Transcript No Slide Title
Make your city
Super Cool,
unlike Palo Alto • You • 4 background slides, advice, pause (Irv, etc), more – Smart land use is inconveniently complex – Prod Sierra Club/ICLEI Cool Cities into smart land use • EPA Grant: “Transforming Office Parks into Transit Villages” ---- suburban Bay Area.
You
• Sierra Club 7 • Berkeley 5, Livable Berkeley 3 • Grad Students, Bike Advocates 3 • Alameda, Albany 2 • Bay Rail, Greenbelt, CCCTA, ACTIA, EPA, MTC, Bay Localize (2), AIA • Vallejo, Hayward, Petaluma, San Rafael, Emeryville.
Family Energy Consumption “Free parking suburban”: much more than rest of world
250 Transportation Use Household Use 200 125 150 Million BTU per Year 100
83 28 20 50 115 115 20 81 69 42 0 Suburban Avg (240 MBTU) Suburban Green (164 MBTU) Urban Avg Urban Green (143 MBTU) (89 MBTU) Urban Multifamily Green (62 MBTU) Single Family Household Type
© Jonathan Rose Companies, LLC
Efficient Human Settlement Patterns
• For each person, minimize the distances in the triangle below. Miles feet • Efficient: lower cost of living ($4,000 less auto cost), more convenient, more lively/vibrant, less time wasted in traffic, more family time, more walking / healthier, stronger community, bump into neighbors! Mobility for kids/seniors.
Home Job
Activities
3 stage path to sustainability
• Can’t go straight there • 1) Populist: Consciousness raising, recycling, sea bass, Prius, non-threatening to government, current smart growth best practices, light bulbs • 2) Fundamental (2020 goals): efficient human settlement patterns. Land-use conversant population, government restructuring. Green building. Smarter smart growth • 3) Profound (2050 goals): 80% NRG & resource reduction, 4B population, accurate pricing, renewable NRG, diet restructuring, anti-materialism, lower GNP, etc.
Split: smart land use & warming
Superset: Handles population growth Subset: Will miss 2020 & 2050 Who: James Hansen, Sierra, Palo Alto Cool, ICLEI, “anti growth” suburbanites, EPA, Oak Ridge Natl Labs, Pew Who: CA State Climate Action Team, Al Gore, TALC, Greenbelt, Don Weden, Calthorpe, SVLG, Cervero, Bill McKibben, Jared Diamond, Lester Brown, Bill Fulton Solutions: solar, high mpg, lite bulbs, cap and trade, green building, etc. Solutions: Do what TALC tells you! Smart land use! Reduce demand • Empathy: PhDs, anti-growthers, Prius & VMT • Palo Alto: ABAG RHNA 3,716 homes by 2014 – Irv and Steve: OpEds & agitation tactics.
Improved Cool Cities Process
• Palo Alto committees: energy, transportation, green building, education, waste reduction – Form a “land use” committee!!!!
• Ensure that carbon measure includes in and out-commuting. IE regional impacts, not parochial • Have Don Weden come speak about regional population growth, smart land use, and carbon • Ask for a
professional
cost/benefit carbon study. (EDAW’s Irvine Park study.) Else, random list of “solutions” from volunteers – Cities, Sierra Club, TALC, and ICLEI should pool resources on one study. Google.org is sympathetic. Limit to planning firms, not climatologist PhDs.
Improved Cool Cities Process
• Add an
innovation
plank. Can’t meet 2020 carbon targets with current best practices – MTC 2030 smart growth scenario: 50% population growth, 40% VMT growth – You could propose: cap VMT at 2007!
• Prod, collaborate with, compete with other cool cities – Consider offering a huge carbon reduction if 5 other local cool cities join – Example: charge for parking at offices (provided other cities do the same).
Cool Cities smart land use (suburbs)
• Ask TALC and Greenbelt for help! Network with other cool cities campaigns. You are not alone!
• Charge for parking. Stanford is low CO2 • Tactic: Be anguished about CO2 and growth – Pro growth is unpopular, but you can educate • Meet ABAG RHNA. Put homes near jobs (duh). More effective than mixed use TOD (Cervero, JAPA ‘06) • Extended TOD (more, bigger. Circulator transit).
Cool Cities smart land use (suburbs)
• 3 story 50 DU/acre supports retail, de generating auto trips. Pearl District is low CO2 • Prioritize new housing for short/green commuters • TDM (commute trip reduction, etc) is good • EIRs: add climate / sustainability impact • Engage on all “big projects:” 100 DU, 50K sf office, 25K sf retail – Local politics is 50% about real-estate, that’s where you can make a difference.
PAUSE
• Coming up: Advanced topics – 6 slides.
3,716 ABAG homes in Palo Alto
Housing – Global Warming “Anguish” • ABAG is the good guy • Palo Alto has too many jobs. Jobs/housing imbalance – 59,000 population, 87,000 jobs – Need 90,000 additional residents • CO2 impact: 15 tons per year per “avoided home” – Assumes homes are built beyond the first ring of foothills in Tracy, Gilroy, & in the Central Valley – Check Sunday real-estate section in Merc or Chron • Chief planner, Ira Ruskin, 3 councilmembers, planning commissioner on record as opposed – Had e-mail discussions with two councilmembers.
Fake solutions
• Hydrogen economy (A better battery, so nice increment. Entrenched interests) – ADM corn fuel • AHS (auto-pilot cars) – “low friction” long distance transportation ultra sprawl • Outer ring solar roof McMansion • “Socially responsible” companies – w/ bad settlement patterns.
Paid Parking / Tragedy of Commons
• Paid parking (at suburban offices) reduces commute trips (and CO2) by 23% • Tragedy of the Commons – no office wants to be the first to charge less competitive. • Need to all “jump in together” – Example: smoking ban in bars: Bloomington, St. Paul, Minneapolis • From Cool Cities web: Mountain View, Santa Clara, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, San Jose, Menlo Park, Redwood City, Palo Alto • Complicated to implement – Redevelop parking spaces & distribute “found” wealth – Start with $1 per day & increase each year.
Quantum Innovation / Public Policy
• Innovations produce winners & losers • Political subsystems favor incremental change – ag, defense, energy, transit, healthcare, edu, etc.
– “analysis is politics by other means” – Auto/highway subsystem trumps transit • Public sector: huge penalty for failure • Media stifles innovation, accentuates conflict • Macropolitical system can impose quantum change – earmarks, etc – ’79+: mature democracy, entrenched interests • Billionaires & tech foundations: quantum • Strong govt: Dubai, China.
More: Human Settlement Patterns
• Big required change: demand/behavior side. There’s no quick transportation or energy supply fix. (dilithium) – Frustration: environment smart growth links are weak • For each person, minimize the distances in the triangle below. Miles feet – 4 story urbanist mixed use TV 50% of trips w/o car, mostly walk, not transit (GB Arrington, TCRP 102) – “walk to quart of milk” • πr 2 :: pipes, wires, streets, distribution. Infrastructure cost savings in the billions for Envision Utah. (25% -TCRP74) Home Job
Activities
Regional Visioning
• 30 big U.S. metro regions are “visioning” – CA @ 50M, CNU/RV, CA’s Future in the Balance, Compass, MTC, Frego/Calthorpe 80% share • In 25 years, 50% population growth. w/ smart scenario, only 40% VMT increase – Scenario implementation not guaranteed – Things get worse. Only slows the acceleration of degradation . Calthorpe: “We should be doing more to reduce ecological footprint” (www.ecofoot.org) – Current TOD/SG isn’t a fix . Only 200 small transit villages • Need more, bigger, smarter SG faster, dang it!
– Toolbox doesn’t work. Have to go outside of the box • Frego/Calthorpe held back by clients. Unchecked, Calthorpe would have: – Carbon tax, new transit circulator (not “90 year old transit technology”), strong office park Rx..
THE END
Steve Raney Resume
• Cities21 (next generation smart growth) founder – Palo Alto, CA. Bay Area • EPA grant: Transform Office Parks to Transit Villages • Columbia MBA, RPI Computer Science Masters, Berkeley Transportation Planning Masters • Project Mgr: BART Group Rapid Transit Study • MS Technology Evangelist, Silicon Valley • GPS / cellular carpool assistant patent • 6 Transportation Research Board, 3 TRR papers • Habitat for Humanity Training Coordinator.