bill. This page is purposely designed to address the legislation in the abstract — from the statewide perspective, rather than focusing on the Bay Area or any single region. My hope is that readers will find this feature to be a useful, approachable, and interesting introduction to the legislation, which will play an important role in regional planning throughout California.
Regional governments have been actively working in recent months with the State Air Resources Board (ARB) on SB 375, and they will continue to do so in the upcoming months. The legislation requires that ARB release its draft targets for regional greenhouse gas reductions in just about a month, by June 30, 2010. In order to select suitable targets by the June 30 deadline, ARB has been exchanging technical information with regional governments. ARB will release final targets later this year, by September 30, 2010. Over the next few years, regional governments in California will then strive to understand and implement the many new requirements that SB 375 places on the planning of housing and transportation at the regional level, with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and achieving ARB’s regional targets.
In the near future, I hope to include further discussion on this blog of SB 375, including SB 375 planning efforts specific to the Bay Area. I will soon set up a separate page dedicated to local work on SB 375 and create an entry on the sidebar. To begin though, a detailed look at the bill’s requirements in the abstract seemed appropriate. Click here to read the SB 375 page, and a link will soon be added to the sidebar for future reference.
TransForm Car-Free Challenge 2010
TransForm is hosting another Car-Free Challenge this year and is calling on you to participate by going car-free, or at least reducing your usual driving, from June 1 to June 7. Everyone is strongly encouraged to participate in the challenge (you can register online). It’s a nice opportunity to experiment with transit or bicycle routes for commute and for recreation, and it’s a fun way to bring car-free living more into the mainstream. Hopefully it will also convince people to integrate non-automotive travel into their daily routine, and that the environmental and lifestyle benefits of doing so are worthwhile. Even if you are already car-free, you should still participate.
The Car-Free Challenge is also a great way to show support for TransForm. Although this organization has gained notoriety in the past year by charging forward in the campaign to oppose the Oakland Airport Connector, they have being doing important land use, transportation, and climate change advocacy for years now — certainly at the local and regional level, and more recently at the state level, including legislative efforts and work with the State Air Resources Board. TransForm puts in a lot of time to make the Bay Area a better place, and they are well worth your support. Participating in the Car-Free Challenge is a great way to do just that.
To get you in the mood to leave the car at home, TransForm provided this entertaining YouTube video:
Finally — and I do realize the irony of tacking this to the end of a post about going car-free — but just in case you’ve been stuck in a cave the past few months, Muni’s planned service cuts go into effect starting today, May 8, 2010. There are a separate set of temporary service changes (including bus substitution) associated with the St. Francis Circle rail replacement project, and those changes also start May 8. If you have not done so already, you can avoid unpleasant surprises by planning ahead. Please take a moment to study all the service changes.
