Suchergebnisse

This report examines the ability of existing and proposed affordable housing policies to align with sustainable transportation goals in California. First, the authors compare the ability of Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), Redevelopment and inclusionary funded projects to locate in neighborhoods with transit access to employment versus market rate production in the same period. The authors find tax credit funded units outperform market rate production with respect to job accessibility via transit, and the authors attribute this to the scoring criteria of California's tax credit allocating body, the Tax Credit Allocation Committee (TCAC). However, the authors find this may have come at the cost of concentrating new affordable housing in areas with higher poverty rates. At the federal level, the authors measure how a change in the determination of maximum payouts for Section 8 housing vouchers, known as Fair Market Rents (FMRs), alters the ability of voucher holders to access transit and jobs rich neighborhoods. The results show that changing to "Small Area" FMRs, which are determined at the ZIP code scale, dramatically improves voucher holders' access to jobs rich neighborhoods. This benefit comes at the cost of nearly eliminating voucher accessibility in neighborhoods that are currently accessible. And finally, at the state level, an analysis is conducted to determine if California's emphasis on promoting affordable housing in transit and jobs rich neighborhoods is increasing the cost of affordable housing development. The modeling results indicate that affordable housing near transit stops is not significantly more expensive, but that costs increase slightly for projects in jobs rich neighborhoods. Participation in the state's Transit Oriented Development (TOD) housing program does not significantly impact costs. The results of this research are intended to inform policy makers at every level of government on how best to continue to integrate transportation and housing policies without sacrificing the primary purpose of affordable housing policies: to house people. View the NCST Project Webpage

This article examines the current methodology for collecting state transportation expenditure data as reported in Highway Statistics, a publication of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Statistics Program. Currently, the transportation data cover state-administered highways (interstates, arterials, collectors, and local roads under state control) and mass transportation systems. Highway Statistics is the only comprehensive report of these state transportation expenditures. The data published in the report play an essential role in the development of transportation policy, legislative documents, and in academic research. Growing demand for accountability of government agencies has increased the visibility of and the need to scrutinize such data. Data are examined with respect to three factors: the data reporting process, data reliability, and the suitability of data for cataloging current transportation trends. The study finds that FHWA-published expenditure data are often misreported, misinterpreted, and misused. The article concludes with suggestions for refining the data-reporting process, improving data relevance, and minimizing future misuse of data.

With the passage of the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB32), California has begun an ambitious journey to reduce in-state GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Under the direction of executive order S-20-06, a mandated Market Advisory Committee (MAC) charged with studying market-based mechanisms to reduce GHG emissions, including cap and trade systems, has recommended taking an "upstream" approach to GHG emissions regulation, arguing that upstream regulation will reduce administrative costs because there are fewer agents. In this paper, we argue that, the total costs to society of a GHG cap and trade scheme can be minimized though downstream regulation, rather than the widely proposed upstream approach. We propose a household carbon trading system with four major components: a state allocation to households, household-to-household trading, households to utility company credit transfers, and utility companies to government credit transfers. The proposed system can also be considered more equitable than carbon taxes and upstream cap and trade systems to control GHG emissions from residential energy use and is consistent with AB32.