Matute, Taylor on Prospective Promotion for Garcetti

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Director Brian Taylor and Deputy Director Juan Matute of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the possibility that Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti will be appointed to a Cabinet post in the Biden administration. After serving as national co-chair of President-elect Joe Biden’s campaign, Garcetti is a potential candidate for transportation secretary. While Garcetti has only held local office, Taylor noted that he would not be the first mayor to run the federal department of transportation. Taylor added that big-city mayors like Garcetti have to know how to pull federal, state and local resources together, along with political will, to get transportation projects moving. Matute acknowledged the success of Measure M as Garcetti’s signature legacy but said he wished he “had more success in the implementation of his vision for a better Los Angeles,” given the mayor’s grasp of the intricacies of transportation planning.

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Ong on the Plight of Small-Business Owners

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Paul Ong, director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge  at UCLA Luskin, was featured in the Chicago Reader discussing the obstacles facing small-business owners struggling to stay afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic. Minority-owned businesses are especially vulnerable, Ong said, noting that the closure of these businesses impacts not only individual companies but ultimately the fabric of their communities. “The vacancies and opportunities created by minority business closures will speed up the transformation, and can lead to additional waves of business and residential displacement,” he said. The pandemic threatens to further gentrification in many communities of color, which “already suffer from a history of disinvestment and a lack of new investment, leaving them job-poor and underserved by businesses,” Ong said. “So, it will be a downward spiral, a process of further marginalization of disadvantaged communities.” Ong’s research was also cited in a Bloomberg News piece on the devastating impact of COVID-19 on U.S. dry-cleaning businesses, which are largely Asian-owned. 

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Manville Explains ‘Induced Demand’ on Congested Highways

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Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville appeared on KCRW’s “Greater L.A.” podcast to discuss the practicality of freeway expansion projects. The I-605 Corridor Improvement Project is a massive freeway expansion plan that would add new lanes and exit ramps along 16 miles of I-605 and a stretch of the I-5 and other highways in southeastern Los Angeles County. However, Manville argued that “there’s no situation in a vital growing economy under which expanding a roadway to fight congestion makes much sense.” Highway space is valuable land that should be priced accordingly, he said. “We offer it to people for no direct charge,” Manville explained. “And so as a result, at times when lots of people would like to use it, there is more demand for the highway than there is actual highway in existence, and we end up with congestion.” He suggests charging for use of the roadway to deter just enough people from driving to avoid traffic congestion.

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Akee on Movement to Reclaim Indigenous Lands

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Associate Professor of Public Policy Randall Akee spoke with CNN for an article on efforts by Indigenous people across North America to reclaim land — including the tribe at the heart of the Thanksgiving holiday. Descendants of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe that broke bread with colonists four centuries ago are fighting for recognition and the return of land. They are part of a broader movement that is gaining steam as the country grapples with injustices committed against marginalized communities. While recognition, economics and sovereignty are all at play, the fight centers on getting Indigenous lands back in Indigenous hands. “The origin of being Indigenous is location and ties to the land,” Akee said.

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Torres-Gil on Biden’s Plans for Older Americans

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Professor of Social Welfare and Public Policy Fernando Torres-Gil was featured in a Forbes article about President-elect Joe Biden’s plans for improving Medicare, Social Security and other income security policies that will have a large impact on older Americans. Panelists at the 11th annual Journalists in Aging Fellows Program recommended an intergenerational framework to shift the focus from the needs of people over 50 and instead see all issues as aging issues. “What I am suggesting for our generation [of baby boomers] is not only must we be advocates whether it is health security, retirement security, pension reform, protecting Social Security or protecting Medicare and Medicaid, but we must find ways to drill down and begin to represent the interests of younger, emerging, ethnic minority populations,” said Torres-Gil, director of the Center for Policy Research on Aging at UCLA Luskin. “Otherwise, I fear we may see greater incidents of generational tension, exacerbated by racial and ethnic tensions.”

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Criminalization of Sex Work Is Counterproductive, Shah Finds

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Public Policy Professor Manisha Shah co-authored a Vox Dev article discussing the effects of criminalizing sex work in Indonesia. Previous studies in high-income countries have found that decriminalizing sex work has positive impacts on the health of sex workers and the general population. In a recent study, Shah analyzed the impact of criminalizing sex work in a low-income setting by interviewing female sex workers, their clients and their families after the government in East Java, Indonesia, announced that it would close all formal sex work locations. The closure caused the formal sex market to shrink, leading to increased rates of sexually transmitted infections and negatively impacting the well-being of sex workers who were forced out of work. Shah and her colleagues concluded that the criminalization of sex work is “counterproductive and can reverse the good work that many government health departments and NGOs are undertaking to reduce the spread of STIs and HIV/AIDS.”

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Yaroslavsky Sees Election as a Wake-Up Call

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Director of the Los Angeles Initiative Zev Yaroslavsky joined UCLA’s “Then & Now” podcast to discuss the aftermath of the presidential election. On the day Joe Biden was declared winner of the election, “I was not euphoric,” Yaroslavsky said. “I was very happy that Biden won. … I was not happy that 72 million people voted for an incumbent president who spent four years trafficking in racism and bigotry.” He argued that Trump’s refusal to accept defeat is “calcifying the divide and inability of either side to come together and work on behalf of the people in this country.” However, this issue should resolve itself as responsible people move forward in a rational transition process, Yaroslavsky said during the podcast produced by the Luskin Center for History and Policy. “Biden won the presidency, but less than 100,000 votes could have swung the election in another direction,” he said. “This should be a wake-up call that there is still a lot of work to be done.”

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Blumenberg Discusses Inequity of Flat Rate Auto Insurance

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Evelyn Blumenberg, director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies and professor of urban planning, answers a question on WalletHub about the different types of rates charged to California drivers. She notes that lower-income drivers tend to benefit from pay-per-mile auto insurance because they travel fewer miles, on average. But, when charged a flat rate for insurance, “their rates are significantly higher per mile than those of higher-income drivers.” Blumenberg has also answered questions previously on the consumer-oriented website.

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Peterson on Urgency of COVID-19 Coordination

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Public Policy Professor Mark Peterson spoke to the National Interest about the Trump administration’s refusal to begin coordinating with President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team on a national coronavirus response. Public health experts including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said a coordinated White House transition is absolutely critical at a time when COVID-19 cases are surging across the country. Mishandling the transition could have “enormous consequences,” Peterson said. “How are we going to coordinate the rapid distribution of vaccines across the country? They need to be produced and distributed, and that all relies on massive coordination,” he said. Peterson also noted that the lack of personal protective equipment has continued to hurt many states and hospitals. “We need complete transparency in coordination” in these efforts to help protect front-line workers and the general public, he said.

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Wachs on Tempered Hopes for State’s High-Speed Rail Project

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A Los Angeles Times article on prospects that California’s troubled high-speed rail project could find new life under a Biden administration cited Martin Wachs, professor emeritus of urban planning. The project, initially designed to connect Los Angeles and the Bay Area with trains running at 220 mph, has faced a massive funding shortfall and difficulty acquiring needed land, among other challenges. While President-elect Joe Biden is a self-professed train fanatic, an imminent federal bailout of the high-speed rail project is unlikely. “Prospects for some financial participation by the federal government are better than they were, but it is easy to overestimate them,” said Wachs, a lead researcher at the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA Luskin. “There could be a few billion dollars, but it would not eliminate the need for the state to put the project on a sound financial footing.”

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