MoveNews #109 for the week of July 11, 2010

Regional

7/21: Senate Bill 375 Target-Setting Public Workshop

The California Air Resources Board's (CARB) has announced a SB 375 target-setting public workshop in the San Diego region.

Date:		Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Time:		9:00 am - 12:00 pm
Location:		San Diego County Admin. Bldg. 3rd floor Board Chambers
		1600 Pacific Highway San Diego, CA 92101
		Webcast Available

SB 375 requires the Metropolitan Planning Organizations (SANDAG in San Diego) in the state to add a Sustainable Communities Strategy to their regular regional planning process that is designed to look at how different land use and transportation strategies can help meet long-term sustainability goals.

To help guide these regional planning efforts, CARB is to set regional passenger vehicle greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for 2020 and 2035 and update them over time.

This workshop is an opportunity for the public to participate in the first target-setting cycle under SB 375 and will include time for public comment. You may also submit comments via their website.

Comments received by July 30, 2010 will be considered for CARB staff's proposed final targets that will come out in August.

Schwarzenegger pushes back on global warming measure
Sacramento Bee Capitol Blog, June 23, 2010

The Schwarzenegger administration unveiled a "Vision California" report that urges the state to wean itself from sprawling residential patterns and auto-dependent transportation, that appears aimed at countering a newly qualified ballot measure. The measure, sponsored by a coalition of oil companies and conservative groups, would suspend implementation of Assembly Bill 32, the 2006 legislation that requires California to lower its use of carbon-based fuels and thus reduce greenhouse gas emissions, until the state's unemployment rate drops dramatically. ...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has denounced the November ballot measure and vowed to defeat it at the polls. His administration's new report contends that California must cope with its ever-rising population by shifting to denser, transit-oriented development patterns and says that doing so will dramatically lower the cost of living in the state, citing both AB 32 and Senate Bill 375, another new law aimed at implementing higher-density development patterns.

"Vision California: Charting Our Future"

Comments by Move San Diego member Sherm Harmer, Jr., Urban Housing Partners (San Diego)

San Diego - The traditional development patterns of suburban development will only serve a small portion of our future population effectively. Non-family, childless households, are estimated to be 75% of our future housing needs. These households are more than ever concerned about energy, water, and transportation costs.

Our future must contain more opportunities for residences that are connected to Transit and Mixed-Use, and more directly connected to employment.  Our patterns of development are at its root. If we continue business as usual, today's problem will seem trivial. Major efforts need to be made to rebuild our "Urban Core" with Compact development served by efficient and convenient rapid transit systems.

Urban Lands Institute analysis of SB 375

Fundamentally, SB 375 is intended to guide more sustainable land use and development decisions through coordination at the state, regional, and local levels.This report summarizes the findings from a ULI panel that was formed to assess the economic implications of the California Senate Bill 375 (SB 375), and associated implementation recommendations.

Urban CO₂ domes increase deaths
Stanford University, March 17, 2010

Data suggest that domes of high CO₂ levels form over cities. Despite our knowledge of these domes for over a decade, no study has contemplated their effects on air pollution or health. In fact, all air pollution regulations worldwide assume arbitrarily that such domes have no local health impact, and carbon policy proposals, such as "cap and trade", implicitly assume that CO₂ impacts are the same regardless of where emissions occur.

Here, it is found through data-evaluated numerical modeling with telescoping domains from the globe to the U.S., California, and Los Angeles, that local CO₂ emissions in isolation may increase local ozone and particulate matter ... and it is estimated that local CO₂ emissions may increase premature mortality.... As such, reducing locally emitted CO₂ may reduce local air pollution mortality even if CO₂ in adjacent regions is not controlled.

If correct, this result contradicts the basis for air pollution regulations worldwide, none of which considers controlling local CO₂ based on its local health impacts.

Fast Facts

The American transportation network includes 45,000 miles of interstate highway and 575,000 highway bridges
      Source: CALPIRG, Road Work Ahead

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