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News clippings related to transit, mobility and quality of life
MoveNews #94 for the week of March 28, 2010
MoveSD News
MoveSD Executive Director on Chamber Transportation Project Task Group
MoveSD Executive Director Elyse Lowe will be serving on the newly formed San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce Transportation Project Task Group. The group will advocate for issues that will maximize transportation dollars in the San Diego region and provide vital input from the business community.
Projects include implementation of AB 32, the Regional Transportation Plan (RTP), Federal stimulus funding and the Federal Transportation Act Reauthorization - MAP 21 - Moving Ahead in the 21st Century.
Regional
Walk San Diego Lunch Series: "SB 375: What it means to San Diego?"
North County Times, March 12, 2010
A forum to exchange information and ideas on walkability in the San Diego Region. Join us for the next installment in our Luncheon Series: "SB 375: What it means to San Diego?" Our special guest presenter will be Hannah Cohen, The Cohen Group
Date: April 9, 2010
Time: 12:00-1:00 P.M.
Location: 193 Horton Plaza, 1st level, (Next to Victoria's Secret)
Suggested Lunch Donation is $5.00, RSVP by April 6th, $7.00 at the door
Please RSVP to Cynthia Offenhauer: coffenhauer@walksandiego.org
Free Parking at Horton Plaza Garage. Many transit routes available at www.sdcommute.com
California
What the fight over transit funding is really all about
HealthyCal, March 17, 2010
You may be hearing or reading that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has said he will veto the Democrats plan to cut public transit funding. If that sounds odd, its because the real story is the reverse. The governor actually opposes to the bill because it gives too much to transit, in his view, not too little.
Both the governor and the Democrats agree that they should engineer some kind of complex gas tax swap in order to get around a decades-old law that has a formula that now requires the state to give hundreds of millions of dollars to transit. The state tried to circumvent this law in other ways in years past, but transit operators sued and won. If the law remains unchanged, transit is due a huge windfall at a time when the state is desperate for dollars.
So the latest idea is to simply repeal the sales tax on gas and replace it with an increase in the per-gallon excise tax that would generate close to the same amount of money. Why? Because revenue from the new tax would not be locked down for transit the way the sales tax is. The state then takes most of the money that would have gone to transit and uses it for other transportation purposes, mainly paying off construction bonds. This has the effect of freeing up unrestricted money in the general fund that would otherwise be used to pay off the bonds. That money can now be used for other programs, like education or health care or social services.
The governor wants to do all of this in a way that leaves gas taxes about 5 cents per gallon less than the are today. And his proposal would give nothing to transit.
Guide to Transportation Decisionmaking
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) of the U.S. Department of Transportation created this easy to read and understand guide to increase citizen and public awareness of the transportation planning process, focusing on how transportation decisions are made at the local, state, and national levels; and how to take advantage of the opportunities offered to contribute their ideas to the transportation planning process.
Assessing Mechanisms for Integrating Transportation-Related Greenhouse Gas Reduction Objectives into Transportation Decision Making
Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, March 22, 2010
This report is the product of research supported by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program. (NCHRP) The objective of NCHRP Project 20-24(64) was to provide a factual basis for judging the merits of alternative methods that state departments of transportation (DOTs) and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) can use for managing GHG emissions from transportation. The project was undertaken to help policy makers to understand (a) how these alternative approaches to GHG emissions would affect states and metropolitan areas, (b) what approaches may be most effective for evaluating mobile-source GHG emission-management strategies, and (c) what particular tools are available to support implementation of these alternative approaches.
WHILE the Clean Investment Funds (CIFs) and the Clean Technology Funds (CTFs) are helping developing countries raise funds for much-needed alternative-energy projects needed to adapt to and mitigate climate change, civil-society organizations (CSO) vow to be vigilant in monitoring projects. ... The Philippines is one of the first recipients of the CIF. The country is set to receive some $250 million under the CTF. ... Asian Development Bank (ADB) vice president Ursula Schaefer-Preuss said, all in all, this could reach up to $2.5 billion to include CIFs from international lenders and donors like the World Bank, International Finance Corp. and the national government.
In a working paper released by the World Resources Institute (WRI), a Washington-based think tank, some $6.3 billion CIFs were established in January 2008 to operate until 2012. The World Bank will administer the funds which include the CTF and a Strategic Climate Fund that support several lines of programming, including a Pilot Program on Climate Resilience, a Forest Investment Program, and a Scaling Up Renewable Energy Program. ...
WRI welcomed the planned Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems for Cebu and Metro Manila to be funded under the CIFs provided to the Philippines. ... ADB said that BRT systems are among the most cost-effective public transport systems in the world. A BRT is a mass-transit system that mimics the speed and performance of metros or light-rail transit (LRT), but uses buses rather than rail vehicles. As such, BRT combines the reliability of rail and the versatility of conventional bus systems at a fraction of the cost of rail. Based on data from the ADB, the proposed BRT interventions are estimated to reduce greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions by about 0.6-0.8 metric ton CO2 every year.
Fast Facts
A 2005 Federal Transit Administration report predicted significant reductions in vehicular carbon dioxide emissions by replacing private vehicle travel with BRT (Bus Rapid Transit).
Source: Center for Urban Transportation Research
MoveNews #94 was edited by Carolyn Chase and published by Move San Diego, Inc. as a service to our members. You may subscribe, unsubscribe, or send article suggestions by sending an email request to: info@movesandiego.org
NOTE: if there is no link provided to an item, then there is no additional content on that item. All links were current as of the date of publication.
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