VJ for EJ!

***UPDATE: Van Jones' talk postponed till early next semester; will post with details as they're announced.***

Ok, so I’ll be honest. I haven’t read Van Jones’ new book yet – it dropped October 7 – but it’s on my shelf, ready to crack open as soon as finals are over. If you want some reviews, you can find a few here and here (and here if you’re kind of obsessed with how new media/network culture is the future). Despite my not having read the book, I wanted to write a quick, somewhat timely, post to say two things, that are pretty much just one thing.

One, Van Jones is tight. He was pioneering the green jobs movement for a decade and a half -- way before the economy careened off a cliff and Al Gore somehow convinced the mainstream that melting ice caps are bad news (polar) bears. Now everyone is jumping on board because, really, what could be sexier than environmentalism + economic stimulus + a deliberate and strategic effort to un-whitewash the green movement? Yeah, exactly.*

And, he’s homegrown. Right in our own backyard of Oakland, he founded Green For All to build the movement for a green economy and, previously, co-founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights helping to lift disadvantaged communities up by building community and integrating them into the growing green infrastructure. He is also a founding board member of the Apollo Alliance, which is doing awesome work bringing together everyone from unions to conservationists to shape progressive policy from the ground up. (I heard Co-Director and Boalt alum Kate Gordon speak a couple months ago at a CCELP talk and was very impressed.)

Two, go to his talk on Tuesday, December 2 sponsored by the Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative! It’s our last day of classes – there is no better way to celebrate than to listen to a brilliant, inspiringly entrepreneurial guy talk about issues way more interesting and relevant than claim preclusion. I bet my little green fake-sigg water bottle on it. And if you missed Majora Carter’s inspiring talk on her environmental justice work a couple weeks ago, you definitely owe it to yourself to get your EJ fix. (In the meantime, you should also check out her TED talk if you haven’t already.)

*Well, actually, for an interesting alternate view, check out this article from the Economist. If you don’t have free market tendencies, you’ll disagree immediately. Even if you do, it’s easily rebuttable on a number of counts that I’ll go into at a later date…

SF to Implement New Parking Pricing Scheme

The board of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency decided last week to implement a trial sliding-scale pricing scheme for 6,000 of the city’s parking spaces. The program will be in effect for 18 months, starting next spring. Parking space occupancy will be monitored in six areas of the city and parking prices will be adjusted up or down every month or so based on observed congestion. Parking prices will generally range from 25¢ to $6 per hour, though could increase to as much as $18 in some areas during big events. Prices will also likely vary by time of day and not just place.

Can I say finally?

Publicly provided parking has long been underpriced, and often free – and this is to say nothing of the disastrous impacts of large off-street parking requirements for private projects. Underpriced on-street parking in urban areas, particularly central business districts, leads to numerous negative externalities that drivers should rightfully internalize through higher costs. As drivers circle around looking for an ideal spot, they create air pollution (with health, global warming and other impacts), noise, congestion and resultant stress, loss of time and productivity, and increased risks of accidents (especially with pedestrians and bicyclists).

The negative externalities produced by auto use have long been recognized and have led to the imposition of gas taxes and various other fees and taxes on auto-related activities and goods. Nonetheless, publicly provided parking has generally remained very cheap, preventing full internalization of the external costs of driving. There is no reason that those who don’t drive should have to incur any part of these costs.

Free (or cheap) parking is not a fundamental right. Sure, many people have come to expect and rely on cheap parking over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries, but that doesn’t mean they automatically accede to a right to impose significant negative externalities on the general population, future generations and environment. “Well,” you might say, “we’re improving automotive technologies and reducing air pollution externalities.” Yes, that is true, but even hybrid, electric and biodiesel autos produce significant air pollution and have other, sometimes unique, environmental impacts – e.g. electric battery production and disposal. And all auto use, regardless of the type of vehicle driven, still causes other problems like congestion and increased risk of accidents. Thus, absent complete elimination of negative externalities, these central questions remain: Why should drivers be favored over non-drivers? Why should automobiles be our primary mode of transportation? If you have the answers, let me know.

By increasing the cost of parking, congestion would be reduced and local governments would increase their revenues – which additional money they should use to pay for increased transit provision, air quality improvement, and other measures to reduce the externalities of driving and provide alternate mobility options. San Francisco has taken an important first step towards realizing these benefits, and I hope they prove fruitful. It is too early to tell whether a sea change is occurring in parking policy, but with already encouraging results from London’s congestion pricing program, successes in San Francisco could induce other localities in the United States to implement similar schemes.

New Federal Office of Urban Policy?

One of Obama's three transition team co-chairs, Valerie Jarrett, told reporters that Obama would create a new Office of Urban Policy. It is unclear what role the office would have, but its creation could herald a much greater federal involvement in urban planning and policy. While the police power - the basis of authority for state and local land use regulation - is impliedly reserved to the states through the Tenth Amendment, the feds could exert significantly more control over urban policy than they have historically. For example, they could put greater and/or more specific conditions on the allocation of federal money for transportation and community development projects. An Office of Urban Policy could also institute and oversee a much greater linkage between federal transportation, community development and other urban programs and grants and the agencies that manage them. Most people focus on the EPA and Interior, Agriculture and Energy Departments when discussing federal environmental policy, but federal policies on transportation and urban development have numerous direct and indirect environmental impacts and will play an increasingly important role in combating global warming.

Oh, and you can go here to vote on projects you think the new office should take on. The website was set up by the same people who created walkscore.com. Obviously there's no guarantee that the projects receiving the most votes will be pursued by the Obama Administration, but at least voting is kinda fun.

Treeblogger Gets It Right!

All four of the CA ballot initiatives with environmental consequences were decided favorably on Tuesday. Now if only we could reverse that pesky marriage amendment...