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Shoup on Cities’ Attempts to Take Back Curb Space

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CNN spoke to UCLA’s Luskin’s Donald Shoup about why cities across the United States are cracking down on free curbside parking. Curb space is prime real estate for pedestrians crossing the street, residents looking for parking, workers dropping off food and deliveries, bicyclists, emergency vehicles, garbage trucks, sidewalk restaurants, electric vehicle charging stations and more. So a growing number of cities are removing free parking and charging for spots based on demand. Shoup, the dean of parking researchers in America, has been an advocate of such reforms for decades. “You pay for everything else related to cars. The one thing you don’t pay for — curb parking — is a mess,” he said.

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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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$7.5 Million Federal Grant to Establish Mobility Center of Excellence at UCLA

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The Federal Highway Administration, an agency within the U.S. Department of Transportation, has awarded a five-year, $7.5 million grant to establish the Center of Excellence on New Mobility and Automated Vehicles. The award will support research on the impacts of new mobility technologies on the evolving transportation system when deployed at scale. “Digital connectivity, automation and electrification have dramatically changed the way we transport, both in terms of how people travel and how goods are delivered,” said Jiaqi Ma, who will direct the new center. “We will study the impacts of these new technologies and how they can be better leveraged to improve equitable access to transportation and job participation.” Ma is faculty associate director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, where he leads the New Mobility program area. He is also an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, where the new center will be based. Scheduled to launch in November, the Mobility Center of Excellence, as it will be informally known, will assess the anticipated long-term impact of new mobility technologies and services on land use, real estate and urban design; transportation system optimization including resilience, security and reliability; equitable access to mobility and job participation; and the cost-effective allocation of public resources. The center will include researchers from UCLA Samueli, UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, along with other universities and government and nonprofit groups.

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Fighting Back Against Harassment on Public Transit

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A Governing article about a Bay Area Rapid Transit campaign to deter sexual harassment on public transportation cited research by Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, professor of urban planning and interim dean of UCLA Luskin. The BART program was designed and developed by young people of color to encourage people who witness sexual harassment on trains and buses to discreetly intervene. Loukaitou-Sideris has led extensive studies of sexual harassment in public places, which she describes as an “omnipresent and consequential” phenomenon. Public transit environments can be uniquely conducive to harassers engaging in unwanted verbal and physical abuse, her research has found. Crowded vehicles provide both proximity and anonymity, while empty vehicles or stations can be unsafe for other reasons. The BART campaign includes circulating cards saying, “I got you” and “You got me?” It also encourages ways of showing support including standing with the person who is being harassed, texting BART Police or contacting the train conductor.

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If You Want to Reform Parking, Don’t Mention the Word ‘Parking’

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The influence of UCLA Luskin’s Donald Shoup, the renowned advocate for parking reforms designed to make cities more livable, is taking hold across the country and around the world. In an extensive interview with the Hindustan Times, Shoup explained how India could build public support for eliminating free parking, the cause of gridlock and pollution, by using revenues to benefit the community. “If you want to reform parking, don’t mention the word ‘parking,’” Shoup advised. “Just ask people what public services are lacking in their neighborhood. Once you find out, tell them you don’t have money to pay for that. But one way that other cities have done it is to charge market prices for curb parking and spend that revenue to pay for services that people want. … It’s the neighborhood that decides.” Shoup added, “India is the country that will benefit most from parking reforms. One city does it right, and other cities will do it too.”

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On the Benefits and Challenges of Going Car-Less in L.A.

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A Los Angeles Times article on the benefits and challenges of going car-less in Los Angeles cited UCLA Luskin urban planning experts Evelyn Blumenberg and Michael Manville. Going without a car is a choice for some and a necessity for many who cannot afford car payments, insurance and gas. Blumenberg, director of the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, has conducted research showing that car ownership can have enormous benefits for low-income people. “Just imagine even looking for a job, right?” Blumenberg said. “Going to multiple destinations, trying to figure it out, going to interviews, all of that. … It’s very difficult to do without an automobile.” Manville, chair of UCLA Luskin Urban Planning, pointed to the trade-off between efficiency and equity in transportation and called for “policies that convince the majority of us to just drive a little bit less, while allowing some people who right now have legitimately constrained mobility to drive a little bit more.”

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Shoup Weighs In on Parking Debates, From Napa to Virginia

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UCLA Luskin’s Donald Shoup weighed in on proposals to reform parking policies on both sides of the country. In downtown Napa, California, some business owners fear that a plan to eliminate free parking could disrupt a tourist boom, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Shoup countered, “There’s a lot of evidence that we can make things much better with meters,” particularly if revenues are used to fund improvements such as sidewalk paving and landscaping. In Fairfax County, Virginia, homeowners are fiercely resisting a proposal to overhaul requirements that developments include a minimum number of parking spots. Shoup told the Washington Post that continuing to prioritize the storage of cars “will be looked back on as a horrible mistake,” and spoke to CNN about the lasting damage to the economy caused by rigid parking mandates. Shoup’s decades-long scholarship has also been spotlighted in reviews of the book “Paved Paradise” by Henry Grabar in publications including the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, Common Edge and the California Planning and Development Report.

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Defining Excellence in Urban Planning Education

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A Planning Commission podcast episode devoted to the nation’s top 10 urban planning graduate schools highlighted the program at UCLA Luskin, ranked No. 1 in a new guide published by Planetizen. UCLA’s rise to the top spot can be attributed to a variety factors, Planetizen Editorial Director James Brasuell told the podcast hosts. These include a large faculty reflecting a diversity of opinions, transportation planning scholars who are among the world’s finest and access to the Southern California urban landscape. “L.A. is an interesting place to study planning because we are working so hard to overcome some of the mistakes we made in the last century and exported around the world,” Brasuell said. Discussion of UCLA Urban Planning begins at minute 52. The 7th edition of Planetizen’s Guide to Graduate Urban Planning Programs was released in June.

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Wasserman on Transit Agency Ambassador Programs

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Jacob Wasserman, a research project manager at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, commented in a Washington Post story about the nationwide growth of transit agency ambassador programs designed to reduce crime and augment security on public transportation. The civilian ambassadors provide additional “eyes and ears” for law enforcement, report maintenance and safety issues, and provide enhanced customer service, according to the article. While transit leaders say the programs have had some successes, the overall effectiveness is not yet clear since the positions are relatively new. The article also cited a 2021 University of California study that found that service referrals made by outreach workers, ambassadors and other aid workers were more effective, for example, at directing homeless people to shelters or treatment programs than referrals by police officers. “This is not what police want to be doing or are trained to be doing,” said Wasserman, co-author of the study.

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Shoup, Butler on List of Most Influential Urbanists

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Two UCLA Luskin Urban Planning scholars were included on Planetizen’s newly released list of the top 100 most influential urbanists from the past and present. Distinguished Research Professor Donald Shoup, whose writing and research have launched fresh approaches to parking policy, was No. 6 on the list, up from his No. 13 spot on Planetizen’s 2017 compilation. His rise in the rankings can be attributed to a wave of parking reform legislation around the country, inspired by Shoup’s work, the publication said. Urban planning doctoral student Tamika Butler, former executive director of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, is No. 57 on the list. Butler achieved national prominence speaking and advocating on the subjects of racial justice and transportation policy. Planetizen said the rankings, based on reader feedback on a list of 200 top urban thinkers, is aimed at broadening the discussion about the leading figures of planning, development and conservation.

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