With due appreciation to the organizers and sponsors of this week’s California APA conference, there’s been a lot of food to keep over 1,500 planners sustained and energized this week. >>read more
The High Cost of Free Parking, by UCLA professor emeritus Don Shoup's landmark call for parking reform, was published in 2005. On the occasion of its tenth anniversary, some of his strongest devotees can, at long last, celebrate a victory in the state where the "Shoupista" movement began.
Assembly Bill 744 (Chau) - recently signed by Gov. Jerry Brown -- ushers in a new era in parking regulations in California cities. Chipping away at rules that many consider arbitrary and anti-urban, it dictates that a city may not impose parking minimums greater than 0.5 spaces for housing developments comprising 100 percent affordable units within a half-mile radius of a major transit stop. >>read more
The Strategic Growth Council has proposed that 40% of its estimated $130 million in cap-and-trade funds be devoted to transit-oriented development (TOD) projects and that another 30% be devoted to a variety of infrastructure-related programs that may include housing.
The SGC issued draft program guidelines yesterday afternoon. The week before, the Air Resources Board (ARB) adopted guidelines on benefits to disadvantaged communities.
The $188 million Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center (ARTIC), which broke ground earlier this month, is the most recent example of a fast-growing list of public facilities with big ambitions: the local transit hub that connects local and regional transit rail lines with bus service, taxies, bicycle locks and sometimes business services for travelers. The anticipation of high-speed rail also adds some drama to the Anaheim transit center.
It's not quite the Golden Spike, but the completion of Phase I of the Los Angeles Expo Line light rail marks a momentous occasion in the history of westward rail expansion.
Update: Yesterday the leadership of the California Chapter of the American Planning Association decided to oppose the current draft of Assembly Bill 904, which seeks to lower parking minimums in transit-oriented areas. Here is the APA's letter (.doc) to bill sponsor Nancy Skinner.
As planners have increasingly embraced the principles of smart growth over the past few years, suburban areas have increasingly borne criticism as examples of how not to plan. This criticism often ignores a crucial point: even if suburbs are imperfect-largely because they promote automobile dependency-they are not necessarily hopeless. A recently completed study led by Prof.
Loath as I am to make grand pronouncements, I think Bay Meadows, the 83-acre project in San Mateo, is possibly the best plan I've seen for a transit oriented development.
Chances are the typical high-level urban planner, someone who has been through graduate school, secured a good job, and put in the years to rise to a position of authority, lives what might be considered a conventional lifestyle. He or she is probably married, probably has a house, and probably lives among the same. >>read more
