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Robotaxis Want Your Ridehailing Job

In California, it seems robotaxis can’t catch a break. On social media, I’ve been observing people post videos of Cruise vehicles stopping for no reason and causing traffic jams. And a week ago, the DMV pulled the permit for Cruise because one of its vehicles hit a pedestrian in San Francisco. In Los Angeles last week, Los Angeles Councilmember Hugo Soto-Hernandez held a press conference slamming the automated vehicle industry, declaring Los Angeles won’t be a guinea pig for driverless car services. The Councilmember also stated his intention to seek regulation of the industry, limit its use and join a lawsuit against the CPUC for allowing the operations of these automated vehicles.

Not to minimize the injury caused by the Cruise vehicle collision, but let's put this into context: Politicians are up in arms over one traffic incident caused by an automated vehicle when there were 504 deaths from vehicular collisions in 2022 piloted by humans!

Why fan people's fears and anxieties about robotaxis? At the presser, Soto-Hernandez gave us a glimpse about what the fight is really about. Flanked by labor unions, the councilmember claimed that the rise of automated taxis would impact 200,000 middle class jobs.

He is not wrong. AI and machine learning technologies are threatening to eliminate many, many jobs.

However, recall that years ago, when Uber and Lyft launched its service in major cities around the world, taxi drivers were crying out for regulation and assistance. Consumers favored the pricing and convenience of the new technology, and car owners enjoyed the earning potential and flexibility of the gig economy. Rideshare drivers were also able to avoid the regulations and costly medallions that taxi drivers had to abide by and purchase. Local, state and federal governments failed to protect the taxi drivers it had regulated - regulations that made taxi drivers less competitive and innovative - and as a result, the taxi industry has largely been decimated.

Fast forward to today, politicians and labor unions are seeking to protect the jobs of … the remaining taxi drivers left and now Uber and Lyft drivers from an even newer technology.

People forget that Uber’s vision has always been to transition to a driverless service both for customer transportation and deliveries. Now that the damage has been done to taxi drivers, are these ridesharing jobs worth protecting through regulation? Rideshare drivers are independent contractors and lack health benefits and sick leave.

To put it bluntly: "Several ride-hail drivers told WIRED that they think the jobs have become too crappy to fight for, because earnings have declined over the years and there’s no reward for sticking around."

Los Angeles has enormous transportation challenges, and trying out different things such as we've done with expanding light rail, electric scooters and bicycles, has been great because of the options. Why not automated taxis?

Maybe L.A.'s politicians are trying to get ahead of this robot-taking-away-jobs issue. But how is it going to make L.A. a better city? Will it improve conditions for drivers for hire? I think not.

Driving in L.A. is for the most part a truly suck-y experience. And the pedestrian experience sucks because there are a lot of bad drivers out on the road. I personally wouldn't mind giving robot taxis a chance.

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The L.A. Dept. of City Planning will be hosting two community meetings for the Downtown Community Plan. This plan is part of the New Community Planning/Transit Neighborhood Planning efforts, but most importantly will inform the Re:Code L.A. process. Bryan Eck came to speak to the Little Tokyo Community Council's Preservation & Cultural Planning Committee meeting and invited folks to come out. You can see the attached flyer, but here's the info:

Monday, Feb. 3, 4:00 - 6:00 PM

Cooper Design Space - Penthouse

860 South Los Angeles Street

Tuesday, Feb. 4, 6:00 - 8:00 PM

Union Church of Los Angeles

401 East 3rd Street

For more information please contact Bryan Eck at 213.978.1304 or email at bryan.eck@lacity.org or Nicholas Maricich at nicholas.maricich@lacity.org or 213.978.1240.

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I came across this article on a new study by U.C. Berkeley which maps out greenhouse gas emissions from every zip code across the U.S.. Urban areas including Los Angeles, are pretty "green" and emit fewer greenhouse gas emissions than outlying suburbs. This is partly due to the increased sprawl and dependence on automobiles outside the urban center. But another interesting observation came up as well:

Reddish-colored exceptions include La Cañada Flintridge, Beverly Hills and Bel Air, Pacific Palisades and Malibu, Manhattan Beach, San Marino, and the entire Palos Verdes Peninsula ("In fact, the strongest correlate of high greenhouse gas emissions is income, because when you spend more, you consume more" according to one of the study authors.)

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"Bloomberg's massive rezoning—his biggest planning move—is a form of urban stop and frisk falling disproportionately on minorities."

In an open letter to New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, Michael Sorkin calls for increased community involvement in the urban planning process. Pulling no punches, Sorkin outlines the myriad of ways in which former Mayor Bloomberg and the City Planning Department have failed to address the housing needs of minorities and the working class, instead favoring "corporatist development priorities" like private parks and condos priced at $50 million each.

Gentrification and the lack of housing affordability is a prevalent issue not just in New York, but in major metropolitan cities across the nation. On the one hand, cash-strapped cities are in need of development fees and growing the tax base to put them back in the black. But the trade-off is that if this real estate development model of planning continues unchecked, there will be a real housing crisis, not the kind caused by speculators and subprime mortgages, but the kind where ordinary Americans cannot afford to live in places near their work, near essential services, or simply where they call home.

The current land grab by the wealthy and the super-rich, both foreign and domestic, is causing the rental market to rise dis-proportionately to salaries. In Los Angeles, we have been seeing more overcrowding in poorer neighborhoods due to low-incomes and growing poverty. People are really struggling. Meanwhile, more market-rate housing is being built in downtown and around the Expo Line.

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The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Transportation have come out with a Location Affordability Index and additional Transportation Cost Calculator. This is a really useful tool to see the affordability of an area, let's say, before you decide to move in. It's based on American Community Survey data from 2010, so I'm not sure how much of it is out-of-date already, but it's still useful for factoring transportation costs into decisions about where to live and work. I punched in the zip code for Mar Vista, and it's interesting to see which neighborhoods are more affordable than others. For more insight, there's an Atlantic Cities article about this tool's potential policy implications in housing.

Ah, technology...

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Re-coloring the City of Los Angeles’ Zoning Code

The L.A. Department of City Planning is undergoing a huge effort to modernize the city's zoning code. They've dubbed it "re:code L.A." and they are hosting a virtual listening session on Wednesday, November 6, 2013, at 6:00 p.m.

In advance of this live webinar, I've asked my co-conspirator Pamela Lee, a regional planner in our agency's Land Use & Environmental Planning division, to explain what zoning entails and why it's important to participate. Thanks Pam!

Hear ye, hear ye! The City of Los Angeles is updating its zoning code! This is BIG news that will affect your daily lives and the city forever and ever!

 <Insert perplexed stares - apathetic shrugs - radio silence>

The Zoning Code. These three words are not exactly the sexiest topics especially put next to words like sustainability, parklets, and bicycle lanes. However, zoning is arguably THE most effective planning tool to better any city and the on-the-ground experience for you and your family. If you want to make your city better and if you care what is can be built next to your house, next to your child’s school or around the corner from your grocery store, listen up to what’s happening with the Re:code LA zoning code update project.

What is zoning, exactly? It is a city map that assigns a color to every single city block or parcel. The typical color coding represents the following zones[1]:

Yellow = Single-family residential (a standalone house, yard, driveway)

Brown = Multi-family residential (apartments, condos, shared walls)

Red = Retails and commercial (shops and stores)

Purple = Industrial (warehouses)

Blues = Institutions and Public Facilities (city halls, schools, libraries, post offices, etc.)

Green = Recreation (parks)

Grays = Industrial Utilities (powerplants, sewers, etc.)  

These colors determine what can exist next to one another. Let’s say you live in a yellow box and you show up to the re:code LA meeting to see that the box next door is proposed to be green. It means if someone wants to build it, a park could locate right next to your house! Hurrah! A little park for you and your kids to enjoy! It also means your neighbors could be wanderers looking for a nice place to sleep at night. Not so great.

Each color combo has both good and bad results—hence the power of the zoning code. It spells out the possibility of a good combination of land uses and also could (inadvertently) cause a really bad combo. At a larger scale, good color combos over and over creates good communities—ones you want to visit, sit for a cup of coffee, walk around and enjoy on any given day or night.

So what should City of LA’s Re:code LA project mean for you? It means you should be involved to see what the city is proposing to “re-color” in the areas you live, visit, enjoy, and even dislike. They are re-coloring parts of the city, hopefully to assign the “just-right” combinations city-wide to create healthy and vibrant communities. Over the long term, it will determine where the city is sustainable, where there will be bike lanes in the future, whether or not some great restaurants will pop up near your local grocery store. Don’t fear! Zoning does not kick anybody out right away—but it could. So, show up to listen and observe for color compatibility with paintbrushes at the ready.

- Pamela Lee

[1] Jeer, Sanjay and Barry Bain. “Traditional Color Coding for Land Use”. American Planning Association. http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/gis/manual/style/ColorConventions.pdf

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Some Things You Might See While in Amsterdam via Streetfilms

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Here’s an Instagram clip from inside one of Taipei’s MRT light rail lines taken by my friend Tim Jieh. Public transit is the norm, not the exception in Asia.

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710 Showdown Meetings

Metro is holding a series of "All Community Convening" information sessions on the 710 North alternatives. The project is highly contentious, and that's putting it mildly.

Currently, the North 710 freeway ends and spills out at Valley Blvd. in Monterey Park. The plan was to always continue north so the freeway could connect to the 210 freeway, but Pasadena residents have long been opposed to the idea.

Here are the times and dates for the meetings:

Thursday, July 18, 2013                                      6 p.m. – 8 p.m. Los Angeles Presbyterian Church 2241 N Eastern Avenue El Sereno, CA

Saturday, July 20, 2013                                       9:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Blair High                                                             *Web streaming available 1201 S. Marengo Avenue Pasadena, CA

Tuesday, July 23, 2013                                        6 p.m. – 8 p.m. Langley Senior Center 400 W. Emerson Avenue Monterey Park, CA

For more info, check out the posting from The Source.

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Support the creators, Stonebrowne Design, in their Kickstarter Goal to print the maps.

"The Greater Los Angeles Freeway Map" provides a clear illustration in the difference between highway and rail investment.

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Contractor crews replacing tiles at Culver City Expo line station. Looked like there was some water pooling under the concrete pads, causing the tiles to come loose.

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Fantastical!

If you haven’t played around with Streetmix then you’re not doing it right. Code for America delivers (yet again!) a nifty little web app that allows you to mix and match a street cross section in real time. Anybody active in urban planning should find this super useful for visualization and alternatives analysis. 

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New Metro under-construction map. Shows how important Little Tokyo/Arts District station is an important linkage for 3 of the 6 rail lines.

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This map via thisbigcity is pretty interesting because of the source - Columbia University's Center for Urban Real Estate, or as it refers to itself as, the CURE. From the website:

CURE identifies, shares, and advocates solutions for a rapidly urbanizing world. CURE redefines sustainability as dense, mixed-income, mixed-use, transit-based urban development. From climate change and energy dependence to the socioeconomic and political upheaval they engender, CURE addresses emerging and current global issues through the lens of urbanization.

Aside from the ridiculous and sanctimonious acronym, I find it hard to believe that the Center for Urban Real Estate can advocate for more development in the downtown, Red Hook/Brooklyn Waterfront and Staten Island coastlines. Especially after Hurrican Sandy and FEMA issued its new coastal flooding map. The authors argue that the question is "not whether to build it but how to build it." Oh, you academics.

In their Executive Summary, the authors propose constructing "megaprojects" in Atlantic Yards and Hudson Yards. They argue that the City of NY must find ways of increasing density or else growth will happen in the suburbs, resulting in a loss of municipal tax base and increased negative impacts to the region's carbon footprint.

I didn't have time to read it fully, but a PDF of the report is available here. Personally, I have many questions and doubts on this exercise to bring more transit-oriented housing to New York City. Just a reality check: One can build 400+ unit apartment buildings faster than expanding the NY subway line. So how are people going to get around in the meantime?

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Am I satisfied?

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A majority of the space on the public thoroughfare is set aside for the use of cars. And even though particular interventions—a bike lane here, a storage rack there—are certainly debated, nobody even begins to address this issue from a standpoint of first principles. Why would a city like Washington (or New York), most of whose residents don't commute to work in a car on a daily basis, want to allocate its space in that manner?

- Matthew Yglesias' thought-provoking response to a Wall Street Journal editorial board member's comments on the new bike share program in New York City. The WSJ criticized the blue bikes and called it the result of an "autocratic" mayor and government.

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The above is a summary of the 44 public comments received after the community meeting earlier this month on the draft alternatives for the Los Angeles Union Station Master Plan.

Only 44 public comments for the draft alternatives to the City's major transit hub? Hmmm... seems like there is little enthusiasm for the project or Metro needs to do some more outreach.

One thing I wish for is Metro to paint a full picture of the region's future rail network. Does Union Station have enough future capacity, for example, to serve the local rail and high speed rail? For local rail, there is still just one track going over the 101 freeway that will be serving the Regional Connector, Orangeline (a.k.a. Eco-Rapid Transit) and Gold Lines.

Metro is usually quiet when it comes to talking about future projects, so as not to get people worked up about alignments. But how can you expect the public to provide constructive comments when they are not informed?