How “Less is More” in solving the parking dilemma

TransForm. In 2010, Philanthropedia’s climate change experts named TransForm seventh among the top 15 climate changerelated nonprofits in the Bay Area, http://bit.ly/pLQhcz.

 

Recently I had the pleasure to speak with Ann Cheng, Program Director for GreenTRIP, one of six TransForm programs. Ms. Cheng also currently serves as the Mayor of El Cerrito. 

 

Ms. Cheng hails from Scarborough, Canada, near Toronto. At a young age she moved with her family to El Cerrito. In the 1990s, Ann studied environmental biology, policy, and planning at UC Davis, and then worked in watershed planning and urban creeks for Contra Costa County. Her focus was on creating better natural and transportation systems for urban redevelopment areas, with projects in North Richmond, El Sobrante, and Montalvin Manor. After later working for the Berkeley consulting firm Alta Planning & Design, which

focuses on bicycle and pedestrian plans, Ms. Cheng transitioned to the position of senior planner at TALC. This position allowed her to develop the Great Communities Toolkit based on the TOD Best Practices Resource Guide for station area planning, http://bit.ly/qwl7H9.

 

What is TransForm now, and how does it affect those of us in the San Francisco Bay Area? TransForm is a nonprofit organization that believes that “all people deserve affordable, safe, and easy access to jobs, services, and nature on foot, by bicycle, or by public transportation.” To that end, TransForm works with a variety of groups including the faith-based group Congregations Organization for Renewal. Based in San Leandro, it is a nongovernmental think-tank through UC Berkeley under the leadership of Karen Chapple, Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning, UC Berkeley, and the regional nongovernmental

organizations — like Urban Habitat and TransForm — whose goal is to create new policy for transit.

 

TransForm has been funded by government agencies like the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (initial seed money for GreenTRIP) and grants from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the James Irvine Foundation, to name just a few. It may be common sense to most urban planners that growth should be directed toward existing developed areas. In recent years, however, many cities encouraged almost any development, including growth in precious greenfields. TransForm’s goal is to fight climate change and improve the quality of life for Bay Area residents by creating world-class transit with reasonable pricing, along with support for healthy, walkable, affordable communities.

 

Specifically, the GreenTRIP staff collaborated with Greenbelt Alliance to score projects using alternative criteria over and above the minimum that LEED uses under the CalGreen Building Code. Between

Fall 2009 and Winter 2010, the CalGreen program certified five new multifamily mixed-use development projects in San Mateo, San José, Berkeley, San Leandro, and Hayward.

 

While none of the five projects has broken ground — blame the economic downturn — San Mateo is seeing some developer fundraising, and South Hayward has gone back to the drawing board at a site across Mission Boulevard. But the projected outcomes for these pilot projects remain: lower costs for lower income people and reduced GHG emissions via transportation alternatives that reduce driving and CO2,

increase transit use, lower car ownership per family, and cover the cost of transit passes and car-share memberships. “The key point,” said Ms. Cheng, is that “just because 100 new homes are proposed for a

new development it does not mean a city should automatically require two parking spaces for every home. That particularly holds if free car-share memberships and transit passes are part of the development

package — and especially if a relatively transit friendly, walkable community is proposed.”

 

A literature review by TransForm of proven strategies to reduce traffic resulted in the determination that 40 years of free transit, 40 years of free car-share membership, and unbundling the cost of parking from

rent can significantly reduce traffic if a project is tailored to the character of the surrounding neighborhood.

 

This is not a one-size-fits-all program. Innovations in transportation amenities, tailored to the community, can help justify lower parking requirements. Those in turn will lower development costs, reduce traffic, and help the environment — read “healthier, more affordable communities.”