UCLA Report Examines California Public Transit Agency Labor Shortage

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A report co-authored by Jacob Wasserman, a research project manager at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, was highlighted in a Streetsblog article about labor shortages and their impact on public transit systems in California. Wasserman and co-authors Allie Padgett and Keenan Ky-An Do studied 20 California transit agencies, interviewing a number of workers, to understand ongoing labor shortages at the state’s transit agencies and efforts to attract and retain transit workers. “Raises may not prove enough to alleviate [labor] shortages, given rising costs of living, competition from other sectors and years of prior wage stagnation,” the authors wrote. They cite worker responses including California’s long commutes and high housing costs that make it difficult for them to work close to home. “Hard working conditions on transit push people away and out, even [though] pay and benefits in transit may be better,” they wrote.

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Fairlie Discusses Economic Impact of High Unemployment in California

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Robert Fairlie, a professor of economics and public policy, recently discussed the long-term implications should the state’s job growth continue to lag behind the national average. Joblessness reduces overall earnings, said Fairlie, chair of UCLA Luskin Public Policy, and that lowers consumer demand and hinders investment. “There is a negative multiplier effect on the state economy from the higher unemployment rates we are seeing,” he said. The story in the New York Times, which was picked up by other news outlets, focuses on the impacts of California’s high unemployment rate — 5.1% in January, which exceeded the national rate of 3.7% and was behind only Nevada’s rate of 5.4%. Among the contributing factors explored in the story are layoffs in the technology sector, a slow rebound in Southern California from prolonged strikes in the entertainment industry and varying demand for agricultural workers.

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Ballot Measure to Change Mental Health in State Could Backfire, Cohen Says

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In a story about the potential impact of Proposition 1, UCLA Luskin’s David Cohen discussed the implications of an effort to reform California’s mental health system. The statewide ballot measure is backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom as a step in solving the state’s homelessness crisis. But opponents say it would siphon money away from preventative mental health to add psychiatric institutions and promote involuntary treatment. Researchers like Cohen see involuntary or coerced care as counterproductive. “Few who review the existing evidence conclude that on balance, involuntary treatment improves the lives of those who experience it,” said Cohen, a professor of social welfare and associate dean. People contending with mental health issues can be traumatized by enforced treatment. “Being deprived of freedom is maddening. Being robbed of credibility is humiliating.” Plus, studies show that suicidal people who are institutionalized may actually be at heightened risk of self-harm upon discharge.

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A President’s Economic Record Is ‘Heavily Dominated by Luck’

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Two United Press International stories about the economic records of Joe Biden and Donald Trump called on UCLA Luskin Urban Planning Professor Chris Tilly for insights. Tilly assessed the economic principles surrounding measures such as tax cuts and infrastructure investments, but also pointed out that the role a president plays in the fiscal health of the country is often overstated. “We tend to give presidents too much credit or blame,” he said. “Most of what is going on in the economy is not something the president can control.” The United States is one cog in a global economy that can be roiled by war, political turmoil, weather emergencies and catastrophic events such as the COVID-19 pandemic. ”The economic record of a four-year period is heavily dominated by luck, good or bad,” Tilly said.

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Amazon Rainforest Nearing a Tipping Point, Researchers Warn

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The collapse of the Amazon rainforest’s ecosystem, home to a tenth of Earth’s land species, could collapse much more quickly than earlier estimated, according to an international team of prominent researchers including UCLA’s Susanna Hecht. Their peer-reviewed paper, the first major study to focus on the cumulative effects of a range of variables including temperature, drought, deforestation and legal protections, appeared in the journal Nature and has been covered by news outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, BBC and the Guardian. A forest-wide collapse is “happening much faster than we thought, and in multiple ways,” the researchers said. The study called on governments to halt carbon emissions and deforestation and restore at least 5% of the rainforest. Hecht, professor at UCLA Luskin Urban Planning and the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, is director of the university’s Center for Brazilian Studies.

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Read the New York Times coverage

 

Questions of Fairness, Financial Viability of Free Transit Rides

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Brian Taylor, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA, spoke to States Newsroom about public transit systems that waived fares to woo back riders after the COVID-19 pandemic. In some locales, officials are debating whether the free rides are financially sustainable. Most cities that have recovered their pre-pandemic ridership have large populations that depend on public transit because they don’t have access to cars, Taylor said. But reduced or free rides make less sense in cities with more affluent commuters, such as San Francisco. “It’s difficult to make an equity case for it,” Taylor said. “There is an excellent argument to be made for free fares in the right situation. But to do it universally would cost enormous amounts of money and actually convey benefits to high-income people who don’t need it.”

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‘A Parking Reform Zeitgeist Across America’

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Donald Shoup, distinguished research professor of urban planning, spoke to Cleveland Scene about zoning reforms that are easing requirements for parking spaces in new developments near major transit corridors. The changes have pleased builders and city planners but put many residents and business owners on edge in the car-friendly city of Cleveland. “We created a world where you have to have a car, because parking is free in most places you go,” said Shoup. Now, “no one wants to sacrifice their car for the greater good.” Shoup has long argued that the rules requiring a minimum number of parking spots are arbitrary and obsolete. He hailed the overhaul of zoning ordinances in Cleveland and several other cities over the last few years, part of what the story called “a parking reform zeitgeist across America.”

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Astor on Suicidal Thoughts, Gun Violence

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A Houston Chronicle story on a woman who used an assault rifle to open fire at a Texas megachurch cited Ron Avi Astor, professor of social welfare at UCLA Luskin. The woman, who had a history of mental health struggles, was killed in an exchange of fire with security officers. There were no other fatalities. Suicidal thoughts are not uncommon among those who perpetrate mass shootings, Astor said. “These are really suicides, too. These are not just homicides.” In addition, a High School Insider article shared research by Astor that offered an encouraging counterpoint. In California, day-to-day danger on school campuses declined significantly between 2001 and 2019, according to the study published in the World Journal of Pediatrics.

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Read the High School Insider story

 

On L.A.’s Complex Cannabis Landscape

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Brad Rowe, researcher and lecturer of drug and criminal justice policy at UCLA Luskin, spoke to LAist’s “Air Talk” about Los Angeles’ complex landscape of cannabis sales. The legalization of marijuana for recreational use in California initially sparked a Green Rush, but licensed operators are finding that the high cost of doing business and lax enforcement against illicit shops make it tough to compete. Now, the unlicensed market is about two to three times the size of licensed sales, according to Rowe, author of  “Cannabis Policy in the Age of Legalization.” He spoke about the public health risks of untested products and public safety concerns surrounding large, unregulated facilities with weapons and large sums of cash on the premises — “not the kind of neighbors that you want.” Rowe called for targeted, equitable, effective enforcement that protects the rights of legal businesses. “No one has an appetite for heavy-handed drug enforcement,” he said. “The key word is fairness.”

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Prospects for Progress on Affordable Housing Solutions

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UCLA Luskin’s Michael Lens spoke to the podcast Health Affairs This Week about the roots of zoning policies that have kept neighborhoods segregated by race and income, and the prospects for progress in addressing the nation’s affordable housing crisis. Efforts to change zoning laws to accommodate more housing units have historically been met with strong resistance, but Lens said the conversation has shifted just in the last decade. Now, there is widespread acknowledgment that “we need to do something somewhere” to provide residents with safe and affordable shelter. “The problem is that we have let this go on for so long, this lack of housing production and increased housing costs for people from the poor to middle class,” he said. But Lens pointed to states and cities that are upending zoning restrictions that have long kept a lid on housing development, and concluded, “This is a really good time for hope.”

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