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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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 chart clarifies that ARB has analytically divided California into three groups: (1) the “Big Four” urban MPOs, (2) the San Joaquin Valley, and (3) the six smaller MPOs (Butte, Monterey Bay Area, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Shasta, and Tahoe Basin).

Not much is expected of the six smaller MPOs at this point, since they have limited resources and oversee less populated regions.  For these MPOs, ARB did not propose a distinct target range as it did for the Big Four and the San Joaquin Valley.  Instead, the target will based on current greenhouse gas projections, updated to take into account the effects of the economic recession and any other reductions that may be realized.  This is basically a shortcut — and it’s not unexpected, given that these regions collectively only account for about 5% of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) statewide.  They are also expected to grow slowly.

It’s no surprise that ARB has preferred instead to concentrate its energies on the Big Four — MTC, SCAG, SACOG, and SANDAG — the regions that generate about 87% of VMT.  But beyond meeting greenhouse gas targets, SB 375 is about building better cities.  The Big Four include the majority of California’s largest cities, their established transit networks, and countless infill opportunities to house the state’s future population near transit and employment.  The Big Four have worked collaboratively in this process by modeling different future scenarios and studying how they reduce transportation emissions.  ARB’s 5 to 10% draft target for the Big Four reflects this initial analysis.  The 2035 ranges are taken directly from the MPOs as scenario outputs.  In addition to the 2035 ranges listed in the table, SCAG was the only agency to suggest an actual target for 2035 (5 to 6% reduction).  But as mentioned above, these numbers are too rough to be taken at face value.

And what are we to make of the 1 to 7% reduction target for the San Joaquin Valley?  We might as well just come out and say it.  Nobody really knows what to do about the Valley.  There are opportunities to do good land use planning there, particularly in downtown districts that will be served by high-speed rail.  For instance, Fresno — California’s fifth largest city, with about a half-million residents — was able to project some reductions, by analyzing scenarios that included bus rapid transit and increased density on mixed use corridors.  But other parts of the Valley have projected increases in emissions, which we know we don’t want.  And that is, more or less, the sentiment that is captured in the 1 to 7% reduction target.  A reduction of 1% might not be ambitious, but at least it’s not an increase.  Given the unique challenges in the Valley, more analysis is needed to pin down a suitable target.  I would only note that an anti-sprawl campaign in California cannot be deemed truly successful unless it addresses the rapid, unchecked growth of sprawl  in the Valley.

ARB’s draft targets are basically a consolidation of the collaborative work that the agency has done thus far with California’s MPOs.  But that is not the end of the story.  This summer presents a key opportunity for MPOs to refine their technical work before the fall deadline.  As they do so in the coming weeks, these draft target ranges will ideally be honed into more precise ambitious-yet-achievable targets.

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.

One particular characteristic of the Bay Area is its expensive real estate market.  This creates an imbalance of housing and jobs at the regional scale, thereby generating interregional commutes from Central Valley cities like Tracy and Manteca, where upwards of 70% of residents commute to Bay Area jobs.  Higher relative household incomes in the Bay Area also diminish sensitivity to user fees and other changes in price — though we shouldn’t forget that in the Bay Area, as elsewhere, higher gas prices in 2008 noticeably increased transit ridership.

In order to get a sense of what an ambitious GHG target would be for the Bay Area, MTC has relied primarily on aggressive pricing and land use assumptions.  In light of the region’s comparably higher household income level, MTC modeled a pricing assumption much more ambitious than those employed by its peers in the “Big Four”: a 460% increase in the cost of automobile use.  This translates to an automobile usage cost of over $1.15 (2009 dollars) per mile driven in 2035.  That cost increase incorporates new revenue sources, particularly congestion pricing, increased parking charges, and a carbon tax.  It can be difficult to gather political support for these types of measures, particularly in the current economic downturn — but it also seems clear that we will need to turn to these revenue sources in the future.  Their inclusion in this model is therefore appropriate.

MTC also modeled land use assumptions that are much more aggressive than current projections.  These assumptions decrease the population at the fringe of the Bay Area (particularly in Solano and Contra Costa counties), and they correspondingly increase the population of the urban core — including a 22% increase in San Francisco’s population above existing, already optimistic projections.

These assumptions translate into the following per capita GHG reductions (compared to 2005):

• Implementing the Bay Area’s most recent Regional Transportation Plan yields GHG reductions of 5% by 2020 and 3% by 2035.
• Adding either land use or pricing assumptions to the RTP yields GHG reductions of 7% by 2020 and 10% by 2035.
  
• Adding both land use and pricing assumptions to the RTP yields GHG reductions of 10% by 2020 and 12% by 2035.

Other scenarios were considered as well, but the bottom line is that the 12% figure represents the current ambitious target for Bay Area GHG reduction by the year 2035.  It is questionable whether this target is achievable in light of its aggressive underlying assumptions.  Nonetheless, inputting less aggressive assumptions into more robust models could potentially yield more reduction than anticipated.  This preliminary analysis suggests that there is room for the Bay Area to achieve a more ambitious target that goes beyond business as usual.  An ambitious GHG target presents an excellent opportunity for the Bay Area to develop a Sustainable Communities Strategy that demonstrates the benefits of coupling infrastructure investments with creative land use and pricing strategies.

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.

The Challenge of Regional Differences

The complexity of ARB’s task is compounded by the multitude of on-the-ground conditions present in regions throughout the state.  The area of land governed by California’s MPOs accounts for approximately 98% of the population and 97% of GHG emissions.  These regional governments oversee a tremendously varied terrain, including large cities, mild-mannered suburbs, tiny populated pockets, agricultural land, and scenic open space.  But the premise of SB 375 — that pursuing efficient land use patterns near transit will reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and GHG emissions — is a strategy based on an essentially urban experience.  There is good sense to that: the urban areas generate more VMT.  In 2005, VMT in most of California (excluding a few counties lacking data) was 830 million on a weekday, and almost 87% of that total was attributable to the Southern California, Bay Area, San Diego, and Sacramento regions.

Yet for however much SB 375 may seem to be a directive issued primarily at California’s major cities, the bill’s promise and eventual legacy lies in how it will influence emerging cities whose unsustainable growth patterns helped make the case for SB 375 in the first place.  The Central Valley, a region whose fast growth has been fueled by proliferating sprawl, emphasizes why SB 375 is needed.  Indeed, one plausible approach for setting targets is to place the most ambitious requirements on those regions that are projected to experience the most growth — in order to maximize the amount of new growth around the state that is leveraged to serve SB 375′s goal of VMT reduction.  But if the Central Valley embodies the promise of SB 375, it likewise illustrates the challenge of setting GHG reduction targets that take into account each region’s on-the-ground realities.

An alternative approach is to assign more conservative targets to the San Joaquin Valley and smaller MPOs.  The necessary backbone of VMT reduction is the regional transit network — but these areas of the state currently have weak transit systems and may experience significant difficulty procuring the funding to significantly improve service and infrastructure in the near term.  The requirement that a Sustainable Communities Strategy be consistent with prevailing fiscal constraints prevents regions from making unrealistic assumptions about how much funding for transit will be available.  Limitations on an MPO’s ability to expand its transit network may correspondingly limit the magnitude of achievable GHG reduction.

Interregional trips also pose a challenge.  These are the trips that start and/or end in a different region from the home region, and they often reflect the long commutes made necessary by a regional housing/jobs imbalance — one of the problems that SB 375 seeks to mitigate.  A particular instance of this problem is Kern County, which is situated between Fresno and Los Angeles.  Because of this location, about 30% of Kern travel is actually straight through the county, where trips both begin and end outside of Kern.  These travel patterns create a significant category of GHG emissions beyond Kern’s control.  Those emissions could be omitted from a regional target, or they could potentially could be addressed by pursuing an interregional Sustainable Communities Strategy (a provision in SB 375 that is special to the San Joaquin Valley).  Other categories of interregional travel including trips that begin or end in another state or country, reserved tribal lands, or a military base.  In addition to interregional trips, another obstacle in Kern County is the growth of distinctly rural sources of employment, including prisons, the military, and the Tehachapi Pass wind farm.  These jobs generate long commutes from Kern’s most natural urban infill center in Bakersfield.

The particular on-the-ground challenges that Kern County and other parts of the Central Valley bring to the target-setting process emphasize the importance of California’s high-speed rail project, which, while distinct from SB 375, may nonetheless prove critical in realizing SB 375′s vision.  High-speed rail would finally provide the Central Valley with the much-needed high-quality transit spine that California has lacked, thus capturing some interregional trips and reducing the magnitude of GHG emissions that are beyond the control of counties like Kern.  High-speed rail also presents the best opportunity to transform Valley downtowns into true mixed-use transit hubs that can attract new investment.

The purpose of this post was to illustrate, certainly not exhaustively, a few of the many factors that play into the complex process of setting draft GHG targets.  In the next post, we take a look at what initial work has been done toward setting a draft target for the Bay Area.

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.

AB X8 6 and AB X8 9 form the pair of budget bills (explained in more detail in this earlier post) executing a gas tax swap.  The Governor initially proposed a completely inadequate gas tax swap measure, which the Legislature then modified with these two bills.  The Legislature’s version allocates a one-time sum of $400 million of operating funds for transit agencies, and then generates about $350 million annually for agencies statewide, starting in FY12.

The initial allocation will provide critically-needed funding for the Bay Area’s transit agencies in these tough times — including $36 million for Muni, $26 million for BART, $15 million for VTA, and $13 million for AC Transit — to be put to use through the upcoming fiscal year.

As we have discussed before, that sum does not come close to restoring funding that the State has repeatedly appropriated in the past to balance its budget, and the bills do not accomplish all that they could.  Therefore, this legislation neither can nor should end the important conversation about how the State ought to fund transit operations in the future.  Still absent from the discussion are stable revenue streams that prioritize transit service in a way that is consistent with the State’s goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and encouraging smart growth. Nonetheless, this allocation is a small step in the right direction, in that it will provide transit agencies with some assistance to weather the budget deficits that loom in the upcoming fiscal year.

I would strongly encourage transit agencies to use this money in a way that preserves service for riders to the maximum extent feasible.  Transit-dependent riders have already experienced significant hardship during this economic downturn, having been obliged to pay higher fares for inferior service.  I particularly direct this comment to my home transit agency, the San Francisco MTA.  The MTA Board is once again discussing a possible declaration of fiscal emergency, which would allow the agency to cut service without preparing the environmental documentation that would otherwise be required under CEQA.  When given such a flexible tool, the MTA Board has historically demonstrated a willingness to put it to use, by cutting service and raising fares.

However, worth noting is that the initial $36 million allocation from the State, when combined with some of the FY11-12 revenue measures that the MTA Board has begun to evaluate, would be enough to obviate the need to declare fiscal emergency.  Obvious measures (PDF) to examine at this point include extended Sunday meters ($2.8 million), a general parking meter extension ($6.3 million in FY11), elimination of free reserved on-street spaces ($2.8 million), adding one thousand new metered spaces ($0.8 million for a half-year), enforcing existing laws regarding parking garage charges in the C-3 zone ($3 million for a half-year), a possible extension of that policy to garages citywide ($2.6 million for a half-year), and a reduction in work orders ($6.5 million).  Consolidation of transit stops, which would save about $3 million per year, is another measure that will be considered by the MTA Board.

There are good policy reasons to implement this suite of measures, quite apart from raising revenue.  But these measures are also necessary to close the gap between the State’s initial allocation and the MTA’s total FY11 budget deficit.  They should be evaluated thoroughly before riders are made to suffer any further cuts to service or increase in fares.

It is nice to see the Governor finally agree to give some money back to transit, and the Legislature should also be recognized for its work in pushing through a partial fix for transit agencies, in spite of the Governor’s reluctance to support a revenue-neutral piece of budget legislation.  Imperfect though it may be, this legislation and the funding it promises will be a welcome booster shot for California’s cash-strapped transit agencies.

I unfortunately do not have any time right now to to provide a more detailed post, but I did want to at least alert readers to this development.  There were flaws with the legislation, and the transit funding scheme passed by the Legislature would not have restored to transit nearly the amount of money that the State has taken away.  But pragmatically, the proposed state assistance, while diminished from prior years, would have eased the widening budget deficits of transit agencies.  As we discussed previously, even the $36 million that the San Francisco MTA would have received through the end of next fiscal year (and $31.4 million in the following fiscal year) would have been more than enough to offset the money that the MTA expected to save with the 10% system-wide service cut that is planned to go into effect starting May 1.  The Governor’s denial of that funding means transit advocates must continue to push the MTA Board to pursue measures that will realize savings and increase revenues, ideally without the declaration of fiscal emergency that would pave the way for further service cuts and  fare increases.  The bill would have provided about $13 million for AC Transit and $15 million for VTA through the next fiscal year. The bill would have also provided about $26 million to BART through the next fiscal year, and almost as much in the following fiscal year, which would have helped that agency weather a projected deficit of more than $60 million over the next four years.  Instead, it looks like transit agencies throughout California will have to continue on as they have this year, with the STA zeroed out.

The State Legislature, as part of the ongoing state budget effort, has passed a pair of bills, AB X8 6 and AB X8 9, which would establish a tax swap and restore State Transit Assistance (STA) funding, a critical source of money that transit agencies throughout California had previously relied on to fund operations until it was suspended by the State.  While there is no doubt that transit agencies across the nation are struggling, California’s transit agencies have been hit particularly hard, thanks to the elimination of the STA funds.  But relief may be on the way, if Governor Schwarzenegger cooperates.  This is a prime opportunity for the “Green Governor” to show his quality.

AB X8 6 makes various adjustments to the taxes that are assessed on motor vehicle fuel and diesel fuel.  Currently, gasoline is subject to both sales tax and per-gallon excise tax.  Article XIX of the California Constitution generally requires that the proceeds from the excise tax be applied to fund road maintenance, as well as the “research, planning, construction, and improvement” of transit guideways, streets, and highways.  The revenue may also be used to maintain physical transit guideways, but it may not be used for other transit operation and maintenance costs.  This constitutional provision was of interest to the Governor, because it would allow him to take a revenue stream technically dedicated to transit and replace it with an increased excise tax, the proceeds from which could instead be used to patch up the General Fund.

As set forth in the Revenue and Taxation Code, an excise tax of 18 cents is currently assessed per gallon of motor vehicle fuel (§ 7360) and diesel fuel (§ 60050).  Starting July 1, 2010, AB X8 6 would exempt motor vehicle fuel from the sales tax.  Also on July 1, 2010, the excise tax per gallon of motor vehicle fuel would be increased by 17.3 cents, and retailers would pay a 17.3-cent storage tax per gallon of motor vehicle fuel stored.  For diesel fuel, the per-gallon excise tax would decrease to 13.6 cents starting July 1, 2010; a 1.75% tax would also be imposed starting July 1, 2011.  Finally, the State Board of Equalization would be responsible for ensuring each year that these amendments remain revenue-neutral.  That is, the revenue gained by the motor vehicle excise tax increase should not exceed the revenue lost by eliminating the sales tax.  BOE would also be assigned an analogous task for diesel fuel.

The revenue generated from these adjustments would then be used in the gas tax swap mechanism.  I can explain this in more detail if someone is really fascinated, but to skip straight to the juicy part, AB X8 9 provides for an infusion of STA funding for transit operations.  Initially, the bill appropriates $400 million of STA funding statewide that would last through FY11.  An estimated $350 million would then be distributed by formula each year thereafter.

San Francisco MTA’s recent budget-balancing exercise helps demonstrate how this influx of funding will have a tangible effect.  The MTA Board recently approved a 10% system-wide service cut, expecting to save $4.8 million this fiscal year (accounting for the months of May and June).  Cutting 313,000 service hours each year was projected to save $28.5 million annually.  But MTA estimates it would initially receive $36 million of STA funding if these bills are passed — $7.2 million for the remainder of this fiscal year, $28.8 million in FY11, and $31.4 million in FY12.

In other words, San Francisco’s share of the proposed funding more than covers the money that the MTA expected to save by implementing the 10% service cut.  Although the $179 million of STA funds that the MTA has lost over the past three years would not be fully restored in the next three years, this legislation, if signed into law, will nonetheless make a valuable contribution.

But the Governor — naturally, being the Governor — is reluctant about signing these bills.  To justify his reluctance, he offered the nearly brain-dead explanation that the Legislature has “failed to address job creation,” overlooking that new STA funding will allow agencies to preserve service and thereby avoid laying off operators.  His lackluster response, while disappointing, is not surprising.  After all, this legislation aims to mitigate the damage that he is personally responsible for propagating — most recently when he flagrantly ignored state court decisions that invalidated transit funding raids.

But you, the transit-savvy reader, can still help the Governor see the light.  At least we can try.

Here’s where you come in: Please call the Governor’s office as soon as you can.  Urge him to sign these bills into law, so that agencies throughout the Bay Area and California can be provided with much-needed relief, and vital transit service can be preserved:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-558-3160

Alternatively, you can email the Governor by clicking this link. Thanks in advance for your participation.

Numerous other areas around the country also received grants, including: $1.25 billion for Florida’s Tampa-Orlando corridor, $1.2 billion of HSR/Amtrak funding for the Northeast (of which the high-speed grant was just $485 million), $1.1 billion for Chicago-St. Louis-Kansas City, $823 million for Chicago-Milwaukee-Madison-Twin Cities, $620 million for Charlotte-Raleigh-Richmond-Washington, $598 million for the Pacific Northwest, $400 million for Ohio, $244 million for Chicago-Detroit-Pontiac, $17 million for Iowa, and $4 million for Texas.  The list quite rightly hones in on the known priority corridors: Florida, but also the Midwest routes that are planned to feed into Chicago, which were awarded a total sum just shy of California’s (albeit distributed for use by several states).

California’s piece of the stimulus pie, meanwhile, includes the $2.25 billion to be used to complete various projects along four high-speed segments (San Francisco-San Jose, Merced-Fresno, Fresno-Bakersfield, and Los Angeles-Anaheim), including environmental review, engineering, stations, track, signaling, and right-of-way acquisition.  California also received $94 million to be used for the Capitol Corridor ($23 million to increase capacity at San Jose Diridon and construct a universal crossover between Davis and Sacramento), Pacific Surfliner ($51 million of improvements toward 110 mph service), and $20 million for other corridors.  That funding was awarded to both the High-Speed Rail Authority and Caltrans, and it does not appear that more specific project-level (or even corridor-level) allocations were announced by the federal government for the bulk of the funds. Of particular interest is the fate of the $400 million request put in for the Transbay Transit Center’s train box, whose funding was controversially put into jeopardy by the Authority’s resurrection of the once-rejected Beale Street Alternative.  Although the released materials were silent as to that question, the Examiner looked into the issue and determined that $400 million has indeed been reserved for Transbay, in spite of the Beale Street discussion.

In mid-2009, the Bay Area’s heavy-hitters on transportation put together their heads to produce the Peninsula Corridor Investment Strategy.  The result of that effort was a recommended list of projects, of varying levels of utility, that would begin the process of preparing the Transbay-Diridon corridor for its impending transformation by high-speed rail.  So it’s reasonable to expect that funding priorities at least in the Bay Area will draw on that list.  Also, this is not strictly speaking HSR stimulus news, but it is certainly relevant: the expected $171 million TIFIA loan, which has been included in Transbay’s funding portfolio, was finalized.

Map courtesy of the White House.

It’s quite clearly the case, Green Governor, that we need to
fix California’s transit systems, which are broke and breaking.
Under-served areas had critical lifeline service put to the chopping block, but
climate change demands that we reduce vehicle miles traveled statewide.
Killing the gas sales tax and raising the excise tax will only facilitate
your relentless theft of transit funding, in this budget, as in so many
others — though your action now undermines the rulings of state courts.
Undeniably, you have started down the wrong path. For shame, Arnold, for shame.

Sincerely,
Transbay Blog

P.S. Rest assured that any message you may find hidden in this letter is merely coincidental.