How2 Remove the Car in Commute

Car use is hugely subsidized. Because user fees are set too low, we are paying people to drive more, we have excess demand for the road system. If we priced the use of our roads to recover even the cost of maintenance, driving would be noticeably more expensive, and people would have much stronger incentives to drive less, and to use other forms of transportation, like transit and cycling. -HBS

Problem:

Researchers for Harvard Business School investigated what incentives or "nudges" would change commuter behavior to choose alternatives to driving, and how business organizations can encourage their employees to commute using alternatives to driving. The researchers found these incentives did not reduce single occupancy vehicle (SOV) use.

Nudges:

• Matchmaking carpoolers with priority parking
• 24/7 emergency ride-home service
• Free transit tickets to encourage discounted commuter transit passes
• Commuter pamphlets to save commuters time and money

Researchers found reasons why the incentives do not work:

1. When commuters do not pay the full cost of driving ie employee free parking, free road maintenance, driving subsidies.
2. When transit or carpooling is less convenient for an individual commuter.
3. When approaches required change a habitual behavior: one-off events like flu shots ok, but not daily routines like exercise.

Solutions:

The researchers found our infrastructure, financial incentives, and social norms strongly favor driving alone to work. They found the nudges although easy for employers to implement are not are not enough to make a difference. To shift habitual commuting behavior the researchers recommend these improvements:

 Make the full cost of driving salient for employees: avoid subsidizing driving to work alone including free parking and infrastructure. Pay employees the monetary equivalent of driving as a bonus to pay for parking or keep as cash for alternative modes of travel.

 Make driving harder, and make other forms of commuting easier: provide remote parking lots for those who drive alone, local parking to those who share rides), you can enhance the convenience, safety, comfort, and cost-savings of other modes like carpooling.

 Stark implications for Laguna Beach Of course, drivers do not like institutions restricting choices convenience or parking. But the long-term health vitality in the Laguna village fundamentally depend on it.

 -LS

Laguna's New Pedestrian Scrambles

The anticipated pedestrian improvements at PCH between Legion and Broadway were proposed to LB Council 17 December 2019. The main design elements are:

• All-way pedestrian crosswalk (scramble) at Forest and PCH
• Ocean Avenue converted to one-way
• Longer left-turn queues for cars
• Pedestrian curb ramps and benches
• Decorative paving stones and landscaping

$640k was budgeted for the project, the lowest bid accepted, anticipated costs are $931,000.    Here is the plan for Forest Avenue and PCH, no further drawings were available.

Click for Staff Report Details

-LS

Keywords FINAL Draft 2019 LB Downtown Specific Plan

Here is a summary of mobility keywords found in the FINAL Draft 2019 LB Downtown Specific Plan (yes that's the title, ten years to update, 177pages, 79MB): 

• 
  Afford housing:  14
• Bicycle: 5
• Bike: 1
• Blended parking: 0
• Bus: 4
• Circulation: 36
• Complete Streets:0
• Cycling: 0
• DownTn housing: 4
• Flexible parking: 1
• Housing: 85
• Increasing density:0
• Lightrail: 0
• Market-rate:0
• Multi-story:1
• Park:102
• Parking requirements: 11
• Parking structure:13
• Pedestrians: 29
• Enhanced Mobility and Complete Streets Transition Plan:1
• Rail: 0
• Relaxed parking: 0
• Scooter: 1
• Shuttle: 5
• Single formula: 0
• Skateboard: 1
• Transit Center: 7
• Transit: 29
• Trolley: 17
• Walking: 3
• Parking: 412 

The intent of our 2019 DSP is clear. Once again our Laguna Beach Planning Commission denies solutions to Laguna's mobility crisis by preserving a reliance on car transportation (circa 1950). The LBPC denies mobility planning altogether, Laguna will remain a parking lot. 

-LS

SUV Shame

"SUVskam" in Swedish means "SUV Shame". Most appropriate when considering these facts posted by the International Energy Agency in France.

• Today, almost half of all cars sold in the United States and one-third of the cars sold in Europe are SUVs.
• The global fleet of SUVs has seen its emissions growing by nearly 0.55 Gt CO₂ during the last decade to roughly 0.7 Gt CO₂. 
• As a consequence, SUVs were the second-largest contributor to the increase in global CO₂ emissions since 2010 after the power sector (see chart)

Gt = Gigga Tonne means a Billion metric tonnes or 2,200,000,000,000 pounds.

Credit IEA story

"SUV's are killing the planet" - StreetsBlog.
FORD's new PC Mustang is an Electric S.U.V.  plugged into the coal driven electric grid. Feel better?

-LS

Thankgiving 405 Worth It?

2016 Thanksgiving LA on the 405

Summit Meeting Laguna Residents First

Wednesday November 13 2019 Laguna Residents First held their second Summit meeting open to invited guests. LRF objected to the blended parking requirements proposed in the newly drafted Laguna Downtown Specific Plan. The requirements presented were:

Old Requirements:
   10 spaces per 1000 square feet
   4 spaces per 1000 square feet

Blended Requirement:
   3 spaces per 1000 square feet

Here are some modern intensified parking requirements like angle-in parking, in-lieu parking, automated parking, robot valet parking and China parking.  Choose the best one for Laguna Beach and let Laguna city planners and LRF know your choice.  Website: Laguna Residents First.

 -LS

Lyft Replaces San Clemente Bus

Reimagining Transit Convenience in San Clemente

Our beach towns experience large surges in traffic due to out-of-town visitors, in San Clemente they arrive by car and train from origins far away as Fresno. When convenience is king a rideshare may fill the intervals between bus rides on a fixed schedule.

Click for Lyft Details

Lyft rideshare has done just that. In a historic move Lyft has partnered with the City of San Clemente to replace the fixed ride service previously offered by OCTA routes 191 and 193. In a new program Lyft is the City's rideshare parther offering convenience and efficiency for residents and visitors providing trips around the city on demand, quickly and affordably for carfree visitors and residents alike. Is Laguna next?

To get started download the Lyft App and enter SCRIDES in the "Payment" section. To be eligible, rides must be taken between 6 AM-6 PM, boardings are along corridors of the 191 and 193 bus routes. To make sure you’re at the right space, look for signs at participating bus stops.

-LS

LB City Council Approves Modeling CARMAGEDDON

How do you like Laguna's traffic congestion so far? Get ready for more because Tuesday night the Laguna Beach City Council voted 5-0 to guarantee increasing more car traffic in Laguna Beach. Agenda Item #16 Task Order for a Traffic Analysis Model says in brief:

“Our City is near build-out, there are several large re-development projects that propose use intensification within the City that may increase local traffic congestion.”

Our LB Public Works department is preparing for traffic congestion caused by these re-development projects – some of them scheduled for construction simultaneously. LB Public Works relies on a consultant to embellish a computer traffic model of Laguna’s main road corridors through downtown. The consultant's traffic model is car-centric, they measure transportation success by moving more cars faster so get ready for more traffic erosion through Laguna Beach.

Reading the consultant's traffic modeling manual shows how car intensification occurs:

“saturation flow rates,” “pedestrian interference,” “Intersection Capacity Utilization (ICU),” “Level of (car) Service (LOS),” “Conforms to Highway Capacity Manual (HCM).

The keywords "transit, bus, trolley, rail, lightrail, and cyclists" don't appear in the consultant's manual.  "Pedestrians" are considered interference to car traffic; a delay in signal timing. Two arterial highways already slice through Laguna Beach, does Laguna want more of the same?

Once again our Council neglects the core problems: how to move those 6 million visitors and provide alternatives to cars. Once again Public Works overlooked the Laguna Beach mobility plan itself: the Circulation Element of the General Plan. Now is the time for the City and Developers to change traffic models otherwise Laguna Beach is modeling Carmageddon.
 

"If you do not know where you are going it does not matter which way you go" Lewis Carol

-LS

Bike Lane Protests and Why

Here's a title from the Santa Maria Times:

 Solvang residents protest bike lane through Rancho Santa Ynez Estates neighborhood

Council adopts SYV bicycle master plan

(click) Santa Maria Times Article

And the story line that followed:

Mayor Jim Richardson joins call for more bike lanes at Mayor’s Bike Ride Cyclists of all ages and abilities gathered at Solvang City Hall just before noon Thursday to join the Mayor’s Bike Ride around several blocks…

After more than a year of community planning, isolated community members respond to bike infrastructure like this:

“If the city wants to continue to put bike path in our area you should get us involved,” said Bud McCoy, who like many of his neighbors, hadn’t heard of the bike path until construction workers were cordoning off Fjord Drive in preparation for road work. “We feel that you just ramrodded that down our throats.”

"The master plan was developed by the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments over more than a year of planning, including four meetings of the Technical Advisory Committee, meetings with schools, public health and business representatives, surveys, interviews, and a series of public workshops held in October 2018 and March 2019."

Thankfully the Solvang Council saw through the residents uninformed protest. After staff reporting, public comment and brief council deliberation, the city council voted 4-1 to adopt the Solvang portion of the Santa Ynez Valley Bicycle Master Plan.

-LS

TODAY Urge Cal Governor Sign SB-127 Complete Streets

Laguna Canyon Road SR-133 and South Coast Highway Hwy-1 are under Caltrans jurisdiction. Senate Bill 127 pushes CalTRANS to build Complete Streets for SR-133 and Hwy-1 - the TRANSPORTATION part of CalTRANS.

Tell Governor Newsom to please sign this legislation, three step request here.

1. Zipcode
2. Name
3. eMail

GO! 

(To call Governor Newsom staff (916) 445 2841.) UPDATE: October 12 Governor Newsom VETOED SB-127.

-LS