L.A. Landscape Organized Around Cars, Manville Explains

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In a Curbed Los Angeles article, associate professor of urban planning Michael Manville explained the obstacles to improving public transit in Los Angeles, as found in a new UCLA study. Recognizing “the extent to which we’ve organized the landscape around the car” is key to implementing a successful transit program, he argued. “Seeing that 70 percent of people support a sales tax for more transit might create a false impression that there’s a lot of consensus about building a transit-oriented city,” he said. Many voters supported the Measure M sales tax in hopes of reducing their own drive time but haven’t displayed interest in actually riding public transportation. The UCLA study concluded that transit systems thrive in places where it’s difficult or expensive to drive. In a city built for cars, Los Angeles may have to make it harder to drive in order to make public transit work.

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Manville Points to Congestion Pricing as an L.A. Traffic Solution

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In response to LA Metro’s ongoing evaluation of different forms of congestion pricing, Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville was featured in a KCRW podcast and an article on LAist explaining how the policy works. “Congestion pricing addresses the root cause of traffic congestion: The price to drive on busy roads at busy times is too low for drivers,” Manville said. “Empirically, it’s the only policy that’s ever been shown to reduce congestion and keep it reduced.” Manville cited economic theory to explain how the “underpricing of goods, like the 405 freeway, results in a shortage.” He likened congestion pricing to metering road use, the “same way we meter the use of services like electricity or water.” Manville also offered the consolation that congestion pricing “does not have to be very prohibitive,” since “the last few vehicles entering the road are responsible for a disproportionate amount of the delay.”

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Listen to the podcast

Coupling More Housing with Transit

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Coupling More Housing with Transit: State, Local & Community Perspectives

// Housing, Equity & Community Series

DESCRIPTION

Please join us on Feb. 20th for the Housing, Equity and Community Series including a presentation of the recently released UCLA Lewis Center report, “Transit Oriented Los Angeles: Envisioning an Equitable and Thriving Future,” made possible by LA Metro and ULI-Los Angeles. The presentation will be followed by a panel discussion on the California Senate Bill 50 (“SB827 v.2.0”), the Los Angeles’ Transit Oriented Communities (TOC) Affordable Housing Incentive Program and the issues around density and transit-oriented development in Los Angeles and California.

SPEAKERS:

  • Mike Manville: Associate Professor, Urban Planning, UCLA Luskin School
  • Laura Raymond, Director, Alliance for Community Development (ACT-LA)
  • Arthi Varma, Deputy Director, Citywide Planning, Los Angeles Department of City Planning

MODERATOR:

  • Michael Lens: Associate Faculty Director, UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies; and Associate Professor, Urban Planning and Public Policy and UCLA Luskin School

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**Dinner will be provided. For sustainability purposes, we ask that you please bring your own beverage**

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RSVP Here: https://bit.ly/2MnPUqF

From Public Transit to Public Mobility

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From Public Transit to Public Mobility

12th Annual UCLA ITS Downtown Los Angeles Forum on Transportation, Land Use, and the Environment

Presented by the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies

Date: March 1, 2019

Location: Japanese American National Museum (Aratani Central Hall)

100 N. Central Ave., LA,CA 90012

Registration: 8:45AM – 9:00AM

Event Program: 9:00AM – 5:00PM

Reception: 5:00PM – 7:00PM (Hirasaki Family Garden)

The 12th UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies Downtown Forum grapples with the public sector’s response to the dual trends of emerging new mobility services and declining public transit ridership.

What does the increasing role of private mobility options in cities mean for transportation agencies, public transit providers, cities, and the traveling public? Should innovation be encouraged, quashed, or managed? Many regions in California are making big investments in public transit to create a viable alternative to driving; are these burgeoning new services a threat or opportunity for these investments?

The 12th Annual Downtown Forum will explore implementation of the strategies discussed at the October 2018 Arrowhead Symposium, a 3-day in-depth examination of what’s happening in urban mobility amidst an inundation of new options, to how public agencies are adapting to accommodate, manage, and incorporate, and compete with new options while continuing to serve the public interest. The Downtown Forum advances strategies to implementation in four areas seen as critical to the public sector’s response to new mobility:

  • Successful models for the public sector to partner with private companies providing public mobility service
  • How public agencies can effectively obtain and use data to manage public mobility
  • Identifying and implementing the most impactful, cost-effective incremental changes to streets and transit service in order to double public transit ridership in the next decade
  • Coordinating implementation of new technologies and mobility services to enhance equity and quality of life

AICP credits available.

Lunch Provided. RSVP at https://uclaitsdtla2019.eventbrite.com

Manville Notes Role of Party Identity in Support for L.A. Public Transit

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Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville’s research highlights a discrepancy between voter support for expansion of Los Angeles County public transit and the realities of ridership. Despite an overwhelming 72 percent approval during the 2016 elections for Measure M, a sales tax measure that will generate $120 billion to expand public transit over 40 years, Manville told KNX radio and other media outlets that many people voted for Measure M as an “expression of their political beliefs” and in support of the greater social good, not because it would directly benefit them. Manville’s study found that on average, supporters of Measure M had a high likelihood of driving; they owned cars and had higher incomes. When Manville surveyed the riders at trains and bus stops, he found that “70 percent of riders did not own a vehicle to make their trip,” and “40 percent would have chosen to drive if they could have.” Furthermore, Manville has noted that while L.A. voters like the idea of transit, they don’t actually seem to want a city that’s built for it.

Read coverage of the study by CityLab

Manville on the California Housing Crisis

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Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville spoke to Reason about the California housing crisis. Manville attributed the crisis to severe constraints placed on building new housing. “The hallmark of a housing crisis is not that your new housing is expensive. New housing has always been more expensive than existing housing. The hallmark of a housing crisis is when a junky-looking bungalow in Venice costs $1 million that was built in 1985,” Manville said. He explained that “we don’t allow enough new housing to sort of contain this price appreciation.” The article notes that the relationship between cities and developers is complicated. If local governments stop limiting new housing development, they will lose the ability to gain concessions, often in the form of community spaces and services, from developers, Manville said.

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Manville, Monkkonen Investigate Roots of Animosity Toward Housing Developers

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UCLA associate professors Michael Manville and Paavo Monkkonen were recently featured in an article on Sightline highlighting their research on neighborhood opposition to new building. Even more than perceived harm and self-interest, Manville and Monkkonen found that “the most powerful opposition frame is about the developer,” specifically when a developer “is likely to earn a large profit from the building.” Despite the apparent motivation to “enforce community norms of fairness” by reining in developers who strive to maximize personal profits, Manville and Monkkonen note the potential flaws of this approach. Manville and Monkkonen illustrate the potentially “vicious cycle of regulation and resentment” as a result of anti-developer attitudes in which “punishing developers … [risks] thwarting affordability, punishing people who need homes, [and] discouraging all but the least likable, deepest-pocketed and most aggressive developers from building.” Despite the foundations of a moral argument against profit-driven developers, Manville and Monkkonen propose a shift in focus to the accessibility and affordability of “homes of all shapes and sizes [for] neighbors of all income levels.”

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Manville Comments on L.A. Traffic, Public Transportation and Potential Solutions

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UCLA Luskin transportation expert Michael Manville is featured in a podcast and short film about traffic and public transit in Los Angeles. Besides negative impacts on drivers’ health, wallets and mental well-being, traffic is a large issue for people living near large roads, who may suffer harmful consequences from pollutants. In the NPR podcast, “The One Way to Reduce Traffic,” Manville, an associate professor, argues that the solution to traffic jams is to “price roads with a congestion charge, a dynamic type of toll that would rise and fall based on the demand for the road at different times of day.” Manville explains that the “majority of the delay in traffic is caused by the last few cars getting on the road.” A toll that would get 4-5 percent of drivers off the road could increase average speed by 15-20 percent. In his Streetfilms appearance, Manville highlights the limitations of Los Angeles’ approach to public transportation. With bus ridership falling and a prioritization of cars over buses, Manville identifies the root of the issue as a “fight over space.” He stresses urgency, saying “congestion in our major urban areas is getting worse.”

Listen to the podcast
View the film

 

Easing Traffic Congestion Isn’t a One-Way Street, Manville Says

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Michael Manville of UCLA Luskin Urban Planning commented in a Los Angeles Times op-ed article that weighed proposed solutions to traffic congestion in L.A. neighborhoods. The article highlights research that suggested reconfiguring narrow streets in the city’s smaller neighborhoods to one-way as a way to make streets more efficient and increase vehicle capacity. However, some U.S. cities have converted one-way streets back to two-way in an effort to slow traffic and increase safety for drivers, pedestrians and others. “We need to think about streets as more than conduits. They are multipurpose public spaces,” said Manville, suggesting that increased traffic speed does not necessarily improve a city’s quality of life.

Read the op-ed

 

Manville Comments on Boston Plan to Relieve Traffic Congestion

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Luskin Urban Planning’s Michael Manville commented in a recent Boston Globe story on Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker’s rejection of an attempt to alleviate the city’s traffic congestion through a toll discount for off-peak commuters. Baker sent a previously approved pilot provision back to the Legislature to conduct a new study of the growing problem. “Massachusetts is a natural place to try this,” said Manville, who grew up north of Boston. “It’s the kind of place that can be bold and do an experiment like this.”

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