With California’s recent mandates to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and a growing interest in reducing reliance on private automobiles, Evelyn Blumenberg’s edited book comes at a critical time. Recent efforts to curb private vehicle use may help to clean the environment, but at the same time, for many segments of society a lack of automobility can lead to social exclusion and hinder positive economic outcomes. Edited by Karen Lucas, Blumenberg, and Rachel Weinberger, Auto Motives critically evaluates the evidence for better understanding “what drives us to drive?” It samples the diverse theoretical and empirical literatures that explain people’s “auto motives” and behaviors. Why do people overwhelmingly prefer to travel by private automobile, and what are the critical implications of these private decisions for public policy? The book is aimed at students, researchers, policymakers, and practitioners from multiple disciplines who are interested in the role of automobiles in the future.  Evelyn Blumenberg

Urban Planning faculty member and UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies director Brian Taylor prepared a report for the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, DC on transportation finance equity as background for the upcoming reauthorization of the federal surface transportation legislation. The report was released in September 2010 at an event on Capitol Hill entitled “How Fair is Road Pricing?” In addition to a keynote presentation by Taylor, the event included presentations by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Rep. David Reichert (R-WA), and commentaries by Martin Wachs of the RAND Corporation and UCLA. Brian Taylor Bipartisan Policy Center

Donald Shoup, UCLA professor of urban planning and perhaps best known for his extensive work on parking and land-use policies, has been named editor of Access magazine, a publication of the University of California Transportation Center. The magazine features research conducted across UC campuses on transportation policy, and is distributed to more than 50,000 readers across the country, reaching a diverse audience of public officials, transportation professionals, and research scholars. Published twice a year, Access translates academic research into easily readable prose with a focus on making technical research relevant, accessible, and useful for policymakers and practitioners. ACCESS: the Magazine of UCTC Donald Shoup

A new report from the National Research Council examines major policies that could save energy and reduce emissions from the U.S. transportation sector over the next 20 to 50 years. It will take more than tougher fuel economy standards for U.S. transportation to significantly cut its oil use over the next half century.  It will likely require a combination of measures that foster consumer and supplier interest in vehicle fuel economy, alternative fuels, and a more efficient transportation system, says a new report from the National Research Council.  Public interest in reducing the cost of securing the nation’s energy supplies, curbing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHGs), and improving transportation operations could motivate such varied actions. “It is not simply a matter of choosing a single best policy,” said Emil Frankel, director of transportation policy, Bipartisan Policy Center, Washington, D.C., and chair of the committee that wrote the report.  “Decisions about whether and how to reduce transportation’s[…]

Why has California seemingly become ungovernable? And what can and should be done about it? Those concerns were tackled in “The People’s Will: Reforming the Way We Govern California.” The UCLA Roundtable Discussion featured Andreas Kluth, U.S. West coast correspondent for The Economistmagazine, and a panel of California experts. Sparking the discussion was a special report Kluth authored, which appeared in the April 23 issue of the magazine. Noting the inability of the state to pass timely budgets, even in good financial years, the report characterized California as “an experiment in extreme democracy gone wrong,” especially the direct democratic process of the state’s ballot initiatives. Opening the roundtable event, Kluth described how initiatives were introduced in California 100 years ago to prevent corruption, and were used sparingly until Proposition 13, the property-tax-cutting measure, was passed in 1978; but afterward, collecting signatures for initiatives became “an industry,” fueled by well-financed special interests. He proposed “reforming the initiative process and the legislature.” In[…]

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[…]

Please join us in welcoming Professor Kenya Covington as a new Lewis Center Visiting Scholar.  Professor Covington’s work examines the impact of social and urban policies on low-income families, single parents, African Americans and other racial and ethnic populations, and urban and rural dwellers and their children. She has a multidisciplinary background in sociology, urban planning, and policy, with extensive legislative development experience at the state national levels.  Dr. Covington will teach and conduct research while at the Lewis Center for the 2011-2012 academic year. Dr. Covington teaches in the Urban Studies and Planning Department at California State University, Northridge. Previously, she directed the research department at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Inc., in Washington, D.C., where she was responsible for the conceptualization and release of major research studies on black male unemployment and innovative legislation to boost homeownership among renters. She has also served as a resident scholar at the National Urban League, where she was responsible for the[…]

Urban Planning MA and PhD graduate, Lewis Center Post-Doctoral Scholar, Urban Planning Lecturer, and Access Magazine Associate Editor Michael Manville recently accepted an offer for a tenure track faculty position as a Assistant Professor of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University, one of the leading planning programs in North America, where he will teach classes on transportation planning and infrastructure provision. Manville will be returning to California periodically to continue research with Professor Dan Chatman of UC Berkeley on San Francisco’s landmark parking-pricing program. Please join us in congratulating Dr. Manville on this prestigious appointment.

The Lewis Center supports graduate education with small grants for capstone research projects. We are pleased to announce this year’s recipients of the Graduate Student Grants: HOT or Cold: Analysis of Congestion Pricing Implementation in the United States, by Alex Beata, Department of Urban Planning RENEW Pacoima Complete Streets Project: Baseline Data and Policy Recommendations, by Madeline Brozen, Department of Urban Planning Designing an Optimal Teacher Hiring Process for LA’s Turn-Around Schools, by Quyen Dinh, Annie Kuo, Cara Priestly, Karissa Yee, Department of Public Policy Neighborhoods @ Work and the Los Angeles Urban League: An Examination of a Place-Based Community Improvement Initiative, by Cara Franson, Jackie Hunt, Jennifer Kang, Erin Kensinger-Nelson, Chanell Wheeler, Department of Public Policy Beyond the Peak Travel Market: A Survey of Passenger Response to the Caltrain Weekend Bullet, by Lindsey Hilde, Department of Urban Planning Incorporating Bikeway Design Variables into a Ridership Model, by Kristen “Herbie” Huff, Department of Urban Planning Where are the Good Food[…]

Deadline is 5:00 PM, Friday, June 3, 2011. The Lewis Center sponsors an annual student GIS project contest to promote the use of spatial analysis and geographic techniques in the study of California planning and policy issues. Three winners will receive stipends in the following amounts: -1st Place – $500 -2nd Place – (2) awards, $250 each Projects should be submitted on 8.5” x 11” professional style hard-copy format, and should include: -A planning or policy research question relating to the Southern California region. – 3-5 maps that provide descriptive and analytical insights. -A write-up with a project abstract, research question and discussion of findings, recommendations and conclusion (maximum 2 double-spaced pages). For more detailed information, see the GIS Archive Projects should be submitted by Friday, June 3, 2011 at 5:00 p.m to The Lewis Center, Room 3320 Public Policy Building. Submissions will be evaluated on research organization and methods as well as the use of GIS to produce descriptive[…]