Jobs-housing balance has become a major planning and public policy issue. Despite its popularity and apparent acceptance among public policy makers as a solution for traffic congestion and air pollution problems, there is little consensus on what jobs-housing balance means and little evidence that a jobs-housing balance policy would have any significant effect on these problems. The jobs-housing balance policy is premised on the idea that job and housing location choices are closely linked, and that policy intervention is required to achieve a balance of housing and jobs. Existing evidence suggests that the relationship between where people choose to live and work is complex, and may have little to do with job access considerations. Further, patterns of urban growth and travel indicate that balancing occurs as part of the urban development process. It is concluded that jobs-housing balance is not an effective solution for traffic congestion and air pollution concerns. Rather, these problems are better addressed in a more direct way.

The METRANS Transportation Center has been providing technical assistance to the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) in support of implementing the California Sustainable Freight Action Plan (CSFAP). The work is focused on Action 6 of the CSFAP: Convene industry stakeholder working groups to identify a target or targets and deploy strategies that consider commercial viability and promote the competitiveness of California’s statewide and local freight transport system. Develop economic growth and competitiveness metrics, models, and other tools and data to analyze benefits and impacts of actions, including costs, and develop and implement a suite of quantitative metrics to track progress in order to ensure that the impacts of actions on economic growth and competitiveness are considered throughout the development and implementation process.

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The METRANS Transportation Center is working with California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, and the California Air Resources Board to implement the economic competitiveness provisions of the California Sustainable Freight Action Plan (CSFAP).

The CSFAP aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) by establishing targets for freight efficiency and the transition to zero emission trucks by 2030. The CSFAP also calls for improving the economic competitiveness of the freight sector. It requires that an industry stakeholder group be convened to establish metrics and targets for economic competitiveness.

This brief summarizes the research support that METRANS has been providing to this stakeholder group. The first phase of the work was to establish a framework for measuring economic competitiveness and establishing a 2030 target. METRANS has taken a deliberate approach in order to achieve consensus among the stakeholders and assure that the process would result in meaningful metrics.

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This report is a preliminary evaluation of the CALTRANS transportation system management program implemented during the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics. It discusses the objectives and strategies of the CALTRANS TSM program. describes highway system performance during the Olympics, and presents tentative conclusions regarding the overall success of the TSM program.

Results indicate that response to the Olympics was highly varied both in time and space. During the Olympics period. travel volumes were highly variable, starting out much below normal levels and gradually increasing. The most significant travel adjustments took place in the vicinity of the Los Angeles downtown/Coliseum area. In this area both traffic volumes and truck volumes remained low throughout the Olympics. The data also indicated a consistent drop in work trip travel of about 10 percent. a shift in truck traffic to evening hours, and a reduction in traffic incidents throughout Los Angeles County. It is concluded that the combination of these relatively minor changes. together with more intensive than normal traffic management, were responsible for the efficient flow of traffic during the Olympics.

Theories of relationships between land use and transportation, and the empirical research conducted to test these relationships are reviewed. Recent empirical research seldom supports theoretical expectations. These results are explained by the changes in urban structure that have occurred over the past three decades. The paper concludes with some suggestions for revising the theories to represent conditions in contemporary urban areas better.