The global population will pass 7 billion within days. The worldwide oil supply is dwindling. We're already living in an atmosphere which has exceeded ideal carbon concentrations. The CO2 parts per billion are projected to rise exponentially in the decades to come, together with related environmental and human health impacts. And on Friday, San Diego is poised to commit the next 40 years to building more highways at the expense of desperately needed transit - unless they hear from us.
Proposed legislation would stymie important upgrades to our transportation network.
by Brian Leubitz
In a letter delivered to the Chair of the House Transportation Committee, California Democrats strongly objected to proposed cuts in transportation funding:
We are writing today to express our concerns about the recently released Republican proposal for the Surface Transportation Reauthorization Act that cuts almost 1/3 of current level funding for highways and mass transit. Specifically, we urge you to reconsider the overall proposed funding level, which would further adversely affect the fragile economy in California and the nation.
In order to compete in the global market, we must invest in our infrastructure as our biggest competitor already does. China spends 9 percent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually on infrastructure, while the U.S. spends less than 2 percent. More startling is the fact that the U.S. spends 40 percent less than it needs every year to improve the outdated backbone of our country.
Equally concerning is the recently released study by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The report shows that if we do not properly invest in our nation's infrastructure, we could lose more than 870,000 jobs, and suppress the growth of the country's GDP by $3.1 trillion by 2020. The report also showed that in 2010, deficiencies in America's roads, bridges, and transit systems cost American households and businesses more than $129 billion, including $32 billion in delays in travel time and $590 million in environmental costs.
In a time when the nation is clearly desperate for jobs, why are we embarking on a prolonged period of austerity? These transportation cuts would put people out of work right away, adding to our unemployment roles, and putting us on the wrong direction for the economy.
There are a great many ways that we should be spending money. While we seem to have limitless funds for three wars, and the rich can party like it is 2006, how is it that we can't manage to ensure that our bridges don't collapse and that we have safe highways?
In America, today, there are three kinds of drivers: those who look at the other gas pumps down at the ol' gas station and think: "Oh my God, I can't believe how much that guy's spending on gas", those who look at their own pump down at the ol' gas station and think: "Oh my God, I can't believe how much I'm spending on gas" - and those who are doing both at the same time.
Naturally, this has brought the Sarah Palins of the world back out in public, and once again the mantra of "Drill, Baby, Drill" can be heard all the way from the Florida coast to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
But what if those folks have it exactly backwards?
What if, in a world of depleting oil resources, the last thing you want to do is use yours up?
To put it another way: why isn't all our oil part of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
With his State of the Union address, President Obama delivered an important message that Congress and the American people need to hear: our nation's leaders must pass legislation that creates American jobs now.
America, our shining city on a hill, has been blessed with great fortune in our proud past, but as the President noted, every generation faces new challenges and new opportunities. We must be bold and forward looking, never forgetting that America's prosperity has always relied on hard work, solid education, and well-maintained infrastructure. We're a nation that has always thrived when we've built things - the light bulb, the automobile, the Internet, and the GPS. We need to build things again. We need to Make It In America
I invite everyone to join me, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and a host of local leaders and groups in a rally to support Measure R 30/10, the Mayor's plan to accelerate taxpayer-approved transit construction projects. If funded, the projects will create more than 165,000 construction jobs and 2,800 permanent maintenance jobs over the next 10 years.
One of the most important transportation projects in California, aside from my beloved high speed rail project of course, is the Subway to the Sea. A long-planned effort to build passenger rail to Santa Monica via the Wilshire corridor, it has become a primary goal of LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Few areas in North America are as congested as LA's Westside, and a subway through this region would be a godsend, creating thousands of jobs and reducing dependence on oil while untangling the traffic mess.
But LA County also has several other passenger rail projects they're considering, and with the passage of Measure R (a tax approved by 2/3rds of voters in the state's most populous county last November) along with a transit-friendly White House, Metro can actually reasonably expect them to get built.
The question is what gets built and when - and with what federal funds. As with most other transportation projects around the country, Metro's projects will need federal "new starts" funding. Villaraigosa wants Metro's board to prioritize the Subway to the Sea and another related project, the "Downtown Connector" (finally linking the Blue and Gold lines, as originally intended).
Villaraigosa's plans are getting some pushback from local members of Congress. 14 members of Congress, including Adam Schiff, Jane Harman, David Dreier, and Maxine Waters, wrote a letter telling the Metro board that if they follow Villaraigosa's plan, they risk losing out on federal funding:
The 14 members of Congress who signed a letter released Tuesday said those two programs [Subway to the Sea and Downtown Connector] don't have a good shot at immediate federal funding.
Further, they said the county risks not getting much from the federal New Starts program for several years unless it adds other regional transit proposals to the application, including the Gold Line extension east from Pasadena, a rail line down Crenshaw Boulevard and the Gold Line Eastside extension Phase 2 from East L.A. to South El Monte or Whittier.
"We are very concerned that Los Angeles County is not positioning itself well to receive its fair share of New Starts funding in the near- and long-term," the delegation wrote.
The background is that there are three other projects that some Metro board members and legislators want funded: a light rail line down Crenshaw, connecting the Red and Purple lines to the Expo and Green lines; and two extensions of the Gold Line into the suburban San Gabriel Valley.
The battle reflects typical political debates in LA County, with the Subway to the Sea and the Downtown Connector seen as benefiting the wealthy Westside at the expense of the less prosperous and more diverse South LA and San Gabriel Valley communities. And as the legislators' letter makes clear, it's inconceivable that Metro could get new starts funding for all 5 projects.
Of course, the US Congress isn't a place where such sensible considerations rule the day. David Dreier, whose district includes the I-210 corridor along which one of the Gold Line extensions would run, has been particularly adamant about ensuring that project gets support from the Metro board. And South LA representatives understandably want to ensure that their communities get served by transit - as residents there have the greatest dependence on transit, their case is strong.
If it were up to me, I'd back the Subway to the Sea, the Downtown Connector, and the Crenshaw line and tell Dreier to shove it. As the LA Subway Blog notes, the Subway to the Sea will have enormous regional benefits. Just because it is located on the Westside doesn't mean that's the only place it will assist - just as the Port of Los Angeles-Long Beach doesn't just benefit people living in San Pedro and Wilmington.
But the real issue here isn't picking which of the 5 worthy projects gets supported and which doesn't. Metro would be in better shape if the state of California wasn't in the process of abandoning its support for mass transit. The state ought to be able to help fund construction of one or two of these projects, leaving the feds more able to support the other three. For example, the state should be able to help start the Crenshaw line and one of the Gold Line extensions, enabling the feds to fund the Subway to the Sea, the Downtown Connector, and the other Gold Line extension.
Southern California was the poster child for the 20th century sprawlconomy, and is now suffering greatly for having clung to that model for too long. Voters there now recognize it is time to change, and have put their money behind the kind of mass transit solutions the region desperately needs. It's up to the state and federal governments to deliver their share. We'll see what happens at today's Metro board meeting.
If you live in the Bay Area, get ready for some traffic headaches. BART is speeding into the station, but the train might stay there for a while:
BART train operators and station agents vowed to strike after regular service ends at midnight Sunday, which effectively would shut down the regional rail agency and force hundreds of thousands of Bay Area commuters to find alternate ways to travel Monday morning.
The decision by union leadership came after the BART Board of Directors voted unanimously Thursday to unilaterally impose a one-year contract on workers represented by Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555.
"At this point we have no choice but to initiate a work action," said Jesse Hunt, president of the union local that represents about 900 of BART's 3,200 workers.(SF Chronicle 8/14/09)
There was a settlement a week ago, but the contract was defeated by 1555's members. The union leadership itself wasn't particularly thrilled with the contract, which kind of makes it difficult to sell it your membership. The big hangup appears to be the length of the contract, four years. The workers understand that they are going to take a hit this year, but they don't particularly appreciate the fact that they have to take it for such a long period of time before they have the offer to renegotiate.
However, 1555 is open to further negotiations, and there are rumors that something could be sorted out over the weekend. With luck, we'll avoid any long-term BART closure and a fair contract deal can be reached. A strike would toss the entire Bay Area into a fair bit of chaos.
Mark DeSaulnier has had a rapid ascent through the state legislature and now, potentially, into Congress. Within three years, this former restaurant owner won elections to the State Assembly (in 2006) and the State Senate (in 2008), with a Congressional primary scheduled for September 1. Prior to that, he was a 3-time member of the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors and the California Air Resources Board. A former liberal Republican in the mold of Edward Brooke, DeSaulnier switched parties several years ago and compiled a liberal voting record in the State Legislature. His first ad of the campaign covered the topic of health care, and I asked him about this and several other issues in an interview conducted last week. Having taken place before the crucial budget vote, I spent a good deal of time asking DeSaulnier about that, and you can see his responses here. Depending on your perspective, he either did or did not fulfill the promise to vote against "most" of the budget, by the way, voting no on 11 of 26 bills, including all of the more controversial ones.
I'll pick up with a paraphrased transcript of the rest of the interview below:
Disclosure: I am working on a part time, short term basis for TransForm on the Oakland Airport Connector campaign. However, the thoughts expressed in my posts on this subject are my own and should not be construed to be those of TransForm.
You hopefully have already noted that the MTC hearing on the Oakland Airport Connector (OAC) is tomorrow (Wednesday) at 10am, but you might not know about the nationwide transportation day of action on which the hearing coincidentally falls. Several advocacy groups will be joining together to hold a mock funeral to mourn the loss of transit lines in the Bay Area due to lack of funding for operations. After the funeral, advocates will march to the MTC hearing to urge them not to provide further funding to the OAC.
Though the timing of these two events is coincidental, they are tied together quite closely. While the state and federal government have been slashing operating funds, the stimulus bill has pumped tons of money into capital improvements for transportation. So while BART and MTC may end up wasting more than half a billion dollars on the OAC, including $70 million in stimulus funds, BART, AC Transit, and Muni are slashing service and raising fares.
It's time we get our priorities straight, not only by prioritizing public transit over highway expansion, but also by prioritizing operations funding within transit funding. What is the use of a shiny new bus if we can't afford to pay someone to drive it? What is the use of an extension to the Oakland Airport that will only draw 400 new riders a day, when it will suck funding from the entire BART system?
Please attend the funeral tomorrow to mourn public transit losses and then head over to the MTC meeting to win back some of this transit funding by halting funding to the OAC.
The CDP Convention didn't only kick off the start of the 2010 Governor's race, but the start of the various Congressional campaigns throughout California as well. I'm going to have a full cattle call tomorrow, with my opening rankings for the races, both the potential primaries and the races with Republican incumbents. But I wanted to give the special elections some attention in a separate post. In CA-32, we have an election in just a few weeks on May 19, and Judy Chu has racked up a lot of local endorsements, while Gil Cedillo has made the worst kind of headlines over campaign spending and personal gifts. Given the demographics of the district, I think it'll be a close race either way.
But I wanted to hone in on the upcoming special election in CA-10, because I had the chance to talk with three of the five announced Democratic candidates while up in Sacramento. We don't know when Ellen Tauscher will be confirmed as a State Department undersecretary, and thus when the seat will open up and when the election will be scheduled. What we do know is that there are several good candidates in the race, all of whom offered interesting perspectives at the convention.
I'm tired of even thinking about the lunatic political leaders in this state, so I'm going to take a short break and focus on the innovators, those who have the ability to drag us out of recession and toward a new economic future.
For starters, Tesla Motors, which last year was thought to be in a fair bit of trouble, has come out of that and has begun to receive orders for their new $50,000 sedan model.
San Carlos, California-based Tesla Motors said it has received 711 reservations for its new Model S, an all-electric family sedan that carries up to seven people and can travel up to 300 miles per charge.
Tesla said reservations - which include a refundable $5,000 fee - started coming in after the car was formally unveiled on March 26. Mass production of the Model S is expected to begin in late 2011.
The company said the Model S will go from zero to 60 miles per hour in 5.6 seconds, with an electronically limited top speed of 130 mph. Three battery pack choices will offer a range of 160, 230 or 300 miles per charge. The company has not released pricing options on the higher-mileage battery packs.
The anticipated base price of the Model S is $49,900, after a federal tax credit of $7,500.
One high-profile buyer is Governor Schwarzenegger himself, who will turn in the Tesla roadster he had previously purchased in exchange for the sedan. The goal of Tesla is to bring a model into the $35,000 and under market, essentially on par with a Lexus, within the next couple years, and with the federal tax credits and complete lack of gas costs, that would be an attractive option for a pretty broad section of the upper and upper-middle class. Tesla reminds me of the Wild West early days of the auto industry, when lots of small manufacturers competed for business and the competition drove innovation.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act approved by Congress in February contains $8 billion to be doled out to states for development of high-speed rail service and passenger rail service among cities.
California wants half.
"As of now, we have close to $4 billion worth of things we can show can be done within the time limit" of the act, said Mehdi Morshed, executive director of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, the agency charged with building a speedy rail line connecting Northern and Southern California through the Central Valley.
Morshed and other California boosters are trying to make the case with federal transportation officials that when it comes to high-speed rail in the United States, the Golden State is king.
"All factors considered, we are at the top," Morshed said. "We are the only ones with a real high-speed rail project. Everyone else is just improving their current (conventional) rail service."
While the $10 billion in bonds authorized by last November's Prop. 1A (the good one) have yet to be sold on the open market, federal stimulus dollars would really help get HSR off the ground. And such an investment would get some of the preliminary work out of the way and spur private investment, which would be looking toward a shorter lead time for their payoff. Our friends at the CA HSR blog, including some guy named Robert, have more. You can quibble with the strength of the SacBee article, but you cannot deny that the President has made high speed rail a priority and California's entity is clearly the furthest along, suggesting that we will be in line for a good portion of those stimulus dollars.
Despite political dysfunction, innovators will allow California to move to a new economy based on clean energy and efficiency. Hopefully the political leaders will follow, having failed to lead.
One of my lingering concerns about the Obama Administration has been that they might be tempted to claim victory with the $8 billion in HSR funding added to the stimulus and not follow up on that money, which as we know merely pays for some initial costs. But Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood made clear last week that in fact, the $8 billion in HSR stimulus really is intended as a signal to America that Obama is truly serious about building HSR:
LaHood said that for Obama building high-speed rail networks is, "if not his No. 1 priority, certainly at the top of his list. What the president is saying with the $8 billion is this is the start to help begin high-speed rail projects." He added that the administration "is committed to finding the dollars to not only get them started but to finishing them in at least five parts of the country," although he declined to elaborate on where these projects might ultimately be built.
And don't worry about the right-wing freakout over the Vegas HSR project - California is in better position than any other HSR project in America to use that stimulus funding. We can begin construction in late 2010 or early 2011; no other project is anywhere close to that point.
This couldn't be better news for us in California, where we have long known that at least $15 billion in federal aid, spread out over 10 years, will be needed to build the SF-LA line. Unfortunately the news is tempered by the fact that the Obama Administration's support for HSR did not extend to mass transit as a whole. Here in California the state has decided to zero out the State Transit Assistance account, costing local agencies over $500 million in funding. The federal stimulus isn't nearly enough to make up the difference. And as the San Jose Mercury News reports, that's setting up a situation where HSR may be pit against local transit agencies:
The MTC meeting Wednesday in Oakland could turn contentious, as the current plan calls for allocating $75 million to help build the Transbay Terminal in San Francisco, which would serve as the final stopping point for a high-speed rail line and Caltrain (UPDATE: the MTC now plans to seek train box funds from the $8 billion HSR stimulus, not the general transit stimulus funds - see Transbay Blog for more info) and $70 million to build a BART spur to Oakland International Airport. Those two projects alone would take 43 percent of the $340 million headed to the area in stimulus funds for local transit.
Some want money for those new two projects scrapped or reduced - and redirected to cover the cost of paying for day-to-day transit needs.
But MTC officials counter that building the Transbay Terminal now will save millions of dollars in later costs, and combined with the $8 billion in stimulus funds set aside for high-speed rail could accelerate that program.
I support using that money for the Transbay Terminal, although I'm less certain about whether BART to OAK is all that necessary; the AirBART buses work pretty well (I used them on numerous occasions when I was an undergrad at UC Berkeley, although that was 10 years ago).
But I really hate it when HSR pitted against other forms of transit. I have said it before and I will say it again - HSR and other mass transit need each other to be successful. It should not and must not be an either/or choice. I don't blame the MTC for being stuck in this position - that blame lies in Sacramento and Washington DC. But we transit advocates need to not fall out along modal lines.
I'd like to propose a solution, one that I don't even know is possible under state law but makes a ton of sense to me. The nine-county SF Bay Area region should implement its own gas tax, which will solely be used to fund public transit. I haven't penciled out the numbers so I don't know exactly what the tax amount should be, but it should be indexed to the price of gas, and not a fixed cent number.
This money would initially be used to backfill the loss of STA funds, and allow the federal stimulus money to go to new transit infrastructure such as Transbay Terminal or BART to OAK. Ultimately the STA funds must be restored by a statewide gas tax increase, but it is much more politically possible to implement a gas tax in the Bay Area first than to try and get the Central Valley and the Southern California exurbs to buy into this (they can be brought on board later, once the 2/3 rule is eliminated).
It's very difficult for folks living in the nine counties to evade the tax, with the possible exception of Gilroy residents who might drive to Hollister to fill up. Most folks will simply pay the increase rather than drive far out of their way to get a cheaper gallon of gas.
I'm not sure if this option has been explored by the MTC and the member counties, but it ought to be. It's a sensible solution that would not only help spare transit agencies from "Armageddon" but would itself be a long overdue policy shift that would give a real boost to transit efforts in the SF Bay Area.
The Santa Barbara based Alliance for Sustainable and Equitable Regional Transportation (ASERT) convened a panel discussion at the Santa Barbara Central Public Library on Saturday January 24th, 2009. The event celebrated the Nov 2008 passage of Measure A, which funds county transportation projects through a dedicated sales tax, while anticipating future challenges and opportunities in light of both economic conditions and the funding priorities of the Obama administration.
Five top Democratic governors have called for a larger stimulus package than is presently being called for in Washington, precisely to fill in the gaps created by a loss of tax revenue in the states.
To help offset state budget cuts, a group of Democratic governors urged the federal government Friday to pass a $1 trillion economic stimulus package, significantly larger than the one under discussion in Congress.
The package would help states compensate for cuts to education spending that could cause long-term economic decline, as well as bolster infrastructure projects and benefits programs for the poor, the governors from New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio and Wisconsin said in a news conference [...]
The governors recommended that the stimulus plan include $350 billion for infrastructure, including transportation, wastewater and broadband projects; $250 billion for anti-poverty programs such as Medicaid, unemployment insurance, food stamps and child care; $250 billion in flexible education spending to maintain funding for programs from pre-kindergarten to higher education; and middle-class tax cuts.
The money, disbursed over two years, would offset cuts needed to balance state budgets and would serve as a "bridge" until 2011, by which time the governors hope the economy will have recovered, said Massachusetts Gov. Deval L. Patrick.
Predictably, the Republican Governor's Association called it a "bailout" of the general funds of the various states.
Well, yes. The states, by and large, did not have the ability to get out from under the financial meltdown, and the consequent economic downturn that resulted shouldn't disproportionately affect the least of their citizens. Furthermore, given that the road to recovery is massive fiscal stimulus, having states cutting back on spending at this time, be it infrastructure, education or healthcare, is completely counterproductive and will do nothing but prolong the agony.
In the future, it will take more than backfilling state budget cuts in a downturn, but a more structured system, like a "Federal Infrastructure Finance Corporation," to ensure that state assets aren't sold off to private interests during a downturn. The days of creative borrowing and the crossing of fingers are over. We need new structures to manage economic volatility and avoid fiscal traps, PARTICULARLY in California, where the tax system too closely mirrors the boom and bust cycle.
In the near term, I imagine something like this will pass. Barack Obama today put out a call for "strategic investments" to create jobs and improve the long-term economic outlook simultaneously. The question locally is whether California's plans will actually accomplish that. CalPIRG is criticizing the state's wish list, saying that it relies too much on increasing highway and road capacity and not enough on cleaner energy investments:
The California Public Interest Research Group reports that the state plans to spend 31% of road money on creating new capacity instead of addressing long-deferred maintenance and repair projects. By contrast, the group said, Massachusetts would commit 100% of its road funds to repairs.
"We can't afford to waste precious resources on new highways at the expense of ready-to-go projects to repair and maintain existing roads and bridges and expand public transportation," said spokeswoman Erin Steva.
The group also faulted the California Department of Transportation's list, saying that only 37% of the funds would flow to public transportation. The group called for a higher percentage, citing the record ridership on California's mass transit systems, which have been hit by severe cutbacks in recent years. The proposed percentage is less than what is being planned in Tennessee, Wisconsin and Massachusetts, CALPIRG said.
It is elemental that the stimulus spending cannot prop up an unsustainable growth model based on sprawl. Experts up and down the state understand this, and one of the best examples is in this Merced Sun-Star editorial, which nicely explains the tension between speed and smarts:
The problem for the planners is that the stimulus must be geared toward putting people to work as fast as possible. That, many believe, argues for the traditional sort of public works, such as highways.
In many cases, plans are already in place to replace crumbling roads, highways and bridges. By contrast, plans for urban transit systems and intercity high-speed rail are less firm, meaning it may take more time to actually start turning dirt and generating paychecks [...]
We're confident that a solution exists that puts people to work right away and also lays the groundwork for a new approach to the nation's transportation needs.
It won't be easy, but it has to happen. We can't continue to simply build more transportation infrastructure on a model that's now more than a half-century old.
A new model for transportation is part of the change we need.
Read the whole thing. One good idea calls for phased stimulus spending, giving enough for critical highway and road repairs at the start, with the bulk coming later for transit and rail projects.
Markos, in a post today about the state of progressive infrastructure compared to the right's, Building machines,
[. . .] But that battle is no longer one-sided. Their machine may be bigger, but we have something. And that's all we ever needed -- a hint of a partisan progressive media machine, fed by research and investigative reporting from the likes of ThinkProgress and Talking Points Memo, to begin delivering our message in the face of their vast media machine, as well as ineffective CW[conventional wisdom]-meisters like Maureen Dowd, Mark Halperin, and David Broder.
Arnold has been making some rather shocking vetoes of important legislation this week, including a cave-in to Sarah Palin on port air quality and the veto of the anti-rescission bill. On balance his record on bills this week is atrocious.
But there are a few bright spots, including a bill that has the potential to revolutionize land use in California. Arnold has signed Sen. Darrell Steinberg's SB 375, a bill that links land-use planning to the AB 32 global warming targets. The intent is to eliminate sprawl by limiting sprawl and favoring infill development.
The logic is clear - sprawl creates more auto traffic, and more auto emissions, which worsens global warming. 38% of greenhouse gas emissions in California come from transportation. The obvious solution is to crack down on sprawl and encourage infill development - urban density served by mass transit. SB 375 includes language streamlining CEQA review for infill development that meets carbon emissions reduction goals.
That's an important element of an anti-sprawl, anti-global warming effort. It's the Portland model - you can't stop sprawl merely by limiting growth on the edge of a metro area. You must also encourage infill, dense development and provide the mass transit to serve it.
It's also vital to California's economic recovery. As I have argued before, we must redefine the California Dream by using urban density to provide for affordable living and economic security.
There are still some outstanding issues regarding SB 375 - business groups were lobbying to have urban commercial projects given the same CEQA streamlining as residential projects:
Some business groups remained critical because the bill did not allow commercial development to benefit from CEQA changes. And some local officials said it overreached by allowing the state to dictate greenhouse-gas reduction goals for each region.
Steinberg said he promised the governor that next year he will clarify that projects funded by the 2006 voter-approved transportation bonds will be exempt. But Steinberg said he agreed only to have "good-faith" discussions about the commercial development issue.
"The balance we struck was so precarious, we couldn't pile anything more on top of the bill," Steinberg said.
California cannot afford sprawl. SB 375 is a big step forward in our efforts to redefine the California Dream and follow Portland's successful model into a prosperous 21st century future.
Fast, efficient, and sustainable, a high speed electric powered train is the future of transportation. California should be at the forefront of this advancement in transportation for America.
'Smart growth' received a flurry of coverage over the past couple weeks, due largely to an important bill just passed by the state legislature to encourage denser development throughout California. Yet a crucial element of this year's budget debate remained conspicuously absent from much of this coverage-the proposal to slash public transit funding in 2008-09. Treating transit like an afterthought is nothing new for the state (just last year, for example, the Governor robbed $1.25 billion from public transit coffers). But as a bipartisan consensus begins to gel around addressing climate change through land use decisions, it seems remarkable that perhaps the most essential component of making smart growth work-dependable, affordable and convenient public transit-is getting the short shrift.
