Recent ucla_its_ow items

A radical idea: Eliminating all curbside parking

Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A radical idea: Eliminating all curbside parking

Report from the 2026 UCLA Arrowhead Symposium: New Mobility, Automated Vehicles and Cities

Thu, 14 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Automated vehicles are no longer a “coming soon” technology; they are an operational reality reshaping the physical and digital real estate of our cities. The question is no longer if the technology will work, but how we will govern the complex ecosystem it inhabits. The 2026 UCLA Arrowhead Symposium on New Mobility, Automated Vehicles, and Cities shifted the focus beyond technological hype and market speculation to the urgent work of public stewardship.

Tax parking, not housing

Mon, 11 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This discussion paper argues that cities should discourage off-street parking by levying a tax — a parking impact fee — on new development. Parking generates environmental and social costs or externalities, and developers, left to their own devices, will provide too many spaces from a societal perspective. A parking impact fee can account for these externalities and provide incentives for developers to reduce the oversupply of parking. One practical way to implement such a fee is to repurpose the transportation impact fees that cities already levy on new development. Rather than the current practice of charging a fee for each housing unit or square foot, which discourages housing and commercial development, cities should charge for each new parking space — discouraging parking instead.

"Stop” and Think about It: How the Different Interpretations of What Counts as a “Major Transit Stop" in California Make a Difference

Fri, 6 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

“Major transit stop”: how these three words are defined determines what can be built where, throughout much of California. In order to address housing supply constraints, the state legislature has enacted a number of laws that streamline approval and remove zoning constraints in areas close to high-quality transit. But what, exactly, is a “major transit stop”? Planners, developers, and elected officials construe the sparse definition in state law in many ways — though genuine interpretive disagreement, due to modeling and data constraints, and/or in order to serve political goals of encouraging or stymying development. Differences in interpreting the definition of “major transit stop” collectively make a big difference in what areas are covered by state zoning incentives. A maximal approach to defining “major transit stop” grows the eligible area by over three times more than a minimal approach. The area within half a mile of a major transit stop has generally increased over time....

Vehicle access and falling transit ridership: evidence from Southern California

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We examine pre-COVID declines in transit ridership, using Southern California as a case study. We first illustrate Southern California’s unique position in the transit landscape: it is a large transit market that demographically resembles a small one. We then draw on administrative data, travel diaries, rider surveys, accessibility indices, and Census microdata for Southern California, and demonstrate a strong association between rising private vehicle access, particularly among the populations most likely to ride transit, and falling transit use. Because we cannot control quantitatively for the endogeneity between vehicle acquisition and transit use, our results are not causal. Nevertheless, the results strongly suggest that increasing private vehicle access helped depress transit ridership. Given Southern California’s similarity to most US transit markets, we conclude that vehicle access may have played a role in transit losses across the US since 2000.

An Abundance Agenda for Transportation

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Transportation provides physical links between geographic places and across geographic scales. Mobility allows people to meet their needs by providing physical access to opportunities, goods, and services. An abundance policy for transportation should support broader abundance through access: making it easier for everyone to get to what they need. Allowing people to access their needs means 1) supplying more mobility choices, especially increasing the quality of more affordable and efficient choices, and 2) supporting land use policy and government programs that facilitate access within neighborhoods, multimodal hubs, or over smaller distances.

A Century of Transportation Studies at UCLA: 1925-2025

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

UCLA has been a leader in transportation research and education for better than a century. This history spans five distinct eras: (i) beginning the in 1920s with a focus on street traffic; (ii) expanding after World War II to encompass traffic safety, environmental issues, and transportation engineering; (iii) focusing on the social and behavioral aspects of travel in the 1970s and 1980s; (iv) establishing a new transportation research center focused on policy and planning from the early 1990s; (v) and finally becoming part of a multidisciplinary, multi-campus research consortium in the mid-2010s. This white paper documents that history and the key individuals who made it possible.

Putting Automobile Debt on the Map: Race and the Geography of Automobile Debt in California

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Most U.S. metropolitan areas developed alongside the automobile, producing neighborhoods of relatively low density. Consequently, access to opportunities in these neighborhoods is predicated on having an automobile, yet many households do not have the resources to purchase one outright, relying on automobile loans to spread out the purchase price. While automobile loans can enable automobile ownership, they also significantly increase the vehicle purchase price, particularly for non-white consumers subject to discriminatory lending practices.In this study, we rely on data from the University of California Consumer Credit Panel from Experian to examine the determinants and geography of automobile debt and its consequences in California, testing whether various automobile debt measures disproportionately affect non-white neighborhoods.We find that, controlling for other factors associated with automobile lending including income, Black and Latino/a neighborhoods have higher total...

State of the BART: Analyzing the Determinants of Bay Area Rapid Transit Use in the 2010s

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Peaking on public transit—the concentration of ridership in peak times and directions into and out of central areas—has waxed in the U.S. over the past century, as public transit has lost more mode share at off-peak times, in off-peak directions, and among non-commute trips. A notable pre-pandemic manifestation of this chronic problem was on Bay Area Rapid Transit, the San Francisco Bay Area’s regional heavy rail system. While BART staved off an absolute ridership decline longer than most American transit operators in the mid- and late-2010s, it did so almost entirely due to peak gains in riders offsetting off-peak losses. As a result, the system experienced worsening passenger crowding at some times and places, expanding underutilization of capacity at many others, and the prospect of enormous expenditures to accommodate rising transbay passenger demand. To examine the factors driving transit use in the 2010s, we model peak and off-peak BART trips as a function of station...

Transit's Financial Prognosis: Findings from a Survey of U.S. Transit Systems during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The COVID-19 pandemic occasioned significant financial distress and uncertainty for many U.S. transit operators. In the face of this crisis, the federal government provided substantial supplemental operating support. To understand how this fiscal turmoil and relief have affected U.S. transit systems, we conducted two nationwide surveys of transit agency staff in 2020 and 2021-2022. While pandemic-induced financial shortfalls affected service in 2020, with capital projects delayed too, these effects became much more muted by 2021/2022. Most systems reported moderate to substantial increases in federal funding during the pandemic, more so than other funding categories. However, nearly half foresee financial shortfalls once federal relief funding expires. Agencies with higher pre-pandemic ridership and farebox recovery are particularly affected by fare revenue losses and more likely to anticipate shortfalls. In the near term, difficulty hiring and retaining front-line workers was...

Beyond Copenhagen: Walking & cycling success stories from cities worldwide

Mon, 9 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Walking and cycling are the ultimate in sustainable transportation. From a societal perspective, they are practically zero carbon, and emit no harmful air pollutants. They require minimal space on the street and for parked bicycles. And it costs cities little to provide infrastructure for sidewalks and bicycle lanes. From the individual perspective, traveling by foot or bicycle is free or low cost. And it helps people integrate physical activity into their daily routines.

How can mayors, city officials, and other policymakers realize this potential and encourage more people to walk and cycle in safety? This playbook uses a new source – Google Environmental Insights Explorer – to provide data-driven guidance on how to encourage active transportation in cities around the world. Based on data on walking and cycling in 11,487 cities from 121 countries across six continents, it highlights success stories from a range of geographic and socio-economic contexts, including cities...

Political Preferences and Transport Infrastructure: Evidence from California’s High-Speed Rail

Tue, 29 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We study how political preferences shaped California’s High-Speed Rail (CHSR), a largetransportation project approved by referendum in 2008. Voters’ support responded significantly to the projected economic gains in their tract of residence, as measured by a quantitative model of high-speed rail matched to CHSR plans. Given this response, a revealed-preference approach comparing the proposed network with alternative designs identifies strong planner’s preferences for political support. The optimal politically-blind design would have placed the stations nearer to California’s dense metro areas, where it was harder to sway votes, thus increasing the projected economic gains.

Exposing Freeway Inequalities in the Suburbs: The Cases of Pasadena and Pacoima

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

U.S. freeways have come under scrutiny for their adverse impacts on low-income neighborhoods of color, primarily in urban centers. This article offers a comparative historical analysis of the impact of freeways on two communities in Southern California, which were ethnically diverse suburbs. Planning authorities in Pasadena and Pacoima chose freeway routes that displaced a greater share of households of color than the proposed alternatives. Meanwhile, neighboring white, wealthier communities successfully influenced routing decisions in consequential ways. Beyond the visible and immediate effects of the freeways, social inequity and environmental degradation persist in both neighborhoods today.

Terra Incognita : California Transit Agency Perspectives on Demand, Service, and Finance in the Age of COVID-19

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The COVID-19 pandemic upended transit use, finance, and management. To investigate these effects two years into the pandemic, we conducted 21 semi-structured interviews with senior managers at transit agencies in the most populous U.S. state, California. We found that the pandemic generated many operational and managerial challenges for transit agencies. Ridership plummeted, then slowly recovered, but is still well below pre-pandemic levels at most agencies. Commuter trips to and from major job centers were especially slow to return. In response to decreased demand, public health concerns, and uncertain finances, many agencies cut services and spending early on. As a result, fare revenues declined, in some cases precipitously. However, federal pandemic relief funds proved essential in filling budgetary gaps, stabilizing finances, preventing layoffs, and maintaining services. Other transit subsidies mostly bounced back robustly. Our interviews suggest that, though California transit...

Guide for Addressing Encampments on State Transportation Rights-of-way: Interim Deliverable

Wed, 20 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This interim report began in order to develop a guide of suggested practices for responding to, managing, and deterring encampments on the right-of-way. The suggested practices will address the challenges for state departments of transportation in the design, construction, and maintenance of pavements and consider social equity, environmental impacts, safety, legal issues, coordination with other agencies, and other relevant issues. This interim report documents the research approach; present findings and analysis from the literature review, industry scan, and two surveys; and identifying existing and new practices.

Going Nowhere Faster: Did the Covid-19 Pandemic Accelerate the Trend Toward Staying Home?

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Problem, research strategy, and findings

Covid-19 significantly altered work, out-of-home activity participation, and travel, with much activity time being moved into the home. If these patterns hold, they could imply significant long-term changes for homes, businesses, cities, and transportation. We examined data for 34,000 respondents to the American Time Use Survey from 2019 (the pre-pandemic period), 2021 (the pandemic period), and 2022 and 2023 (the post-pandemic period). We used ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions to study participation in 12 out-of-home activities, travel (by auto, transit, and walking), and 16 in-home activities. We observed sharp declines in overall out-of-home activity, travel by all modes, and 10 of the 12 specific out-of-home activities in 2021 compared with 2019, whereas time spent on 13 of the 16 in-home activities rose during that period. By 2023, most of these changes persisted: Time spent out-of-home, traveling by all modes, and...

Report from the 2024 UCLA Lake Arrowhead Symposium: Mega Events, Major Opportunities

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

On October 13 – 15, 2024, nearly 170 representatives of government, private sector consulting frms and companies, non-proft and advocacy groups, and universities joined the 2024 UCLA Lake Arrowhead Symposium on Mega Events, Major Opportunities. This report summarizes the discussions, lessons learned, and action items from the convening.

Using a Modified Delphi Approach to Explore California's Possible Transportation and Land Use Futures

Wed, 2 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Many methods exist for engaging experts in interactive groups to explore, clarify, and/or decide on various issues. In an investigation of four possible future scenarios concerning transportation and land use in California, we developed a novel “hybrid policy Delphi” method for use with a panel of 18 experts. We applied it to explore the policies and practices that would likely lead to each of the four scenarios and the consequences that would result from them. Through our process, panel members discussed and reflected on the scenarios in multiple ways. The scenario they considered most desirable they also deemed least likely to occur, and they foresaw the likely trajectory of California transportation and land use leading to less desirable scenarios. Our mix of discussion and questionnaires traded the benefit of anonymity for the benefit of exploratory, interactive discussion. In addition, our use of surveys before and after meetings allowed us to track changes in panel opinion...

Peaked too soon? Analyzing the shifting patterns of PM peak period travel in Southern California

Mon, 16 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Daily vehicle travel collapsed with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 but largely bounced back by late 2021. The pandemic caused dramatic changes to working, schooling, shopping, and leisure activities, and to the travel associated with them. Several of these changes have so far proven enduring. So, while overall vehicle travel had largely returned to pre-pandemic levels by late 2021, the underlying drivers of this travel have likely changed.

To examine one element of this issue, we analyzed whether patterns of daily trip-making shifted temporally between the fall of 2019 and 2021 in the Greater Los Angeles megaregion. We used location-based service data to examine vehicle trip originations for each hour of the day at the U.S. census block group level in October 2019 and October 2021. We observed notable shifts in the timing of post-pandemic PM peak travel, so we examined changes in the ratio of mid-week trips originating in the early afternoon (12–3:59...

Impact of Sensing Errors on Headway Design: From α-Fair Group Safety to Traffic Throughput

Fri, 23 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Headway, namely the distance between vehicles, is a key design factor for ensuring the safe operation of autonomous driving systems. There have been studies on headway optimization based on the speeds of leading and trailing vehicles, assuming perfect sensing capabilities. In practical scenarios, however, sensing errors are inevitable, calling for a more robust headway design to mitigate the risk of collision. Undoubtedly, augmenting the safety distance would reduce traffic throughput, highlighting the need for headway design to incorporate both sensing errors and risk tolerance models. In addition, prioritizing group safety over individual safety is often deemed unacceptable because no driver should sacrifice their safety for the safety of others. In this study, we propose a multi-objective optimization framework that examines the impact of sensing errors on both traffic throughput and the fairness of safety among vehicles. The proposed framework provides a solution to determine...

Connected automated vehicle impacts in Southern California part-I: Travel behavior and demand analysis