Alameda Elementary Bike-Bus

What is way more fun than a school bus

way more fun than Mom's van........

Another successful Portland bike-bus teaches students the fun of Active Transportation. 

Listen to the fun!

 

-LS

Parking Lot Logic

 

Credit: Car Toons Stock www.cartoonstock.com

Lawsuits deliver for youth, will Laguna Beach?

The Climate Protection Action Plan (CPAP) written in 2008 gave greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets as 7% reduction below 1990 levels no later than 2012 (page v). Laguna Beach baseline emissions are reported on page 7 and reduction targets in Table 3 Appendix C.

Under Policies rhe Laguna Beach General Plan Circulation Element reads "Continue to investigate new techniques which promote the balancing of principles that roads are not just for cars; that residents have a right to the best quality of life, which includes the least noise possible, the least pollution  possible, the safest environment possible and an  environment which fosters a rich community life."  

The Laguna Beach Parking Transportation and Circulation  Committee recommends improving circulation in the city: "Our present trends  toward the excessive use of the automobile must be reversed and the automobile must  begin to be supplemented by more efficient and attractive transportation and circulation  system."   

The Forest Promenade as conceived meets the CPAP emissions target goals and General Plan policy, the 9-parking structures costing minimum $326 million do not.    

COMPLETE STREETS POLICY is consistent with all three recommendations above. Recent legal case law shows the oversight bodies are ruling in favor of GHG reductions. In a recent decision in Montana the court ruled in favor of youth plaintiffs challenging State's failure to recognize GHG's and climate change. From the case:

Based on its findings of fact, the court ruled that the youth plaintiffs have proven injury “resulting from the State’s failure to consider GHGs and climate change, including injuries to their physical and mental health, homes and property, recreational, spiritual, and aesthetic interests, tribal and cultural traditions, economic security, and happiness.”

A key dispute from the case was whether Montana's small fraction of global emissions contributed enough to matter, the state argued cutting Montana's emissions were unimportant. The court definitively rejected the state's claim acknowledging every bit of GHG emission mattered affecting reductions.

 “Every additional ton of GHG emissions exacerbates Plaintiffs’ injuries and risks locking in irreversible climate injuries.” These injuries “will grow increasingly severe and irreversible without science-based actions to address climate change.” 

This finding is vitally important— eviscerating the argument of any country, state, corporation or city actor that their portion of emissions is too small.

Recent case law shows similar judgements to the Montana case:

Dismissal to GHG reduction target 50%  EmpowerNJ vs Department of Environmental Protection

Youth vs State over due process rights Natalie vs State of Utah

Challenge to the City of San Diego's 2022 Climate Action Plan for allegedly failing to include mechanisms to ensure that its objectives would be achieved.  Climate Action Campaign vs City of San Diego

 "On the strongly positive side, however, the clear acceptance of the facts of climate change and the strength of climate science will make future attempts in court cases to dismiss climate science untenable."  -Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

-LS

Irvine Council Bike Ride Invite Sat. 8/5/2023

Sustainable Saturday Bike Ride

Ya'll come, see ya there.

Click for Details

-LS

Laguna Beach Vision 2030 Strategic Plan

The Vision 2030 Strategic Plan begun in 1999 begins this way:

What will Laguna Beach be like a generation from now? In thirty years will we congratulate ourselves on what we have achieved or lament on what we have lost?

The Vision 2030 Strategic Plan defined what our community identified as our greatest assets, opportunities and challenges. In contributions from seven strategy teams a  substantial consensus emerged around which were our greatest issues, and a framework of Goals and Actions for addressing them.

The reason for doing so was obvious in 1999 as now: 

"If you don't know where you're going, you might end-up somewhere else."

It's almost 2030, what has been done?  What remains to be implemented?  What are the new issues since 1999?  Do we know where we are going (see chart above)?  

The Vision 2030 Strategic Plan master copy from 2001 has been lost, there are no printed copies available, only a poor scanned copy of paper remains on the LB City website. The website www.visionlaguna.org has expired. What should be done to restore this guiding testament to LB resident values?

Now the plan has been updated for relevancy in 2023, rewritten in digital (pdf) format, searchable and answers those questions, here it is:

Laguna Beach Vision 2030 Strategic Plan REVISED

On 23 April 2023 this REVISED Plan was submitted to the LB City Council, the LB Planning Commission, and to select residents for comment, to date  no comments were received. 

-LS

Minimum Parking Requirements are BULLSHIT

 Why Laguna's parking structures are a boot on our necks.

-LS

Electric Car-Share for Laguna Beach

The motive for public transit has been known for a while: vehicles specifically cars, just sit around Laguna most of the day and require public or private parking space.  Our Laguna Beach Transit Director Paula Pfaust (retired) tells us the LB Trolley costs $16 per boarding, while the LB Transit Department is planning to buy a new fleet of electric LB Trolleys for $250,000 each. When a transit boarding is FREE, these costs are subsidized by city resources, often state and federal grant funding and municipal bonds. And now due to low ridership some Trolleys no longer serve residential routes.  

Meanwhile electric mini car-shares are catching-on  in the United States and Europe costing little as 29-cents per minute plus a small membership fee.  Maybe electric mini car-shares are a solution for on-demand convenience, low Trolley ridership, and high fleet deployment costs. Car-shares are the perfect amenity for affordable housing in Laguna Beach, after all driving an EV Mini or scooter would be a lot more fun than riding a bus.  Here is what makes these mini car-shares attractive. 

Photos: GOOGLE Images

ITALY: Milan, Turin, Bologna, Florence and Rome /  ENJOY by YoYo

"The vehicles have no fixed parking spaces or stations but can be parked anywhere in the city. The provider charges the vehicle itself and promises that the vehicles always have a battery level of at least 30 per cent."   That's the plan from Enjoy, but would it work for independent Gen-Z Americans?  In car-addicted Laguna Beach? Booking the small electric cars costs 29-cents a minute, plus a 1-euro start-up fee. Enjoy has deployed more than 3,000 shared vehicles.

GREECE: Greek island of Astypalea / Volkswagen ID.3, ID.4 , ASTYBUS, ASTYGO

Volkswagen Group and the Greek government agreed to establish a “pioneering mobility system” introducing shared electric mobility and rental services with e-bikes, scooters, and electric cars. In the next step, all commercial vehicles and official cars, such as police, ambulances and public sector vehicles, were also to be electrified. The Astybus system serves small localized communities with micro-fleets of 5 busses with a subscription model. Volkswagen plans to install 'Elli wall box chargers' throughout the island.

SPAIN: Barcelona /  e-Up, SEAT Mó eScooter

After launching its mobility brand Mó in June, Seat is getting its scooters on the road. A fleet of 632 electric scooters is ready for action in Barcelona. Users may jump on via a Smartphone App that follows a subscription model.

The Spanish Volkswagen subsidiary launched Seat Mó in June this year but plans to enter the urban mobility segment . The smallest eKickscooter-25 costs 15 euros per week or 40 euros per month, a eKickscooter-65 is 25 euros per week or 75 euros per month. Short-term Mó rentals is 0,26€/minute when in use, and 0,09€/minute when in Pause mode. The system also allows pay-per-ride. Two models for Seat will run under the Mó label as Seat Mó eScooter-125 and Seat Mó kick scooter-65. Described as “equivalent to 125cc output”, and also the scooter range in kilometers. A pouch at the handlebar allows for navigation using your smartphone.

Mo on SEAT Mó

The brand states Low Emission Zone (LEC) in Barcelona at the beginning of the year had also played a role in the mini-car offering . Seat Mó says  “We are now focusing on launching and establishing the service in Barcelona. Our city will be our playground for new mobility solutions before we scale them up for the rest of the world.”

GERMANY: Berlin, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and Potsdam / MILES, WESHARE

In autumn this year, two new locations were added: Brussels Belgium and  and Ghent in the Netherlands. The MILES fleet currently consists of over 9,000 vehicles – around 70 per cent of which come from the Volkswagen Group.

WESHARE

WeShare, operates around 2,000 Volkswagen ID.3 and ID.4 at its Berlin and Hamburg locations, with a total of more than 200,000 users.

“New mobility services such as car subscription models and car sharing are enjoying strong demand,” says Dr Christian Dahlheim, Chairman of the Board of Volkswagen Financial Services AG, holding responsibility for the Volkswagen Group’s core activities in the field of mobility solutions. “This is a trend in which we would like to participate more.” Dahlheim said that carsharing is to become available to an even broader spectrum of customers with a “strong partner to operate the fleet” and with vehicles from various Volkswagen Group brands.

"The acquisition represents yet another German carmaker parting with its carsharing business. BMW and Mercedes-Benz already sold their joint car-sharing business Share Now to the Stellantis mobility subsidiary Free2Move in the summer. Renault has made turned extra focus to car-sharing services and has made this a strong target in part of its Mobilize offering."

 

ITALY: Turin / XEV Yoyo

3D-Printed YoYo

The small 3D-printed electric car model Yoyo from the Italian start-up XEV is now in car-sharing use. Enjoy, Eni’s car-sharing service, is deploying 100 examples of the XEV Yoyo in Turin. 

The urban mobility vehicle is a two-seater that is 2.53 metres short and weighs only 450 kilograms (990 pounds without battery). The finished Yoyo range is up to 150 kilometres (93 miles).

These new cars  occupy minimal city space and energy, The car-sharing offers customers the convenience of ‘free floating’ car sharing that allows rentals to begin and end anywhere within Enjoy’s coverage area.

USA: New Jersey / ENVOY, BLINK

Envoy developed a car sharing platform and mobile app that provides electric vehicles as an amenity to apartments, office buildings and hotels. Envoy offers technology to reserve and access vehicles and provide maintenance services, chargers, the fleet and analytics. Blink combined existing EV carsharing service with Envoy’s fleet to develop an electric carsharing program in New Jersey.

 

BLINK

 In the USA, Blink Mobility announced the expansion of its BlueLA electric car-sharing program serving Los Angeles with 300 street side EV charging stations and an increase the car-sharing EV fleet. A Los Angeles City Council vote approved Blink to add 300 street side EV charging stations at an anticipated 60 destinations across the city. An expansion agreement called BlueLA will deploy 500 EV charging stations at 100 locations across LA and include 300 vehicles- based on utilization rates.

GERMANY & USA:  SION EV

The new Sion electric vehicle can be shared with friends, relatives or neighbours via the Sono App – when the Sion is launched in 2023. The Sion business model is revealed in the founder's statement:  “Our goal is to become the largest car-sharing platform without owning a single vehicle,” says Laurin Hahn, CEO and co-founder of Sono Motors.

DALMER AND BMW Share Now

Car-sharing provider Share Now has provided insights into statistics on the use of electric vehicles in its European car-sharing fleet. The company now operates 2,900 BMW, Mini, Smart and Fiat electric cars at four all-electric and four partially electric locations.

What is new is the fact that, since the first electric vehicles were floated in 2011, Drive Now customers across Europe have driven 200 million kilometers purely on electric power, about 5,000 circumnavigations of the globe. ( for detail see https://www.electrive.com/tag/car-sharing/)

-LS

Parking Structures Projects G-Q Total Cost

The June 13 2023 Parking and Transportation Demand Management Plan addresses nine parking structures G-O (Table 2 page 67), the Present Value of all parking structures current and previously proposed are Projects G thru Q shown in this chart. The total cost of all the projects is $326,000,000 for roughly  1700 added spaces, that's $192,000 per added space. What logic suggests parking a visitor Toyota in a $192,000 space?

 

The costs in these estimates include:

• Construction Costs
• Land Cost (were applicable)
  
• Opportunity Costs
• In-Lieu Fees
  
• Debt Service
• Operation and Maintenance
• Demolition and Salvage
  

The costs NOT included in these estimates are:

• Bond Premiums
• Soil Remediation
• Parking Enforcement,  
• Environment (quakes, floods)
• Depreciation
• Inflation and Taxes

Given Laguna residents are already obligated for $500 Million in debt for  undergrounding power utilities, all these projects are due approval by public vote.                        

  Let Laguna VOTE!

-LS 

Laguna's Cycle Tavern

How would it be?

Just in time for 

• Fete de la Musique
  
• Festival of Arts
• Fourth of July
• Anytime 
  

 -LS

Parking Meter Rates at Eleven Parking Structures II

The 13 June 2023 LB Agenda contains the Parking and Transportation Demand Management Report prepared by the Parking Master Plan Subcommittee calling for  embellishing eighteen parking lots and constructing nine new parking structures. Table-2 of this report gives a summary labeled Projects G-O, their street locations in Laguna Beach, the number of parking spaces added and the capital cost of construction. Assuming 30-year financing and 40-year life the charts below shows the minimum hourly parking rate necessary to breakeven with the amortized costs over the 40-year structure life.  

 

The first chart includes land and opportunity costs (if any) per parking space added.  The second chart excludes land and opportunity costs for all spaces provided. In this way the charts bound the possible outcomes from the highest meter rate to the lowest, for each project.

The analysis considers costs of construction, debt service, land costs, opportunity costs, demolition, salvage, in-lieu parking fees, maintenance and other costs in the amortization over the structure lifetime. Not included: bond financing premiums, parking enforcement, soil remediation, environment factors (quakes, floods), depreciation, inflation and taxes (if applicable). These results are preliminary and may be updated as project information is made available. Project I is the Village Entrance 3-story structure.

 -LS