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Matute Takes Waymo for Driverless Taxi Rides and Likes the Result

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You can count UCLA Luskin’s Juan Matute among those excited about the potential of driverless vehicles, according to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times that rounded up reaction to a 24/7 robotaxi service recently launched in Santa Monica by Waymo.  The Silicon Valley-based driverless car company began offering Waymo One to the public in mid-October, and the reaction has not been universally positive. Matute, deputy director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, decided to experience it for himself, taking three rides with Waymo already. He’s a safe streets advocate who thinks self-driving vehicles are probably safer than human drivers. Vehicle automation can “help with some of the issues we have with distracted driving because an autonomous vehicle is never distracted,” Matute told the Times.

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After Years of Study, Parking Reform Gaining Ground

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A Wall Street Journal piece on the growing number of U.S. cities rethinking the amount of space set aside for parking cited several UCLA Luskin experts. The article highlighted research by Michael Manville, associate professor of urban planning, that found that a 1999 ordinance exempting builders from adding new parking spots in downtown Los Angeles allowed them to add more residential units at a lower cost. Another study by Gregory Pierce, now co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, and C.J. Gabbe, currently a visiting scholar at the center, found that costs associated with parking mandates are often passed on to consumers through higher rents or retail prices, even as many of the spots go unused. Donald Shoup, the urban planning scholar who pioneered the field of parking research, summed up the efforts to reform parking policies: “The Dutch have reclaimed land from the sea, and I think we can reclaim land from parking.”

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High Price of Used Cars Impacts Low-Income People Most, Blumenberg Says

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Since the return to a semblance of normal life after the pandemic lockdown, rising demand for vehicles, electronic parts shortages and shipping delays have driven up prices for new and used cars alike. This leaves low-income people at a particular disadvantage, Evelyn Blumenberg, an urban planning professor at UCLA Luskin, told the Tampa Bay Times. “Low-income houses just do better with a car,”  she said. “It’s higher rates of employment, better neighborhoods.” Blumenberg pointed to her research linking cars to stability — even in regions with robust public transit  — and showing that losing a car can spell disaster for people whose finances are stretched thin. Preliminary research data also show more people taking out auto loans, with higher dollar amounts, in lower-income neighborhoods that are historically home to cash buyers, says Blumenberg, who is director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.

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