Prop 84 Grant Opportunities Announced

July 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment

California’s Strategic Growth Council announced that it is now accepting applications for its $22.3 million Proposition 84 competitive planning grant program.  The grants will reimburse cities, counties, MPOs, Joint Powers Authorities, Regional Transportation Planning Agencies, Councils of Governments, individually or in partnerships for the cost of developing sustainable community plans. Applications are due by August 31, 2010.  Specific activities to which the grants may be applied include development, update, adoption, or implementation of General Plan updates and elements, specific plans, infill plans, zoning ordinances, climate action plans, regional blueprint plans, interregional plans, and SB 375 Sustainable Community Strategies or Alternative Planning Strategies.  Individual grants may range from $100,000 to $1 million.  For detailed information click here, and for the FAQ sheet click here.

Policy in Motion is offering a “Sustainable Community Grant Navigation” package to assist local governments in optimizing successful grant submissions for both the five federal grant opportunities totaling $748 million, and the California Proposition 84 grant awards totaling $22 million this cycle.  Consultancy service for the Navigation package includes:

  1. overview of how federal and California policy direction ties into the scoring criteria for federal and California planning grants, and
  2. custom consultation for applicant on which grants to pursue and how to prepare grant materials through strategic planning submissions.

For more information contact Lauren Michele at lauren.michele@policyinmotion.com.

Filed Under: Funding, Greenhouse gases

Praciticing Planner Features "A New Transportation Planning Paradigm"

September 29, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Ron Milam and Kendra Breiland, with graphics by Carrie Carsell, featured in Practicing Planner: ”A New Transportation Planning Paradigm: Constraints-Based Planning in Response to the Continuing Decline in Transportation Funds”

Click here to access the publication

Filed Under: Funding

A New Transportation Planning Paradigm: Constraints-Based Planning in Response to the Continuing Decline in Transportation Funds

May 13, 2009 By 3 Comments

Traditionally, local jurisdictions plan transportation facilities to provide uncongested traffic operations for decades into the future. Under the traditional planning paradigm, transportation projects are selected based on criteria like functional classification, design standards, and ability to provide acceptable operating conditions, as defined by measures such as level of service (LOS), through a determined horizon year.  Once a design is developed to meet these objectives, funding is obtained and the project is constructed. 

However, as funding for transportation projects becomes scarcer, more often than not, this traditional planning paradigm is unrealistic.  Funding availability to construct a project can no longer be assumed.  This has already been well established in regional transportation planning process, but has yet to take widespread hold at the individual city and county level. Moreover, with increasing congestion in urban areas, designing facilities that would meet target LOS thresholds in the long-term is becoming cost prohibitive.

This article promotes replacing the traditional transportation planning process with a constraints-based approach that addresses new funding, environmental, and political realities. 

Click Here for the Full Paper

Filed Under: Funding

Gas Tax Creates Certainty for Success of Hybrids

January 17, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Here is a short list of recent news posts:

Low gas prices have automakers worried new hybrids won’t sell

The Problem with Cheap Oil

With gas falling, trucks come back

Exxon to Congress: Give Us A Carbon Tax, Please!

California is in Desperate Need of a Gas Tax

Imagine being an automaker and trying to predict what will happen with gas prices and how it will affect the fleet of vehicles that you should construct?  These are decisions that generally need to made 10 years in advance of the roll-out of any new auto product to allow for product development and machining of factories.  And yet it is difficult to predict the price of oil (and therefore gas) next year, let alone next decade. 

Here is a simple solution – a floating gas tax increment.  How about if we set a minimum price for a gallon of gas and structure a tax that achieves that price?  We all noted dramatic progress in the number of people using transit, increased purchase of more efficient vehicles, and good, old fashion conservation when gas prices rose above $4.  So how about a $4 minimum gas price target.  In today’s market, that amounts to better than a $2 increase in the gas tax, which would generate about $29 Billion per year to a state (California) very much in need of new revenue.

During periods, such as in late 2008, when gas prices exceed $4, the increment would be zero so the benefit to the state budget would be negated, but we would continue to reap rewards from the relative predictability of gas prices.  These would include:  investment in clean fuels and alternative energy sources; changeover of a California vehicle fleet to one that is more efficient and cleaner; increased use of transit; greater conservation of a precious resource, and the resulting emissions reductions from all of these.  While some of the conservation may come from simple decisions to walk rather than drive to the store, long-term predictability also encourages long-term lifestyle changes such as relocating closer to work and school, or to be adjacent to a transit hub.  It enables car-free households after more investment in transit .  And it encourages change in land use patterns to locate complementary uses (for example houses and schools) in integrated communities such that walking is possible.

It is a tax that has enormous societal benefits and generates significant revenue.

Filed Under: Economy, Electric vehicles, Funding