The 2007-8 California legislative session was a mixed one for livable cities. The legislature made severe cuts to public transit in both the 2007-8 and 2008-9 budgets. Several bills to help create more livable and sustainable cities were approved in the 2007-2008 legislative session, including AB 101, which was based on research by Livable City intern Aileen Carrigan, and SB 375, a far-reaching bill that places climate change at the center of environmental, transportation, and land-use planning in California. Bills to fund transit villages, allow San Francisco to restore vehicle license fees slashed by the Governor, and encourage health-impact assessments of local plans didn't make it into law.

2008-9 state budget slashes public transit funding

The 2008 state budget, approved several months late by the legislature, was devastating for transit. The governor slashed an additional $100 million from the $406 million sent to him by the legislature, leaving only $303 million for transit. According to the California Transit Association (CTA), the final 2008-9 budget diverts $1.5 billion of funds that should have gone to public transit. CTA estimates that $4 billion has been diverted from transit since Governor Schwarzenegger took office. CTA is filing a lawsuit against the state to recover public transit funding.

Bills approved in 2007-2008 legislative session

AB 101: Vehicles: parking enforcement; videotaped evidence (Ma)

AB 101, authored by San Francisco Assembly Member Fiona Ma, would allow San Francisco to enforce parking violations in transit-only lanes and and during street-sweeping hours by using video cameras mounted to buses and street sweepers.

Camera enforcement will allow for better enforcement of street sweeping and bus-lane parking, and free parking control officers for other duties, including directing traffic and enforcing illegal parking.

This bill grew out of a research project by Livable City intern Aileen Carrigan. Aileen's paper showed how camera enforcement has been used successfully in other places, and which changes in state law were necessary to use it in San Francisco.

SB 375, by State Senator Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento, is an important complement to California's landmark Global Warming Soutions Act of 2006, which created binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions generated within California. The 2006 bill requires a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and sets a goal of reducing emissions by 80% of 1990 levels by 2050.

SB 375 requires that the state's larger metropolitan regions, including the Bay Area, create a "preferred growth scenario" of land use and transportation improvements that provides for anticipated growth in jobs and housing, while meeting state-mandated goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

SB 375 also requires that regions update their transportation models to take into account measures that reduce vehicle trips. Livable City has led the way in getting San Francisco to adopt many such measures, including lower parking requirements, unbundled parking, car-sharing and bicycle parking in new developments. However, San Francisco's transportation models, especially those used for environmental review, are inadequate to distinguish the transporation impacts of projects which include good practices from those which maintain bad practices.

SB 375 further allows local governments to establish a proven set of good transportation practices which reduce congestion, and exempt residential projects which adopt all these practices, and which are located in transit-served infill zones, from routine transportation analysis. Projects would still need to analyze their specific project-level environmental impacts, including effects on wildlife, wind, shadow, and historic resources. This encourages developers to embrace good transportation practices, while also providing incentives for transit-oriented infill development.

AB 1358: The Complete Streets Act of 2008 (Leno)

This bill, authored by San Francisco Assembly Member Mark Leno, would require that complete streets policies be included in the circulation element of city and county general plans when they are updated. Complete streets are defined as highways and city streets that provide routine accomodation to all users of the transportation system, including motorists, pedestrians, bicyclists, individuals with disabilities, seniors, and users of public transportation.

The bill tasks the state Office of Planning and Research with developing and adopting guidelines for routine accomodation, including how the accomodation should vary according to the land use and transportation context. These guidelines must be adopted by January 1, 2009, and all updates of city and county general plan circulation elements adopted after that date must include complete streets policies that provide for safe and convenient access for all modes.

AB 57: Safe Routes to School (Soto)

Several years ago, California established a safe routes to school grant program, using federal highway funds. This program gives grants to local projects that improve pedestrian and bicycle safety or calm traffic. AB 57, sponsored by Assembly Member Nell Soto, will make this state program, which would otherwise sunset at the end of 2007, permanent.

Legislation not passed

AB 1221: Transit village developments: tax increment financing (Ma)

This bill, by Assembly Member Ma, would have allowed tax-increment financing of transit village plans. Tax-increment financing is a powerful financing tool that allows local governments to borrow against future tax revenues to fund immediate improvements. AB 1221 would have allowed the creation of infrastructure finance districts to fund and implement transit village plans in San Francisco and across the state, including neighborhood plans around San Francisco's Muni, BART, and Caltrain stations.

The Transit Village Development Planning Act was signed into law in 1994, defining transit villages and allowing cities and counties to create transit village plans within a quarter-mile of transit stations. To qualify as a transit village, the plan must provide for increased transit ridership, as well as five of 13 other public benefits, including improved air quality, reduced traffic congestion, enhanced access to jobs and housing, and local economic development. A 2006 amendment allows a city or county to declare a previously adopted specific plan or redevelopment plan to qualify as a transit village plan if it meets the requirements.

AB 1221 extended the definition out to a half-mile from transit stations, and would have ensured that 20% of housing be affordable to low and moderate income residents.

Status: approved by the legislature, but vetoed by the Governor in October 2008.

AB 1590: Voter-approved local assessments on vehicle licenses (Leno)

San Francisco, like the rest of California, faces a huge – and growing – infrastructure deficit on its streets and roads. Fees on autos cover only a small portion of the cost of maintaining the road system, and the Governor's populist cuts to state vehicle license fees, together with his bond measure to borrow over $6 billion to expand existing roads and freeways, only worsened this structural deficit.

AB 1590, by Assembly Member Mark Leno, would have allowed the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to place a measure on the ballot authorizing a $10 assessment on vehicles licensed in San Francisco, which must then be approved by San Francisco voters.

AB 1472: California Healthy Places Act of 2008 (Leno)

AB 1472, by Assembly Member Mark Leno, would form an inter-agency work group at the state level to identify, evaluate, and disseminate available evidence, information, programs, and best practices on environmental health, and how transportation and land use policies can further public health. It establishes a fund which allows cities and counties to perform health impact assessments.

AB 1472 would have strengthened the growing understanding of how planning affects public health, and how further public health through better land use and transportation planning. It would have funded programs like the San Francisco Department of Public Health's Healthy Development Measurement Tool.

California legislation for livable cities