Leaders in energy, transit services and urban planning urged local officials to support electrifying the transportation sector or face cataclysmic consequences already developing as a result of global climate change.
About 190 people from San Gabriel Valley’s 31 cities, local utilities and transportation agencies came to the Pacific Palms Hotel in City of Industry on Wednesday to hear presentations from business leaders and environmental experts who said cities must prepare for a paradigm shift in transportation.
Ryan Popple, CEO of Proterra, Inc., manufacturer of electric buses that recently opened a facility in Industry, said rising temperatures and devastating wildfires in western U.S. cities is the result of climate change. The situation will worsen if cities don’t join the private sector in California in phasing out internal combustion engine vehicles and replace them with cleaner, electric vehicles, Popple said.
Life after the climate has changed
As Popple spoke, temperatures reached 100 degrees in Los Angeles and a record 108 degrees in San Luis Obisbo.
“What will today be like in 10 years?” Popple said. “A couple of days in a row of 115 degrees Fahrenheit and you’ll see your most vulnerable population succumb to this. Disneyland will be an interesting experience in July: It will be like Disney in Riyadh.”
The Army veteran who worked on tanks in Iraq said a 19-year-old soldier from his squadron died of heat stroke when temperatures reached 116 degrees. While Washington “doddles” over the issue, it’s up to cities and states to make changes that will ripple throughout the world, he said.
“If we stay on course, on the West Coast we are going to cook,” Popple said during his keynote talk. “But we know what to do. We have to work together.”
The electric bus craze
Popple, a former Tesla executive, set up a plant in Industry after sealing a deal to provide electric buses to Foothill Transit, the bus company serving the Pomona and San Gabriel valleys. The company expects to deliver 14 of its 40-foot electric buses to Foothill within the next two weeks.
The company, headquartered in Burlingame, Northern California, is building electric buses for transit agencies in Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas and Minnesota at a rate of 150 buses a year.
“Electric buses is not some crazy thing the Left Coast is doing,” Popple said.
Besides replacing city fleets with electric cars and buses, city representatives were encouraged to change zoning regulations and ease up on parking space requirements for multifamily housing projects because millennials often take mass transit or share rides, said Austin Heyworth, public affairs manager for Uber, the ridesharing service.
Uber, which operates in 80 countries and 600 cities, is working on partnering with mass transit agencies, including the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, to drop off bus and train riders at stations and depots.
Heyworth referenced Gov. Jerry Brown, who reportedly spoke of a future bill to ban all internal combustion engine cars sales in the state by 2040.
“We see it as an exciting opportunity to see how companies like Uber can accelerate that transformation,” he said.
Parking lots, a thing of the past?
Cities should practice curb management by creating pick up and drop off zones for Uber and Lyft drivers, said Steve PonTell, president and CEO of the National Community Renaissance, the conference moderator. “The need for parking is dropping dramatically,” he said.
In a decade or two, autonomous vehicles will circulate automatically without the need to park, said Jay Kim, assistant general manager for mobility management with the Los Angeles Department of Transportation.
“You can repurpose the roadways, parking structures for hub space, open space, parks or housing,” he said.
The shift from car ownership to car services will have an effect on a city’s bottom line, and not necessarily a positive one, Kim said. Cities may see fewer revenues from automobile sales and parking tickets.
LA Metro is also getting into the ridesharing business. A request for a proposal was sent out Wednesday to create a micro-transit service in which small vans would fan out in certain areas, but not on fixed routes, said John Fasana, Duarte councilman and Metro board member. The driver would respond to a summons by a customer using a smartphone.
Metro is spending billions of dollars from Measure M, a half-cent sales tax passed a year ago, on extending rail lines or building new lines. Some say individual or carpool rides summoned by customers using their smartphones will make Metro rail obsolete.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I think mass transit still has a role,” Fasana answered.
