Sustainability

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...

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...

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...

Determining Fair Share Regional Targets for Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Transportation and Land Use: California's Experience Under Senate Bill 375

Elisa Barbour
Gregory Newmark
Elizabeth Deakin
2011

California passed landmark planning legislation, Senate Bill (S.B.) 375, in 2008, calling on the state's urban regions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through more efficient transportation and land use. During 2010, the California Air Resources Board worked with the state's 18 metropolitan planning organizations to define and adopt performance targets for emissions reductions in each region according to S.B. 375. This target-setting process represents the first systematic effort by a U.S. state to assess the impacts of existing regional transportation and land use plans on greenhouse...

Regional Planning for Sustainable Development: Lessons from California

Elizabeth Deakin
Elisa Barbour
Kathryn Exon Smith
2024

The rapid growth of Canadian metropolitan areas poses challenges for sustainability, with traffic congestion, housing affordability, and environmental degradation all increasing public concern. This paper reviews California’s experience in addressing these issues through regionwide, mandated scenario planning, examining transportation and land use strategies that could improve long-term sustainability, i.e., supporting a socially equitable society with a strong economy and a healthy and livable environment. The paper is based on a review of the literature and interviews with nine Canadian...

Emerging Technologies for Higher Fuel Economy Automobile Standards

Tim Lipman
2017

Transportation systems contribute significantly to air pollution and ∼15% globally and ∼25% in the United States to emissions climate-changing gases. In the United States, the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for motor vehicles were significantly raised in 2012 for the first time in almost three decades. The standards now call for an average across manufacturers of 54.5 miles per gallon (mpg) for new passenger cars by 2025, or 163 grams per mile (g/mi) of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and of 47 mpg (196 g/mi) by 2021. The light truck standards, which include minivans and...