The University of California’s Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS) received a $6.25 million grant to create a new Program for Sustainable Transportation over five years beginning in 2010. The program is funded by the UC Office of the President and has brought together researchers from more than 30 disciplines on six UC campuses to seed multi-disciplinary initiatives, including collaborations between economists, geographers, ecologists, city and regional planners, public policy analysts, engineers from civil, environmental, electrical and mechanical engineering, computer scientists and experts in energy. UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies and Lewis Center faculty affiliates will focus on three specific projects this year:
-Martin Wachs, Professor Emeritus, is working with Shira Bergstein a graduate student in Urban Planning at UCLA: April Mo, a graduate student in City and Regional Planning at Berkeley, Dan Chatman, Assistant Professor of City and Regional Planning at Berkeley, to examine whether the process of environmental reviews and approvals for infrastructure projects has proven to be quicker where Habitat Conservation Plans exist than has been the case where they do not. Habitat Conservation Plans set aside areas of land to protect the habitats of endangered and threatened species. Over the past decade, twenty or more large Habitat Conservation areas have been established in an effort to both preserve endangered environments and to facilitate the construction of important infrastructure like highways and transit routes, by “streamlining” the environmental review process that is required under the National Environmental Protection Act. The conservation areas provide for the mitigation of the environmental impacts of the infrastructure projects.
-JR DeShazo, Director of the Lewis and Luskin Centers, is bringing together researchers and others to focus on local and regional policy and planning issues surrounding electric vehicle roll-outs in early markets across the United States. Planning is underway for a two-day event this summer at UCLA to attract local and regional EV policymakers from the Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, Austin, Houston, Raleigh, and New York City areas. These policymakers will interact and work with representatives from vehicle manufacturers, EVSE providers, utilities, and other stakeholders to share information and work toward solutions for the mutual problems these cities face.
-Michael Manville, Postdoctoral Scholar at the Lewis Center, will be working with Professor Daniel Chatman, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning at UC Berkeley, to evaluate the effectiveness of San Francisco’s pioneering experiment with market priced parking. Following up on Manville’s previous MRPI research, the project will pay particular attention to the problem of legal nonpayment–the prevalence of credentials (such as disabled placards) that exempt drivers from paying. Working last year with Jonathan Williams of Fehr and Peers, Manville found that almost a third of the vehicles parked at meters in the City of Los Angeles were displaying disabled placards. The widespread use of these placards could undermine efforts to reduce congestion through parking pricing.