Environmental Leadership Program: ELP News: Summer 2002-Fellow profile: Trinh Nguyen

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newsletter Summer 2002

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Fellow Profile

TRINH NGUYEN

Trinh Nguyen, ELP Fellow 2001-2003, is the Central California campaign manager at the Surface Transportation Policy Project where she advocates for better transportation and travel choices, stronger linkages between land use, social equity, and transportation investments, and more public involvement in the transportation decision-making process.

What do you do at the Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP)?
Much of my current work is focused on initiating incentive programs for local governments to pursue smart growth, develop transportation alternatives, and build more livable communities. I work primarily in the Central Valley of California, an area facing a surge of growth that threatens open space and agricultural land.

I get people to think about transportation, land use, and regional development in different ways. STPP is not anti-growth; rather, we want to think carefully about how we grow. The healthy approach is to direct growth inwards, so it doesn't swallow up open space; to build more compactly; and to create more walkable and livable communities.

One of STPP's main strategies is to create incentives for local jurisdictions to pursue a healthy approach to growth, and to become less dependent on cars. We advocate a balanced transportation system that makes walking, biking and public transit more viable forms of transportation. Not only is balanced transportation more equitable, in that it provides options to people who don't have cars, it also helps integrate transportation with land use and more compact, smart development. For example, in traditional European villages, people can walk, bike, or take public transit to pretty much every place they need to go. In American cities, where residential, shopping, and business districts are zoned separately, innovative transportation solutions alone rarely fix the problem because people still have to go long distances -- often with no viable alternatives but to drive -- to work or shop. The real issue is our failure to coordinate transportation planning with land use. By combining compact, mixed-use development and diverse transit options, communities can grow smartly and experience a range of benefits such as shorter commute times, more walkable active physical environments, less traffic, stronger community, and the growth of local businesses.

The city of Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade before and after streetscaping and redesigning to help promote economic development, revitalize downtown, and enhance the community's assets.
Photos courtesy of the Local Government Commission.

What are some of the campaigns you are working on right now?
We have been working very hard on a program to encourage local governments to build compactly and invest in smart growth development and transportation. On July 18, 2002, smart growth and neighborhood advocates won a major victory when the board members of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG), a Metropolitan Transportation Organization, a member-based government agency that coordinates transportation planning and funding for six counties and 19 cities in the Sacramento region, passed a $500 million program called, "Community Design Incentives." Based on a similar program in Northern California's Bay Area, the program will reward local governments financially for smart growth, more compact development, transit-oriented development, and walkable and livable communities.

Funding will be dedicated to communities for smart growth and innovative development plans, such as street-scaping, building bike lanes, transit infrastructure, developing housing near public transit, and mixed-use developments. In order to receive support, local jurisdictions will have to show that they're planning to build compactly and smartly, and there will be criteria and checks to make sure proposed land use is compatible with transportation systems. The program makes government accountable to use tax payer money in a way that benefits the community. And in the Bay Area where the program originated, it helps developers think more creatively about how to build. Ultimately, the new program at SACOG will encourage better housing, open space, downtown revitalization, and increased local economic opportunities. The Bay Area's original model, called Transportation for Livable Communities, involves three different funding areas. First is money set aside for drawing up community design plans and visioning the community's growth plan. Second is the money put into implementing the actual projects. Third is the Housing Incentive Program, which designates funds for housing built near public transportation. These three elements will provide powerful incentives for communities to do something different about their patterns of growth.

What particular challenges does California face related to smart growth and transportation?
Although passing this program is a major victory, it applies only to the six counties and the 19 cities in the Sacramento region. The big challenge on a state level is lack of leadership and vision of how to grow smartly. For example, affordable housing is already a huge problem, especially in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and the Silicon Valley. How are we going to accommodate more growth? Already at 35 million people, California's population is expected to nearly double by the year 2040. We're on the verge of seeing many more environmental problems related to growth, such as sewage failures, pollution (many of our beaches are already polluted), resource shortages, and the possible privatization of basic amenities like water. As an environmental community, we should be extremely concerned about how we're managing this state's growth as impacts of urban growth jeopardize the health and well being of individuals as well as imperil habitat.

Lack of incentives and leadership on smart growth has a history in California. In 1978, during what was to be termed the "tax revolt," the state passed legislation called Proposition 13, which reduced the property tax by 30% and further capped the rate of increase in the future, forcing local jurisdictions to become increasingly reliant on the sales tax as a source of revenue. Local jurisdictions were left no choice but to become "sales-rich" by attracting retail business in order to bring in more revenue from sales tax. This essentially resulted in the fiscalization of land use, which means that a city's land use is its cash. Not surprisingly, this has spurred development of huge malls and "big box" stores, as cities prioritize retail businesses over enriching community.

For communities that want to grow smartly, there are many challenges. For example, the city of Davis focuses on community needs and desires, and turns down most development offers from malls and big box retailers. As a result, the city is a revenue loser to places with better shopping opportunities. People are used to the convenience of a Wal-Mart, and that's where cities can make money. So is bottom line environmental stewardship possible? Yes, if we change the rules. A recent study by Fannie Mae shows that 30% of consumers want to live in walkable communities, yet we're not developing anywhere near this rate. Hopefully the incentives presented by programs such as Community Design Incentives in Sacramento, will provide a model for California regions and other places around the country to make it easier for local developers and jurisdictions to do the right thing.

How do you work with a variety of stakeholders in a community?
We try to work on common issues of concern that appeal to everyone, such as children's safety, in order to build a larger constituency beyond the "usual suspects." In 1999, STPP attracted children's advocates, parents, educators, social equity, and a diversity of groups not traditionally involved in the transportation choice or growth debate to pass one of the first Safe Routes to School programs of its kind in the nation. California's Safe Routes to School legislation, approved in 1999 and 2001, sets aside $25 million a year in federal transportation funds to make it safer for California schoolchildren to walk and bike to school. Researchers estimate that while more than two-thirds of all children walked or biked to school as little as 30 years ago, that number has now plummeted to less than ten percent. Estimates show that parents driving their children to school make up 10-25% of the morning commute, depending on the region. We're making people think about the consequences of building our communities for cars instead of people while engaging them in being part of the solution. The Safe Routes to Schools program has become so popular, nine other states have now adopted similar programs.

In addition to working with community members and interest groups, we talk to elected officials, developers, businesses and city planners. Often, the best way to demonstrate a concept is to show examples of where it's been successful -- so we bring groups or individuals to communities that have adopted smart growth development. We provide examples of alternatives that benefit both community and economy.

I approach my work from the perspective that everyone needs a good idea -- just as community members need better ways to do things, so do developers, retail businesses, governments, and planners. It's easier to work with people when you approach it as a way to share and pursue new ideas. By forming alliances with people in traditionally non-environmental sectors, we bring more people onto the same side and build support for smart growth solutions that benefit everyone.

Trinh Nguyen, John Roanhorse, Linda Tsang, next