ITS Researcher Authors L.A. Times Op-Ed on Ridership

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Anne E. Brown, MURP ’14 Ph.D. ’18, a researcher at the Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS) at UCLA Luskin, authored a Los Angeles Times op-ed about L.A.’s taxi industry and discrimination against black riders. Comparing taxi service in Los Angeles with ridehail services such as Uber and Lyft, Brown writes, “when it comes to timeliness, technology, and – most troublingly – racial discrimination, taxis lag significantly behind their flashy new competitors.” Brown’s findings, published in her doctoral dissertation, come from her groundbreaking equity audit of ridehail and taxi services in the city that compared wait times and trip cancellation rates by race and ethnicity.

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Park Comments on Connection Between Climate Change and Learning

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Jisung Park, assistant professor of public policy and environmental health sciences, was interviewed by the Dutch daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad about his research on the effects of heat on learning and test scores for students in the United States. Asked about the effect of climate change on productivity, Park said, “In a modern economy, schools are the places where the wealth of a nation is created. That is where the knowledge and the skill comes from.” Park suggested that countries with moderate climates, like the Netherlands, adopt heat policies as temperatures climb worldwide. “I think that is why we should be just as concerned about the environment in which a student learns as the environment in which a worker works.”

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Shoup Pens L.A. Times Op-Ed on Higher Density Housing

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Donald Shoup, distinguished research professor of urban planning, authored an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times pondering whether L.A. should allow higher-density housing in single-family neighborhoods near rail transit stations.  “Higher density will create more housing and increase transit ridership, but many homeowners view higher density as a bad neighbor,” writes Shoup, explaining that a minor zoning change — graduated density zoning — could bring major public benefits. Graduated density zoning allows for higher density, subject to limits, but also protects homeowners from unwanted development.

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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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Newton Discusses Police Transparency in Wake of Recent Shooting

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Lecturer Jim Newton of UCLA Luskin Public Policy was interviewed on KPCC’s “Take Two” about police transparency, particularly police body camera footage released after a recent incident. Newton, who covered the LAPD during his 25-year career at the Los Angeles Times, said, “The new wrinkle here is audio and video obviously, but the tension between the department wanting to contain information and the public, principally the press, trying to seek that information certainly goes back at least to the early ’90s when I was covering the police department full time. … Now we’re coming up in this new technical iteration of it, which is the question of what to do with all this body camera footage that police are collecting and what to do with civilian footage and audio that people just have on their cellphones.”

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Storper Weighs In on the Battle for the Bay Area’s Soul

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Professor Michael Storper of UCLA Luskin Urban Planning speaks about the “contest for the heart and soul of the Bay Area” in a wide-ranging interview with Public Knowledge. Storper says the region’s rich history of social connectivity has underpinned its economic success. Now, in the face of rising inequality, “Silicon Valley capitalism must be more than about disrupting markets and daily life.” The Bay Area must draw on its “deep intellectual and humanistic traditions,” he said, “and let’s hope that it is the beginning of a new wave of balancing the advantages of the Information Age with a new public space.”

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Matute Comments on State Debate Over Driving Limits and Climate Change

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Juan Matute, deputy director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, commented in a story on the California Air Resources Board’s efforts to reduce daily driving, or vehicle miles traveled (VMT), as a way to curb greenhouse gas emissions in the state. “As electricity becomes cleaner, the proportion of total statewide [greenhouse gas] emissions from transportation is increasing,” Matute said in a story that originated with the San Diego Union-Tribune. “Cars have a long turn-over cycle, and our urban and regional design has an even longer time horizon for change.”

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Taylor Comments on Elon Musk’s Plan for High-Speed Rail Tunnel in Chicago

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Professor Brian Taylor of UCLA Luskin Urban Planning is quoted in a CNBC web story about Elon Musk’s Boring Company and its contract for a faster transportation link between busy downtown Chicago and O’Hare Airport. The plan is opposed by many local transportation providers, including cab drivers whose ridership has declined significantly because of rideshare services.  “It’s really not managing the problem. It’s just providing an alternative,” Taylor said. “It’s sort of like when you have an interesting breakthrough in the lab, which might take 10 years to complete.”

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Bill to Deem Children Under 12 Too Young for Court Is Backed by Abrams’ Research

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Research by Professor Laura Abrams of UCLA Luskin Social Welfare is mentioned in a story that originated with the Chronicle of Social Change and has been picked up by other media outlets, including the Appeal and the Press-Telegram. Senate Bill (SB) 439 would prevent the juvenile justice system from hearing most cases of children younger than age 12. “I think people have an assumption that juvenile court is potentially a helpful intervention for young children,” Abrams says in the story, which notes her analysis of state juvenile justice data. “But in most cases, the charges aren’t sustained or they’re dismissed, so the family doesn’t get any help at all.”

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