HIGHLIGHTS:
TRANSIT MEASURES WIN BIG IN CA ELECTION
SAN DIEGO UNVEILS BOLD TRANSIT VISION
BAY AREA TURNS HIGHWAY DOLLARS INTO HOUSING
REAL ESTATE INVESTORS: WALKABLE IS BANKABLE

STATE BRIEFS:
San Jose Hot on Transit
LA Talking Freeways
Cisco Systems in Sprawl Battle
Amtrak Booming in CA
Southern California Envisions Transportation
Quotable

AT BALLOT BOX FOR CALIFORNIA'S CITIZEN-LED TRANSPORTATION AND GROWTH MEASURES

Voters across the state approved dozens of new measures aimed at curbing sprawling growth and funding new transportation projects on November 7th, expressing a strong preference for more sweeping citizen-backed measures in the surprising number of local ballots that featured competing growth proposals. In two of the more stunning victories for local transit funding, voters in two Bay Area counties broke the seemingly insurmountable two-thirds approval threshold by overwhelmingly passing new sales tax measures, winning the support of Santa Clara and Alameda county voters by 70% and 81% respectively. Only two of 35 previous local transportation sales tax efforts had ever exceeded the supermajority requirement. Alameda County's effort may be particularly applicable elsewhere in the state, where months of negotiation and compromise helped forge a broad and balanced transportation funding package that won the strong support of environmentalists, social equity organizations, roadbuilders and the business community -- eventually translating into approval from 4 of every 5 voters at the ballot box.

After environmental groups opposed a similar countywide tax measure in 1998, members of the Bay Area Transportation and Land Use Coalition stepped in to help forge a more balanced plan that contained funding for added bus service, paratransit, BART expansion, bicycle and pedestrian facilities, transit-oriented development, road repairs and freeway widenings. Voters in Santa Clara County approved a 30 year sales tax extension to fund more than $6 billion worth of transit projects including a BART extension to San Jose, expansion of the city's light rail system, Caltrain upgrades and bus improvements. Voters also approved new urban growth boundaries in Alameda County and the cities of San Jose, Marina (Monterey Co.), Sonoma (Sonoma Co.), and Santa Paula (Ventura Co.). Commercial and residential growth restrictions, that some fear could actually induce additional sprawl, were also given thumbs up by voters in Danville (Contra Costa Co.), Newport Beach (Orange Co.), Tracy (San Joaquin Co.) and Healdsburg (Sonoma Co.). For more information about the success of Alameda County's Measure B, contact Jeff Hobson of the Bay Area Transportation and Land Use Coalition, 510.740.3100.
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SAN DIEGO OFFICIALS UNVEIL BOLD VISION TO BLANKET COUNTY WITH FREQUENT, FAST, RELIABLE TRANSIT

San Diego officials adopted an ambitious strategy promising waits of no more than 10 minutes at transit stops throughout southern and central San Diego County last month. The ‹TransitWorksŠ plan was created after San Diego Mayor Susan Golding, unhappy with regional transportation plans that seemed to offer little beyond the status quo, challenged the Metropolitan Transit Development Board to create a transit system that would ‹get people from where they are to where they want to go in a timely manner.Š TransitWorks promises exactly that, boosting the percentage of residents living within a quarter mile of stations from 10 percent to 48 percent, and the number of jobs located within a quarter mile of stations from 15 percent to 43 percent. The San Diego Association of Governments has now asked the TransitWorks team to expand the plan regionwide. The ‹mode-neutralŠ plan consists of four overlapping networks of service, one based on the existing trolley service and including rapid bus and light rail, a regional express service utilizing high-occupancy vehicle lanes and transitways, a neighborhood shuttle network, and a network of existing on- street bus service. The intent is to get the network up and running in 10 years, utilizing rapid bus lines until a more permanent infrastructure can be funded. Funding for the $8 billion plan is likely to require the extension of the county's transportation sales tax and possible passage of an additional tax. In describing the plan, TransitWorks consultant Alan Hoffman invokes the book ‹Transit MetropolisesŠ by UC-Berkeley transit expert Robert Cervero. ‹Cervero says cities that became transit metropolises created flexible systems around the city's existing urban form, channeled growth around that system, and upgraded the system with permanent infrastructure as it became possible.Š San Diego officials are predicting the region will grow by another million people in the next 20 years.
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LOOKING TO TRANSPORTATION FUNDS AS INFILL HOUSING LEVERAGE; SAN MATEO COUNTY WINS RECOGNITION AS PIONEER

An experiment aimed at turning transportation dollars into financial incentives for infill housing near to public transit has won San Mateo County increasing recognition and has prompted the Bay Area‰s Metropolitan Transportation Commission to follow in their footsteps with a larger regional effort. The San Mateo City/County Association of Governments (CCAG) first set aside $2.2 million in State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) funds in early 1999, reserving the money for infill housing projects with a minimum density of 40 units per acre and within a third of a mile from a transit station. County modeling exercises ranking congestion relief strategies showed increased housing close to reliable transit as one of the more promising approaches. Five projects countywide were awarded grants based on a $2,000 per bedroom incentive. State highway funds can‰t and won‰t be used as direct subsidies for the housing projects, local governments will instead receive desperately needed cash for transportation projects in return for an obligation to have the housing on- line within three years. The success of San Mateo County‰s program has since enticed the Bay Area‰s nine county Metropolitan Transportation Commission to replicate the approach with their newly unveiled Housing Incentive Program (HIP). The MTC effort will set aside $9 million in federal transportation funds for the first round of competitive regional grants expected to be released before the end of the year. For more information about both housing incentive programs, call Karen Frick at MTC, 510.464.7700
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REAL ESTATE EXPERTS' 2001 INVESTMENT ADVICE: AVOID SPRAWL

The real estate industry's latest trends and performance report is warning investors to steer clear of new suburban- style office and retail construction due to overbuilding, worsening traffic and shifting demographics that portend a resurgence of more urban lifestyle preferences in the decades to come. According to ‹Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2001,Š investors should be focusing on more mixed use and transit accessible development opportunities in both downtowns and inner ring suburbs throughout the U.S. "As congestion worsens, many suburbanites are awakening to the consequences of growth without logical regional planning," explain the report authors. Emerging Trends also predicts an increasing move to more flex time and work-at-home strategies for employers, the emergence of suburban ‹subcitiesŠ that create more walkable town centers through compact residential and commercial redevelopment, and the decline of regional malls and power centers. ‹Lesser malls, in particular, will take it on the chin,Š say the authors, noting that future growth in e-commerce will likely be driven by established brand name stores rather than new startups but will nevertheless dramatically impact the face and feel of retailing.
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San Jose Hot on Transit

A new survey of seven cities by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Mortgage Bankers Association of America -- conducted just before the approval of Measure A by 70% of Santa Clara County voters -- found that 79 percent of San Jose residents support spending tax money to improve public transportation systems, while just 24 percent believe building new roads is the best solution to traffic congestion (SJ Merc 10/24).
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LA Talking Freeways

Accommodating an additional 3.5 million people expected to move into LA County in the next 20 years has got Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials scrambling for solutions in its long range transportation plan; on the table are highly controversial plans to build a subway down Wilshire Boulevard, complete the 710 freeway "gap closure" through South Pasadena, double-decking the San Diego freeway and tunneling under the Santa Monica and San Gabriel mountains to create new freeways.
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Cisco Systems in Sprawl Battle

No sooner had San Jose City Councilmembers approved plans for the massive Cisco Systems campus -- expected to eventually attract 20,000 workers into what's now farmland and open space at the city's southern boundary in the Coyote Valley - than several plaintiffs, most notably the Sierra Club and cities to the south and west of Silicon Valley, pledged to sue over the project based on the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA); arguments against the project will likely focus on regional impacts on housing and traffic (SJ Merc 10/26).
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Amtrak Booming in CA

Amtrak has open two new Central Valley rail stations - in Bakersfield and Merced - as the railroad announced record passenger ridership numbers in California, making the Capitol Corridor from Sacramento to San Jose and the San Diegans from Santa Barbara to San Diego two of the four most heavily traveled passenger rail services in the country; Amtrak is counting on the passage of billions of dollars in federal rail bonds once Congress returns for a special session in December to help upgrade key intercity corridors throughout the country.
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Southern California Envisions Transportation

Elected officials and business leaders from Envision Utah came to Los Angeles last week to talk about how their Peter Calthorpe-designed visioning process caused public awareness about growth issues to skyrocket from 5 to 50 percent; they were hosted by the new Southern California Transportation and Land Use Coalition, which then convened a panel of local opinion leaders (Warner Brothers Dan Garcia, author Joel Kotkin and former Pasadena Mayor Rick Cole among them) to debate how Utah's process could be adapted for Southern California.
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QUOTABLE

Over the last half century the car and networks of new roads made it possible for suburbs to absorb much of the nation‰s population. Today, too many cars and crowded arterial mazes squeeze people back toward the cores where investors should concentrate their attention.
--from Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2001, a newly published report from Lend Lease Real Estate Investments and PriceWaterhouse Coopers
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