New Research Offers Insight on Barriers and Developments to Reduce Car Emissions in California
Bay bridge of San Francisco, USA. Getty Images
CSSH/CEE Associate Professor Serena Alexander co-authored a new study exploring how to make environmentally conscious transit decisions across five regional metropolitan areas in California. The study reveals the necessity of cooperation between state, regional, and local entities and the barriers they come across when coordinating new plans.
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was published by Noah Lloyd.
Gridlocked communities in California offer lessons on curbing emissions
When California passed landmark climate legislation in 2008 to tackle climate change by targeting the way its residents drive and use other forms of transportation, it was the most ambitious such plan in the country.
In the nearly two decades since the Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act was passed, researchers, policymakers and others have been able to draw many lessons from what hasn’t worked, such as an increasing number of people driving and creating more pollution, but also what might be worth emulating in other parts of the country.
New research from Northeastern University studies how state, regional and local officials in California work together toward emissions and other climate-focused targets. The research concludes that ambitious climate goals alone are not enough to reduce traffic-related emissions, and better collaboration between different levels of government is essential to reduce pollution.
01/23/24 – BOSTON, MA. – Serena Alexander, associate professor with a joint appointment in the schools of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Public Policy and Urban Affairs, poses for a portrait on Jan. 23, 2024. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University
Serena Alexander, an associate professor of public policy and urban affairs as well as civil and environmental engineering who co-authored the study, says that “California is a good example because it represents one of the most ambitious multi-level climate governance experiments” in the US, especially when it comes to traffic mitigation to reduce greenhouse gases.
Specifically, the study analyzed five regional metropolitan areas made up of 25 local communities — five per regional area, to explore the kinds of collaboration at play between organizations of different scales, between the local communities and the regional planning bodies.
The MPOs make up one of three levels of political decision-making, Alexander says, with the state, which sets the broadest action plans and goals, and local communities, which include cities and towns of every size, making up the other two decision-making entities. Ideally, all three levels interact with each other toward shared goals.
But given differences between metropolitan areas — and their corresponding planning organizations — this collaboration is not always smooth or possible. Alexander says that during the team’s research, several barriers appeared that inhibited collaboration between the regional planning bodies and the local cities and towns.
As an example, Southern California’s MPO contains just one massive city: Los Angeles. The city houses nearly 4 million people while dozens of smaller communities depend on the city for funding. These smaller communities also, however, maintain their own autonomy from their huge neighbor, occasionally making it difficult for officials in L.A. to coordinate with those in the surrounding communities.
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