Environment

Reviving public transit ridership to downtowns and employment centers: Case Studies of San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Berkeley, and Walnut Creek

Elizabeth Deakin
Egon Terplan
Maya Najjar
Kathryn Exon Smith
2024

This paper examines transit ridership and its role in downtowns in five San Francisco Bay Area cities pre- and post-COVID. We analyze transit ridership data from 2019 and 2022-24, review transit agency responses to COVID’s consequences, and examine the plans and proposals for downtowns adopted by the cities and those developed by business improvement districts (BIDs). We draw upon focus groups we held with transit users and interviews we conducted with key stakeholders to gain additional information and insights. We found that trips to, from and within our five case study downtowns account...

Transportation and Land Development

Elizabeth Deakin
Arthur C Nelson
Kristina Currans
David Lee
John Renne
2019

The Transportation and Land Development Committee (ADD30), a standing committee of the Transportation Research Board (TRB), was established in 1972 to improve the understanding of the interrelationships between transportation and patterns of urbanization, along with the economic, social, and environmental consequences of transportation and land development choices. Topics that fall within the committee’s purview include: the effect that transportation infrastructure has on urban form and development; the impact that urban form, development, and design has on travel behavior; the impact...

Evaluation of California State and Regional Transportation Plans and Their Prospects for Attaining State Goals

Elizabeth Deakin
Chun Ho Chow
Daisy Son
Susan Handy
Elisa Barbour
Amy Lee
Emil Rodriguez
John Gahbauer
Talia Coutin
Juan Matute
Alejandra Rios Gutierrez
Nataly Rios Gutierrez
Katie Segal
Ethan Elkind
Ted Lamm
2021

Assembly Bill (AB) 285 (Friedman, 2019) requires the California Strategic Growth Council (SGC) to submit a report to the Legislature by January 31, 2022, that includes the following:An overview of the California Transportation Plan (CTP). An overview of all regional Sustainable Communities Strategies (SCS) and any alternative planning strategies, as needed. An assessment of how the implementation of the CTP and regional plans “will influence the configuration of the statewide integrated multimodal transportation system.”  A “review of the potential impacts and opportunities for...

Review of Statewide Transportation Plans for California

Elizabeth Deakin
Chun Ho Chow
2021

California has adopted ambitious goals for its transportation systems. The state has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas(GHG) emissions by 40 percent compared to 1990 levels and by 80 percent by 2050, and has also committed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045. With transportation a major emitter, substantial changes in transportation vehicles, fuels, operations, and user choices must be achieved to meet these goals. As pressing as climate change goals must be, other goals remain important. California has pledged to maintain its transportation infrastructure in a state of good repair, provide...

Introduction: Transportation Planning as an Integral Part of Urban Development: The Emerging Paradigm

Elizabeth Deakin
2008

Transportation planners and engineers often focus on specific areas of expertise, such as particular modes of transport, or air quality effects of transportation. Increasingly, however, Californians are reminded that such focused specializations, while valuable, are insufficient by themselves. Current efforts to meet stringent greenhouse gas reduction targets while accommodating growth and counteracting economic downturn show just how complex and interconnected urban development issues are. The emerging paradigm is one that integrates transportation planning into a broader metropolitan...

Climate Change and Sustainable Transportation: The Case of California

Elizabeth Deakin
2011

California has adopted innovative legislation to tackle climate change. Energy-efficient buildings, lower-emissions industrial processes, and more fuel-efficient transportation vehicles operating on cleaner fuels are among the many strategies that are being implemented. However, to attain the needed reductions, California must find additional strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, especially from the transportation sector, which is a large fraction of the total emissions problem. This paper discusses the efforts that are underway to further increase transportation efficiency, shift...

California's Futures: Accommodating Growth in An Era of Climate Change and Rising Fuel Prices

Elizabeth Deakin
2008

Sometime between 2025 and 2030, California's population will reach 50 million. During this same period, the state (and indeed the entire world) must find effective ways to substantially reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in hopes of slowing and reversing climate change. California has committed to such reductions in SB 32 and Executive Order S-3-05; the state has pledged to reduce GHG to 2000 levels by 2010 (11 percent below business-as-usual), to 1990 levels by 2020 (25 percent below business-as-usual), and to eighty percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Accomplishing these reductions...

Equity and Environmental Justice in Sustainable Transportation: Toward A Research Agenda

Elizabeth Deakin
2007

Equity and environmental justice issues have again become prominent topics of debate in transportation planning and research in the last ten years. Advocates for environmental justice – for short, EJ – have made themselves highly visible in many transportation planning and decision-making processes, in some cases seeking seats at the table and in other cases using protest, political pressure, and legal action to force change. Transportation practitioners have responded in many different ways, in some cases by forming partnerships for new programs serving low income and minority populations...

Supply Chain Coordination for Port Sustainability: Lessons for New Institutional Designs

SangHyun Cheon
Elizabeth Deakin
2010

The rapid expansion of trade and the intense pace of the economic activities of ports pose numerous social and environmental challenges, and thus put port hinterland regions at risk and challenge traditional port business models. Few studies have examined the conceptual and empirical issues involved in improving port sustainability, although port sustainability issues have recently been discussed with some urgency in the goods movement sector. This paper sets out a conceptual model of port sustainability, presents and examines multiple concepts of supply chains surrounding port activity,...

The Challenge of Urban Transportation in California

Robert Cervero
Elizabeth Deakin
2008

As California grows, increased travel from more households, business activity, and goods movement will surely increase greenhouse gas emissions, lead to more congestion and air pollution, and damage ecosystems and neighborhoods—unless we change the basics of travel in California. We need to take action now to deliver a sustainable transportation system that provides the mobility and accessibility necessary for a prosperous economy, and to find ways of doing so that also assure a healthy environment, social equity, and a high quality of life. Here are some ideas for managing, improving, and...