RDF - Transportation Working Group

I liked Kyle’s comment about the County acting as a convener on certain transportation issues. I would love to see a gathering of school district leadership and transportation personnel; MTA; local government decision makers and perhaps someone knowledgeable about the funding coming to the region. What if shuttle services could be shared between school districts and municipalities such that school children are transported during school hours and the remainder of the day, the shuttles could service the community, perhaps the older population. These sorts of partnerships could be prioritized in areas currently reliant on public transportation. This is just one idea, but perhaps other synergies/ideas could be generated in a County-organized workshop.

Shared, Electric, and Autonomous Vehicles. There is a reason that industry and academics attempt to conflate these terms. There is research that demonstrates that private autonomous vehicles will increase congestion and VMT. This is why the industry does not want to talk about autonomous vehicles on its own. Plus autonomous vehicles are exciting and new. So academics want to study them, and industry funds them. So our job is to make sure that we don't conflate autonomous with shared and electric. Shared and electric help VMT and GHG reduction today, not years in the future. Autonomous makes things worse in terms of GHG and VMT. In fact, the argument in the research presented actually recognized this by arguing that even if shared autonomous vehicles increased VMT, the overall GHG can still be reduced - because of shared and electric, not because of autonomous which increases VMT and congestion! So, takeaway. Shared and electric is key. Autonomous will help in reducing operating cost in the future.

Microtransit refers to pooled rides in shared vans running on fixed or on-demand routes and schedules. It is one component of Flexible Fleets from SANDAG’s Five Big Moves in the 2021 Regional Transportation Plan. Like buses and ride-hailing services (Uber/Lyft), microtransit shuttles use existing roads and can serve unmet mobility needs of underserved populations now. Need in San Diego: 88% of low income residents live more than 1/2 mile away from the nearest rail, trolley or express bus station. Many low-income transit-dependent households reside where transit service is limited to infrequent circulator buses, limited operating hours, and the need to make multiple transfers to complete trips. Microtransit will make it easier for these underserved residents and those with disabilities to get around. Please see: link A link to the SanDiego350 White Paper and a link to Executive Summary is at the bottom of the web page above. SanDiego350 held a panel discussion on Microtransit on October 20. A recording is available: link

I have a couple of comments regarding the transition to zero emission transportation in the heavy-duty space: -Deployment of ZE infrastructure (hydrogen stations/fast charging stations) for heavy-duty trucking will be critical along our freight corridors -There are many supporting actions which can take place to support the deployment ZE infrastructure: forming partnerships among agencies (ie, CAlTRANS, Port of San Diego, SANDAG, County, SDG&E, etc); leveraging codes/permitting processes to expedite deployment; creating a pilot project to increase confidence and build capacity; conducting load analyses to make sure there is enough electricity on the circuits which will then feed these locations, and many more... -Policy Goals: Increasing weight limits on roadways/freeways for heavier battery electric trucks: these trucks have an unladed weight anywhere between 24,000 to 30,000 lbs which ultimately means they will have to sacrifice payload capacity to meet over-the-road weight limits (82,000lbs). Increasing weight limits increase adoption of these vehicles because the truck operators will be bale to carry a traditional amount of weight. -Decreasing sales tax burden of Battery electric trucks is also helpful. These trucks cost much more than their traditional diesel counterparts which means the tax burden increases (remember, there is a local sales tax between 7-9% and a federal excise tax of 12%).