City Policy: it's in the MONEY

This sequence of charts show the operating revenue from three neighboring beach cities, Dana Point, Laguna Beach and Newport Beach. The chart for Laguna shows the city draws more revenue from parking and vehicle fines than from general sales and occupancy tax (bed tax). A city budget that relies on vehicle taxes and parking fees as revenue means the city has no incentive to remove automobiles and traffic . Adopting Complete Street Policy to reduce the mode share of automobiles would threaten this revenue, thus new policy remains a fantasy in Laguna Beach. Until Laguna beach city government abandons its oppressive revenue model based on vehicle fines and fees in favour of a pro-business model to generate legitimate revenue, traffic congestion will not improve. Despite more vehicle fines to make ends meet, we will likely see more business closures. There are better ways to generate city revenue in Laguna Beach. (28 April 2011 presentation CSTF)

Laguna Beach Operating Revenue

This chart shows Laguna Beach draws more city revenue from parking and vehicle fines than from general sales and occupancy tax (bed tax). Remember it costs money to maintain  parking meters and enforce vehicle fines, the total expense for police and parking services exceed $14M for this period. (from 2010-2011 Budget Laguna Beach)

Newport Beach Operating Revenue

This chart shows Newport
Beach draws it's dominant operating revenues from sales and occupancy tax, a reasonable amount from parking and vehicle fines and negligible amount from transit, bikes and pedestrians sources. When looking for vehicle related revenues in Newport Beach one must be ambitious. (2010-2011 Budget Newport Beach)

Dana Point Operating Revenue

This chart shows Dana Point draws the most of it's operating revenue from sales and occupancy tax (bed tax), little from vehicle fines and parking. The contribution from Transit and Bikes & Pedestrians is negligible. (2010-2011 Budget Dana Point).

This chart shows vehicle related revenue per enforcement officer. Laguna Beach draws the largest of three beach cities compared. (2008-2011 Budgets)

This chart shows vehicle related revenue per resident. Laguna Beach draws the largest amount of revenue for three beach cities compared. (2008-2011 Budgets)

Vancouver BC to Rio de Janeiro Brazil, Ride2Rio

In January 2012 Naomi Devine left the Lions Gate Bridge in North Vancouver, British Colombia Canada and began her quest to reach Earth Summit 2012 in Rio de Janeiro Brazil on 20 June 2012. Her principal mode of transportation so far is the Brodie touring bicycle you see here. Her main stopping points along the way are cafe's where she raises awareness for a sustainable future. Follow her journey on her Facebook or Twitter page or her website at ride2rio.ca.  Read about Naomi's conviction to build a sustainable world from an incredible capable woman. Earth Summit 2012, Vision, Cooperation, Transformation. Time is up, get involved. Independent story here.

Laguna Beach where we're special

This is a 2010 bike route map published by the Orange County Transit Authority. The purple lines are Class I separated bike lanes (best), the red lines are Class II on-road painted bike lanes (better), the blue lines are Class III on-road signed bike routes (cheapest, worthless as safety devices).  The March 1 2012 revised map shows no improvement, the Class III signed bike route does not in fact exist in Laguna Beach.  Considering the bike lane improvements made by every other city in Orange County, when will Laguna Beach "get-it"?

Where economic activity is concentrated and successful...

The Times Square district directly and indirectly contributes one-tenth of all of the jobs in the city and $1 of every $9 of economic activity, says the study, which was commissioned by the Times Square Alliance, the de facto chamber of commerce for the district. That amounts to $110 billion in annual economic activity — about equal to the output of Portland, Ore. — emanating from the district.... Patrick McGheehan NYTimes story

... why did Times Square adopt Complete Streets?