• COVID-19 FAQ
  • Public Policy
  • Social Welfare
  • Urban Planning
  • Undergraduate Program
  • Contact
  • Events Calendar
  • Give Now
UCLA Luskin
  • About
    • Our Dean
    • Board of Advisors
    • Open Positions
    • Contact Us
    • Visit Us
    • Diversity, Disparities and Difference
    • Communications
      • UCLA Luskin in the News
      • Luskin Forum Online
  • Departments | BA in Public Affairs
    • Public Policy
    • Social Welfare
    • Urban Planning
    • Undergraduate Program
  • Apply
    • Master of Public Policy
    • Master of Social Welfare
    • Master of Urban and Regional Planning
      • Double Degree With Sciences Po
    • PhD in Social Welfare
    • PhD in Urban Planning
    • Undergraduate Programs
  • Faculty
    • Public Policy
    • Social Welfare
    • Urban Planning
  • Alumni & Career Services
    • Alumni Relations
      • MPP Alumni
    • Career Services
      • Current Graduate Students
      • Employers
      • For Alumni
  • Support
  • Programs
    • Research Centers & Affiliated Research
    • CalSWEC Public Child Welfare Program
    • Global Public Affairs (GPA)
    • Data Analytics Certificate
    • Commencement
    • Luskin Lecture Series
    • Luskin Summit
    • Urban Planning at 50
  • Administration
    • Academic Personnel
    • Financial Services
    • Emergency Safety
    • Events Office
      • Events Calendar
      • Reserve a Room
    • Human Resources
    • For New Staff and Faculty
    • Information Technology
  • Search
  • Menu Menu

Archive for: Michael Manville

ITS Study Offers Strategy for Freeway Congestion Pricing A new report by UCLA transportation experts outlines ways that California could implement congestion pricing while minimizing the financial burden on low-income residents

April 21, 2022/0 Comments/in For Faculty, For Policymakers, For Students, For Undergraduates, Public Policy News, Research Projects, School of Public Affairs, Urban Planning Michael Manville /by Claudia Bustamante
By Claudia Bustamante

Among transportation experts, congestion pricing is the gold standard policy for managing traffic on freeways and highways. The strategy involves charging drivers tolls to use a road, and charging more during the busiest times — morning and evening rush hours, for example.

The intention is to discourage drivers from using their own cars and nudge them toward alternative forms of transportation, thereby unclogging traffic. But charging people to use busy roads raises questions about fairness, especially for low-income drivers.

A new report by UCLA transportation experts outlines ways that California could implement congestion pricing while minimizing the financial burden on those residents.

The study suggests that if congesting pricing were enacted in California’s six largest urban areas, about 13% of households in those areas might be unduly burdened because of the combination of their travel habits and low incomes. But while tolls could create an equity problem, the report suggests that the revenue generated by tolls could ultimately solve that problem.

The report was produced by the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, and its authors are Michael Manville, an associate professor at UCLA Luskin; Gregory Pierce, co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation; and Bryan Graveline, a UCLA graduate student.

“Traffic congestion imposes real costs on a wide segment of society, with some of the most severe consequences falling disproportionately on the most vulnerable people,” Manville said. “Congestion pricing has the potential to alleviate many of those harms. But it’s important when we price roads to do so in a way that won’t unfairly burden low-income people. Fortunately, with a little political will, we should be able to do that.”

In the report, the authors defined “vulnerable” residents as those with household income below 200% of the federal poverty level (for example, $55,500 or less for a family of four) and at least one household member driving during peak congestion periods on a freeway. The study focused on Los Angeles, San Francisco, the Inland Empire, San Jose, San Diego and Sacramento.

The authors write that some of the ways to mitigate cost burdens on low-income drivers would come with pitfalls that dilute the goal of reducing traffic. For example, subsidizing public transportation and providing free transit passes for low-income residents wouldn’t help those who must still drive.

Another option would be lowering toll prices or making them free for low-income drivers, but that would risk negating the primary goal of congestion pricing: If the cost of driving isn’t high enough, people would likely continue to use their vehicles.

The most promising solution, they write, would be to provide direct cash assistance to low-income residents from revenue collected by the tolls.

“Similar policies already exist that help low-income people afford crucial goods and services, such as California’s CARE for energy, the federal SNAP program for food and groceries, and vouchers for housing,” Pierce said. “We should build on these models rather than reinvent the wheel.”

Another benefit of the strategy, the authors write, is that residents who receive money through the program could use the funds for any number of purposes — helping to cover the costs of congestion pricing when they drive or paying for public transit or other alternate transportation if they’re able to switch.

The report also suggests that county governments could identify people who are eligible for such a program by looking at which households are eligible for existing programs like SNAP or housing and utilities subsidies.

The authors acknowledge that there would be administrative and political hurdles to beginning a cash assistance program for transportation costs. They write that introducing congestion pricing to roadways one lane at a time would help demonstrate the strategy’s benefits, which could help overcome public skepticism about the policy.

Slowing Down Saves Money and Lives, Manville Says

March 16, 2022/0 Comments/in Luskin in the News Michael Manville /by Zoe Day

Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville was featured in an Atlantic article about the benefits of driving slower. Fast speeds use more energy to cover the same distance, making driving fast more dangerous, more harmful to the environment and more expensive, especially with the recent increase in gas prices. According to Manville, the first step to altering the culture of fast driving is simply to enforce existing speed limits more consistently. “If a camera catches everyone who speeds on a road segment, every time they speed, then you can actually get meaningful deterrence,” he said. Furthermore, speeding fines would be less expensive if they caught every instance of speeding. “The logic behind the high fines for speeding right now is that you don’t catch most people who speed,” Manville explained. However, if drivers knew they would be consistently penalized for speeding, they may slow down, a decision that could save money and lives.

Read the article

On the Decline and Fall of Parking Requirements

February 10, 2022/0 Comments/in Luskin in the News Donald Shoup, Michael Manville /by Zoe Day

A StreetsBlog article about the evolution of mandatory parking requirements noted that recommendations put forward long ago by Distinguished Research Professor of Urban Planning Donald Shoup are now gaining wide acceptance. Shoup recommended removing off-street parking requirements, allowing developers and businesses to decide how many parking spaces to provide for their customers. He also recommended pricing on-street parking so that one or two spaces will always be left open in order to avoid parking shortages. Finally, he suggested spending parking revenue on public service projects on the metered streets, which would help increase the popularity of demand-based pricing. Many local governments are taking these recommendations seriously and implementing changes. The article cited Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville‘s research on San Diego’s 2019 decision to stop requiring parking for housing near transit, which helped make affordable housing projects more economically viable. As Shoup predicted, parking requirements are quickly being eliminated across the United States.

Read the article

Manville on How Toll Roads Change Driver Behavior

February 7, 2022/0 Comments/in Luskin in the News Michael Manville /by Zoe Day

Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville spoke to Community Impact Newspaper about ways to reduce traffic congestion on roads and freeways. The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority has broken ground on its $612 million expansion of US 183 North in Austin, Texas. The project will add four express toll lanes and two general-purpose lanes, making it 18 lanes wide in some areas. While Manville said he sees advantages in express lanes, he is skeptical the project will actually reduce congestion because adding non-toll lanes will induce demand and cause more people to use them. Manville explained that he prefers toll roads because they force drivers to consider the time involved and how they make trips. “If you just changed the behavior of a small number of people who might get on that road, the road works a lot better, carries more people, there’s less congestion, and you actually have a high-quality service,” Manville said.

Read the article

Manville Sees Pandemic Shift in Parking Paradigm

February 1, 2022/0 Comments/in Luskin in the News Michael Manville /by Zoe Day

Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville spoke to Commercial Observer about how the pandemic opened up new possibilities to utilize streets and parking spaces. Many restaurants were able to save their businesses by expanding outdoor seating into parking lots and street parking spaces; other parking spaces have been converted to electric vehicle charging stations and even ghost kitchens. “The pandemic gave everyone this very vivid illustration of how much space, even in very vibrant parts of their area, is devoted to surface parking,” Manville said. “It helped them understand, more than any other sort of medium could, just how much of this scarce resource of urban land is devoted to holding empty cars.” These pandemic-triggered changes have accelerated a shift toward reevaluating the parking paradigm, including a Los Angeles city ordinance that does not require builders to add new parking and efforts to transform some downtown parking structures into affordable housing units.

Read the article

New Transit Doesn’t Alleviate Traffic, Manville Says

January 4, 2022/0 Comments/in Luskin in the News Michael Manville /by Zoe Day

Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville spoke to the San Diego Union-Tribune about the anticipated effects of a new trolley line in San Diego. The 11-mile trolley runs from Old Town to UTC mall in La Jolla and is expected to carry 20,000 daily riders in the coming years. While the trolley line may seem like an ideal solution to reduce traffic congestion in the area, Manville explained that all the cars the trolley removes from the freeway “will almost certainly get replaced by backfilling prompted by reduced congestion” as open space on the freeway is filled by new commuters. “It’s a very established empirical fact that new transit doesn’t alleviate traffic,” Manville said. “It’s self-undermining, because congestion is the No. 1 thing that blunts demand.” He agreed that the new transit line is good for the economy and the region but noted that “you need to be realistic about what transit can and can’t do.”

Read the article

Manville on Showdown Over California Housing Laws

December 10, 2021/0 Comments/in Luskin in the News Michael Manville /by Mary Braswell

An NBC News report on a looming showdown over new California laws aimed at building more housing included insights from Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville. The laws going into effect on Jan. 1 include Senate Bill 9, which will allow property owners to construct more than one unit on lots previously reserved for single-family homes. Opponents say the laws will strip cities and counties of control over zoning and will not ensure that new units will be affordable. A proposed constitutional amendment that would undo several of the laws may appear on the November 2022 ballot. The debate illustrates how difficult it is to address the state’s affordable housing crisis. “It took a long time for us to get into this hole, and it’s going to take a long time to get out,” Manville said. “It’s going to take some time to see so much construction that rents are going to fall.”

Read the article

Manville on Shifting Dynamics of City Life and Work

December 7, 2021/0 Comments/in Luskin in the News Brian D. Taylor, Michael Manville /by Zoe Day

Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville spoke to CNET about recent changes in living and commuting patterns. The shift to remote work for many during the pandemic accelerated an existing trend of people moving outward to areas surrounding their former homes in big urban centers. “Once you were deprived of the opportunities that a fully open Los Angeles or, for that matter, a fully open San Francisco offered you, it was very hard to justify the cost of housing here,” Manville said. The pandemic has also had a large impact on traffic patterns and use of public transit. At the beginning of the pandemic, “traffic just plummeted to levels we have probably not seen in 100 years,” but congestion and traffic have almost returned to pre-pandemic levels as the economy has reopened, Manville said. The article also cited UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies Director Brian Taylor regarding the variables that lead to traffic congestion.

Read the article

Single-Family Zoning Causes Harm, Manville Says

November 15, 2021/0 Comments/in Luskin in the News Michael Manville /by Zoe Day

Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville joined Detroit Today to discuss the effect of single-family zoning laws on wealth, access and opportunity. In most cities, the majority of residential land is zoned for single-family housing. By preventing non-single-family homes from being constructed in certain areas, Manville noted that single-family zoning hinders access to wealth for new, younger homebuyers, reinforces segregation and exacerbates issues of housing affordability. “My objection has nothing to do with single-family homes themselves,” Manville explained. “It’s the idea that you can have a law saying that nothing else can be built.” In metropolitan areas undergoing growth, single-family zoning drives up the minimum purchase price to be a part of the community, and this barrier has adverse consequences that fall disproportionately on low-income people and people of color. “Regardless of motivation, keeping these barriers in place causes harm, and we would do some good to remove them,” Manville concluded.

Listen to the podcast

Manville Explains Equity of Congestion Pricing

October 29, 2021/0 Comments/in Luskin in the News Michael Manville /by Zoe Day

Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville spoke to the Washington Post to help debunk myths about highways and traffic. While some cities have widened their highways in an attempt to decrease traffic, “the iron law of congestion” explains the phenomenon in which widening highways results in a proportional increase in cars on the road. Some economists and urban planning experts, including Manville, have proposed congestion pricing as a solution to traffic congestion by making drivers pay for the space they take up on the highway. Some opponents of congestion pricing have argued that the policy would hurt the poor, but Manville responded, “Free roads are not a good way to help poor people.” Manville explained that affluent people drive more regardless of whether or not congestion pricing exists, so the best way to help low-income residents is actually by improving infrastructure and public transit, which can be funded through congestion pricing revenue.

Read the article

Page 1 of 12123›»

Recent Posts

  • Akee Identifies Structural Barriers Facing Indigenous Communities May 18, 2022
  • Yaroslavsky on the Importance of County Government May 18, 2022
  • Connecting the Dots on Climate Change May 17, 2022
  • Pierce on New L.A. Water Restrictions May 16, 2022
  • Message From the Dean: Grappling With the Tragedy in Buffalo May 15, 2022

Contact

UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs

3250 Public Affairs Building - Box 951656
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1656

Campus Resources

  • Maps, Directions, Parking
  • Directory
  • Contact
  • Academic Calendar
  • Careers
  • Diversity
  • University of California
  • Terms of Use

Follow

  • About
    ▼
    • Our Dean
    • Board of Advisors
    • Open Positions
    • Contact Us
    • Visit Us
    • Diversity, Disparities and Difference
    • Communications
      ▼
      • UCLA Luskin in the News
      • Luskin Forum Online
  • Departments | BA in Public Affairs
    ▼
    • Public Policy
    • Social Welfare
    • Urban Planning
    • Undergraduate Program
  • Apply
    ▼
    • Master of Public Policy
    • Master of Social Welfare
    • Master of Urban and Regional Planning
      ▼
      • Double Degree With Sciences Po
    • PhD in Social Welfare
    • PhD in Urban Planning
    • Undergraduate Programs
  • Faculty
    ▼
    • Public Policy
    • Social Welfare
    • Urban Planning
  • Alumni & Career Services
    ▼
    • Alumni Relations
      ▼
      • MPP Alumni
    • Career Services
      ▼
      • Current Graduate Students
      • Employers
      • For Alumni
  • Support
  • Programs
    ▼
    • Research Centers & Affiliated Research
    • CalSWEC Public Child Welfare Program
    • Global Public Affairs (GPA)
    • Data Analytics Certificate
    • Commencement
    • Luskin Lecture Series
    • Luskin Summit
    • Urban Planning at 50
  • Administration
    ▼
    • Academic Personnel
    • Financial Services
    • Emergency Safety
    • Events Office
      ▼
      • Events Calendar
      • Reserve a Room
    • Human Resources
    • For New Staff and Faculty
    • Information Technology
Scroll to top