Climate Change
Scott leading planning professionals on a tour of Bird Rock in La Jolla, one of America's "Most Re-Made Neighborhoods"
Last week I got to lead groups of planning professionals in town for a national smart-growth conference on walking tours of the Bird Rock neighborhood in La Jolla. Bird Rock is now considered a model for how cities can re-make older, urban neighborhoods and turn them into thriving, walkable places where small businesses can flourish. In fact, the conference program book posed the question, “Could Bird Rock be America’s Most Remade Street?”
I wrote about Bird Rock in this blog last fall, about how, as a City Councilman, I worked with residents and business owners who created a new vision for what was then a dreary corridor of empty storefronts that drivers treated as a thoroughfare. A portion of this $5.6 million project was funded with federal transportation funds aimed at building pedestrian and bike-friendly communities.
Last week, the House Transportation Committee, supported by the Republican leadership, proposed to gut the alternative transportation fund, jeopardizing not just funds for neighborhood projects such as these, but also for all forms of public transportation — and for projects that support alternative transportation like biking and walking — that many Americans count on to get to work and school. This assault on transit couldn’t come at a worse time. When the economy is struggling and gas prices are high, people need all types of affordable and reliable transportation.
Roundabouts made Bird Rock more pedestrian friendly
The bill also takes away the small portion of Federal Transportation funding sent aside for bike paths, to make communities friendlier for pedestrians, and to create safe passage ways for kids to walk to school. Yet, it leaves completely intact funds for more monstrous highway projects that will lead to more cars on the road, more air pollution, and more dependence on fossil fuels. It’s just bad policy all the way around; it’s bad for our children, our neighborhoods, for small businesses that rely on foot traffic to succeed, and it’s bad for our environment.
This outrageous move essentially rolls back 30 years of federal transportation policy that sets aside a small share of gas tax revenues to fund transit. If approved, long-term stability for public transportation projects, which often take years to build, will be gone. States, cities, communities and their transit systems could lose billions.
For more information about this terrible proposal, go to this link http://t4america.org/blog/ and let your representatives know that you support neighborhoods, walkable communities, bike paths and dedicated funding for affordable mass transit.
" width="179" height="133" />Asphalt isn’t the only transportation answer
Scott leading planning professionals on a tour of Bird Rock in La Jolla, one of America's "Most Re-Made Neighborhoods"
Last week I got to lead groups of planning professionals in town for a national smart-growth conference on walking tours of the Bird Rock neighborhood in La Jolla. Bird Rock is now considered a model for how cities can re-make older, urban neighborhoods and turn them into thriving, walkable places where small businesses can flourish. In fact, the conference program book posed the question, “Could Bird Rock be America’s Most Remade Street?”
I wrote about Bird Rock in this blog last fall, about how, as a City Councilman, I worked with residents and business owners who created a new vision for what was then a dreary corridor of empty storefronts that drivers treated as a thoroughfare. A portion of this $5.6 million project was funded with federal transportation funds aimed at building pedestrian and bike-friendly communities.
Last week, the House Transportation Committee, supported by the Republican leadership, proposed to gut the alternative transportation fund, jeopardizing not just funds for neighborhood projects such as these, but also for all forms of public transportation — and for projects that support alternative transportation like biking and walking — that many Americans count on to get to work and school. This assault on transit couldn’t come at a worse time. When the economy is struggling and gas prices are high, people need all types of affordable and reliable transportation.
Roundabouts made Bird Rock more pedestrian friendly
The bill also takes away the small portion of Federal Transportation funding sent aside for bike paths, to make communities friendlier for pedestrians, and to create safe passage ways for kids to walk to school. Yet, it leaves completely intact funds for more monstrous highway projects that will lead to more cars on the road, more air pollution, and more dependence on fossil fuels. It’s just bad policy all the way around; it’s bad for our children, our neighborhoods, for small businesses that rely on foot traffic to succeed, and it’s bad for our environment.
This outrageous move essentially rolls back 30 years of federal transportation policy that sets aside a small share of gas tax revenues to fund transit. If approved, long-term stability for public transportation projects, which often take years to build, will be gone. States, cities, communities and their transit systems could lose billions.
For more information about this terrible proposal, go to this link http://t4america.org/blog/ and let your representatives know that you support neighborhoods, walkable communities, bike paths and dedicated funding for affordable mass transit.
The San Diego Foundation, I attended a conference at the California Endowment in Los Angeles on how philanthropy can help support “smart growth.” The term “smart growth” may be overused, but it is really just a short way of saying that new growth should be concentrated in areas that are already developed. New developments should happen near existing roads, water and sewer infrastructure, and ideally in conjunction with public transit. In other words, in places that make sense.
Community foundations have begun to take on tasks previously handled by governments, as governments are hamstrung by a lack of resources. For instance, around the nation, community foundations and nonprofit groups have taken a larger role in researching the best ways to plan and implement future growth. They have engaged various interest and community groups to help fashion solutions and make change happen.
At the conference in LA, we talked a lot about this notion of non-profit help for smart growth and we looked at the San Francisco Bay Area as an example. The Great Communities Collaborative has focused on influencing the design of 25 transit stations and the land uses around those stations. They want to make sure that the real estate developments there will provide affordable housing, local jobs, and community amenities. They also want to ensure that the kinds of residences and businesses that are developed there will generate transit use. It’s a “ridership” strategy that goes beyond the “transit strategy” that too many transportation planners end with.
This is the kind of thinking I’d like to see more of in San Diego, especially as we are about to construct a billion-dollar extension of the light rail trolley from Old Town to UCSD and University City/UTC. Engineers are busy thinking of how the rail lines will be laid out, but we all can be thinking now about how to maximize the usefulness of that transit investment. We can focus on planning stations for this light rail and development around those stations that will support transit ridership. The catch? That is going to require some thoughtful and informed community engagement which would not be easy even had the City of San Diego planning department not been axed. I suspect that philanthropic support could go a long way to knit communities into government planning and implementation.
Non-Profit Help for Smart Growth in San Diego
As Chairman of the Climate Initiative at The San Diego Foundation, I attended a conference at the California Endowment in Los Angeles on how philanthropy can help support “smart growth.” The term “smart growth” may be overused, but it is really just a short way of saying that new growth should be concentrated in areas that are already developed. New developments should happen near existing roads, water and sewer infrastructure, and ideally in conjunction with public transit. In other words, in places that make sense.
Community foundations have begun to take on tasks previously handled by governments, as governments are hamstrung by a lack of resources. For instance, around the nation, community foundations and nonprofit groups have taken a larger role in researching the best ways to plan and implement future growth. They have engaged various interest and community groups to help fashion solutions and make change happen.
At the conference in LA, we talked a lot about this notion of non-profit help for smart growth and we looked at the San Francisco Bay Area as an example. The Great Communities Collaborative has focused on influencing the design of 25 transit stations and the land uses around those stations. They want to make sure that the real estate developments there will provide affordable housing, local jobs, and community amenities. They also want to ensure that the kinds of residences and businesses that are developed there will generate transit use. It’s a “ridership” strategy that goes beyond the “transit strategy” that too many transportation planners end with.
This is the kind of thinking I’d like to see more of in San Diego, especially as we are about to construct a billion-dollar extension of the light rail trolley from Old Town to UCSD and University City/UTC. Engineers are busy thinking of how the rail lines will be laid out, but we all can be thinking now about how to maximize the usefulness of that transit investment. We can focus on planning stations for this light rail and development around those stations that will support transit ridership. The catch? That is going to require some thoughtful and informed community engagement which would not be easy even had the City of San Diego planning department not been axed. I suspect that philanthropic support could go a long way to knit communities into government planning and implementation.