News
Growth projections collide with San Francisco’s goal of zero net carbon emissions by 2050
San Francisco Chronicle – May 22
The goal is tantalizing: Make San Francisco carbon neutral — meaning no net release of greenhouse gas emissions into the air — by 2050. Former Mayor Mark Farrell set the benchmark last year, and Mayor London Breed accelerated the pace in September. But with the city’s economy booming and the population expected to swell to 1.2 million people, getting there could be difficult. Officials anticipate nearly 200,000 new jobs by 2050, putting strain on already over-stressed BART and Muni systems. More solo drivers will jam the streets, making 1.4 million trips in 2050, according to planning models — a 24 percent surge from 2015. Big-picture policy ideas like congestion pricing and dense housing near transit face bruising political opposition. Small measures, like safe bike lanes, get tied up in a long community process. Necessary infrastructure, such as a second Transbay Tube for BART, lacks financing. Against that backdrop, officials at the San Francisco County Transportation Authority are launching two long-term studies, one on streets and freeways, the other on transit-rich arteries. They expect the effort, called ConnectSF, to yield concrete policy recommendations for a citywide transportation plan.
Berkeley plans for a transit-oriented future
Next City - May 21
Earlier this month, the Berkeley City Council voted unanimously to authorize a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with BART that will create guidelines for planning the future of a series of parking lots around the North Berkeley BART Station. The site could end up being built out with hundreds of new housing units, at least a portion of which will be affordable for low-income residents. Last year, California enacted a law (Assembly Bill 2923) that requires BART to create transit-oriented development guidelines for all of its properties adjacent to transit stations with minimum height and density provisions, meant to establish more housing close to public transit. Those zoning guidelines will become operative as soon as the cities home to those stations approve them or by July 1, 2022, whichever is sooner. Berkeley wants to get ahead of the deadline and put North Berkeley Station near the top of BART’s development list, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín said.
Bullet-train work continues in Fresno and San Joaquin Valley amid state-federal legal battle
Fresno Bee - May 21
California’s high-speed rail agency remains determined to complete about 119 miles of bullet-train construction in the central San Joaquin Valley, even as a confrontation with the Trump administration over promised federal funds escalates into a lawsuit. Tom Richards, vice chairman of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, said Tuesday at the agency board’s meeting in Sacramento that the state remains mindful of “the requirement to abide by all of the commitments we have” under a pair of federal grant agreements dating to 2010 and 2011 for about $3.5 billion to support engineering and construction in the Valley. The meeting came on the heels of California filing suit challenging the Federal Railroad Administration’s termination of the grant agreements.
Southern California Edison rolls out $356M charging program to advance electric vehicles
Utility Dive – May 21
Southern California Edison on Monday rolled out a program designed to advance the electrification of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, including buses and tractor trailers, by offering to install infrastructure to support charging stations at no charge. Rebates for charging station equipment will also be available to some customers as well, including transit agencies and school bus operators. The program has a budget of about $356 million. The Charge Ready Transport program will fund installations at 870 commercial customer sites over a five-year period, which the utility anticipates will support at least 8,490 fleet vehicles.
Report: L.A. needs 516,946 affordable homes to meet demand
Curbed Los Angeles – May 21
The affordable housing crisis in Los Angeles is well documented, but an annual report from the California Housing Partnership and the Southern California Association of Nonprofit Housing shines a harsh light on the severity of the matter. According to the report, which is released annually, Los Angeles County would need to add more than a half-million units of affordable housing—516,946, to be exact—to meet existing demand from low-income renters. Meanwhile, the $1.2 billion in funding for affordable housing development that Los Angeles voters approved in 2016 hasn’t yet produced a single completed project—though several are now under construction.
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