Publications & Reports

Overview
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Transit Priority Best Practices Report

Transit Priority Best Practices Report

As part of the metropolitan planning efforts, SCAG is conducting a Regional Dedicated Transit Lanes Study to explore the opportunities, needs, challenges, and best practices for developing a regional network of dedicated bus lanes and other transit priority treatments that would enable enhanced transit services, improve mobility, accessibility and sustainability, and advance implementation of Connect SoCal, the 2020-2045 Regional Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy. This toolkit of potential priority treatments and supportive policies, tools, and practices, is meant to be tailored to a variety of local needs and constraints in Southern California communities.

Read the full Transit Priority Best Practices Report

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Mobility as a Service (MaaS) Feasibility White Paper Final Report

SCAG Mobility as a Service Feasibility White Paper Final Report

Connect SoCal, the 2020-2045 Regional Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy identified Key Connections that lie at the intersection of land use, transportation and innovation, meant to advance policy discussions and strategies to leverage new technologies and create better partnerships to increase progress on the regional goals. One of the Key Connections is shared mobility and MaaS, emphasizing that the future of travel will be shaped by technology and the ability of residents to easily choose from and use a variety of travel options.

MaaS integrates transportation services into a single mobility platform that provides competitive alternatives over private vehicles, to promote universal basic mobility, encourage mode shift, and foster sustainable travel choices. This White Paper identified the key policy issues and building blocks for MaaS, and the critical steps that will advance the region towards a truly integrated transportation system. The findings and recommendations set the stage for policy discussions for the 2024 Connect SoCal update.

Read the full MaaS Feasibility White Paper Final Report

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SwissCal Conference on the Swiss Public Transportation Ecosystem

SwissCal Conference on the Swiss Public Transportation Ecosystem

In February and March of 2022, twenty representatives from SCAG, including sixteen members of the SCAG Regional Council, participated in the SwissCal Conference on the Swiss Public Transportation Ecosystem. The goal of the virtual conference, which connected senior leaders and professionals from across California with senior Swiss transit experts, was to learn about Swiss best practices associated with transit coordination that could be applied in Southern California. The virtual conference was organized by non-profit Seamless Bay Area, and included three other co-hosting partners: LA Metro, Stanford University Bill Lane Center for the American West, and Caltrans.

SCAG participants participated in a two hour follow-up workshop to reflect upon lessons learned and develop a set of actions to advance improved coordination within the next 1-2 years.

View the full SwissCal Final Report

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Mobility Innovations & Pricing Report

Mobility Innovations and Pricing Report Thumbnail

Mobility Innovations and Pricing (MIP) is SCAG’s first study to emerge from the diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives the organization has instituted during the past 18 months. This report focuses on the potential equity implications of road pricing and other innovative transportation policies in the six-county SCAG region. The initiative combines stakeholder engagement, technical analyses, and communications strategies to elevate equity considerations as a key touchstone in planning for road pricing—most critically leading with the concerns of underrepresented communities through dialogue with community stakeholder organizations. 

The MIP initiative aims to surface the priorities of historically marginalized populations that disproportionately bear the negative economic, environmental, personal safety, and public health impacts of our transportation system.  In addition to identifying transportation burdens and priority investments through a community-led engagement process, the project sought to analyze the travel needs of underrepresented communities. The project serves as foundational step towards understanding the equity implications of these strategies and increasing community participation in the policymaking process on these issues.

For a more in-depth look into the community engagement process, technical analysis, and recommendations, please see the full report available below.

Download the Mobility Innovations & Pricing Report.

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American Community Survey Data in Southern California

A First Look at 2016-2020

SCAG American Community Survey Data in Southern California Report Thumbnail

After delays due to the pandemic’s impact on survey response rates, the U.S. Census Bureau released the long-awaited American Community Survey (ACS) 2016-2020 5-Year sample on March 17, 2022. While the release is the first to include survey results from 2020, SCAG is not expecting to get complete 1-year data for 2020. Only select data sets are available, and none are available for geographies smaller than states.

This release provides an opportunity to compare 15 years’ worth of ACS data using 5-year samples since the ACS’s inception in 2006. Samples are now available which cover 2006-2010, 2011-2015, and 2016-2020. In effect, these data sets compare the most recently available data (i.e., late 2010s) to conditions five years prior (i.e., early 2010s) and ten years prior (i.e., late 2000s).

Download the American Community Survey Data in Southern California: A First Look at 2016-2020 report.

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Wilmington Freight Mitigation Study

Wilmington Freight Mitigation Study

SCAG, in collaboration with the City of Los Angeles, Port of Los Angeles, and Caltrans, commissioned this transportation planning study to achieve two primary objectives: (1) assess the impacts of increased truck travel on a disadvantaged community in the Wilmington area of Los Angeles and (2) recommend both traffic and general land use mitigations to improve the quality of life for residents in this community.

The Wilmington Freight Mitigation Study focused on the traffic impacts associated with the permanent closure of two private railroad crossings at Lomita Boulevard between Eubank Avenue and Alameda Street in the City of Wilmington, California. The study area, bounded by Lomita Boulevard to the north, Drumm Avenue to the east, Pacific Coast Highway to the south, and Sanford Avenue to the west, already experiences high truck traffic due to the surrounding industrial land uses and proximity to the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The closure of the rail crossings potentially further exacerbates this condition by changing the truck travel patterns from a direct connection to Lomita from Alameda to various alternative routes.

For a more in-depth look into what drove the study process and exactly how it was developed, please see the full report available below. 

Read the full Wilmington Freight Mitigation Study

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2021 Regional Briefing Book

Image of 2021 Regional Briefing Book

Released in conjunction with the 12th Annual Southern California Economic Summit, held virtually on Dec. 2, 2021, this year’s Regional Briefing Book provides an overview of the SCAG region economy today, as well as an outlook for the counties. There is also an assessment and discussion on incorporating equity in SCAG’s long-term planning, as well as preliminary research into what drives good jobs in U.S. regions to help develop measures and strategies to promote good jobs in Southern California.

View the Regional Briefing Book - December 2021

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Racial Equity: Baseline Conditions Report

Racial Equity: Baseline Conditions Report Cover Image (March 24, 2021 Revision)

In July 2020, SCAG’s Regional Council made a commitment to advancing justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion throughout Southern California. For the region to become healthy, livable, sustainable, and economically resilient, SCAG needs to dramatically improve outcomes for low-income families and people of color. To that end, SCAG’s core function, its planning work, must directly address the long‐standing systemic and institutional barriers that have fostered inequities in health, wealth, and opportunities. SCAG staff are developing an Early Action Plan to help facilitate the consistent integration of equity into its planning work. The purpose of this report is to highlight past transportation and housing policies and practices that yielded the inequitable conditions that exist today and provide a preliminary baseline assessment of racial equity in Southern California to inform future planning. These inequitable conditions fall into categories aligned with the goals of SCAG’s long-range plan, Connect SoCal: economy, healthy/complete communities, mobility, and environment.

Download the Racial Equity: Baseline Conditions Report (March 24, 2021 Revision).

Racial Equity: Baseline Conditions Fact Sheets

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Transportation Research Board 100th Annual Meeting

TRB 2021 Annual Meeting Graphic

In January 2021, SCAG presented at the Transportation Research Board’s (TRB) 100th Annual Meeting. This annual conference organizes a program that includes workshops, committee meetings, and exhibits, attracting transportation professionals from around the world. Typically held in Washington, DC, this convening was held as a virtual event amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The overall theme of this year’s meeting was “A Century of Progress: Foundation for the Future.”

SCAG presented the following:

  • Paths to Clean Vehicle Technology and Alternative Fuels Implementation in San Bernardino County, California – Completed in partnership with the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority (SBCTA) in July 2020, this presentation is one of several ongoing efforts to understand and help facilitate the region’s transition to a cleaner goods movement system. This study had 3 major components: development of a Scenario Analysis Tool, Stakeholder Outreach, and development of an Action Plan for local governments in San Bernardino County. This presentation describes the development and application of the scenario analysis tool that quantifies emissions and cost impacts of alternative paths to clean vehicle and fuel implementation. Five scenarios where different fuels and technologies were phased into the fleet at different rates were compared.
  • Disadvantaged Communities Active Transportation Initiative (DCPI) – The DCPI seeks to make active transportation plans and their implementation more assessable to all jurisdictions within the region. This presentation details the development and implementation of the Active Transportation Toolkit pilot, which provides the materials needed to help under-resourced communities envision and implement their own plans for walking and biking with the support of city staff. For this effort, SCAG partnered with community-based organizations in seven disadvantaged communities to engage in community outreach, facilitate capacity-building trainings, and implement demonstration events. This pilot effort will lead to the adoption of seven Active Transportation Plans, and the Toolkit will be released for public use in spring 2021.
  • SCAG Go Human 2020: Case Studies in Equity-Centered Strategies using the SCAG Go Human Kit of Parts – The Go Human Kit of Parts program brings a wide range of active transportation interventions to under-resourced communities in the short term, allowing residents to enjoy them and understand their benefits without having to wait many years for full implementation. This presentation reviews the equity considerations of the program and explores how a regional government active transportation program, in the wake of COVID‐19 and global demonstrations for racial justice, can prioritize equity, community‐led strategies and Black, Indigenous and People of Color communities within planning and engagement.
  • SCAG Go Human Campaign – SCAG developed and implemented a hyper-targeted, regional marketing and outreach campaign to raise awareness about safety measures to reduce traffic-related deaths and injuries among people who walk and bike in six Southern California counties comprised of 19 million people. SCAG developed the campaign strategy from analysis of the High Injury Network and SB 535 Disadvantaged Communities, as well as from input from the Go Human Steering Committee. In addition to paid physical and digital media, SCAG extended the reach of the campaign through the use of co-branded safety material distributed to local jurisdictions. After the most recent campaign in 2020, the SCAG Go Human Campaign exceeded 1 billion impressions and printed over 25,000 material for local partners. Please visit the SCAG Go Human webpage for more information on the campaign.
  • Environmental Justice & Equity: Spatiotemporal Analysis of Jobs Housing Fit in Southern California – Jobs-housing balance has become a major issue in urban and transportation planning and public policy. Among planners and policy makers, the imbalance of jobs and housing is considered as one of the key contributors to traffic congestion and air pollution, and an impediment to environmental justice. On the other hand, a proper balance of housing and jobs can help people to live close to their workplace, thus reducing overall congestion, vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As part of the jobs-housing imbalance/mismatch analysis for Connect SoCal, SCAG conducted the analyses of jobs-housing ratio and low-wage jobs-housing fit for Southern California at two scales—jurisdiction and the census tract (roughly equivalent to a neighborhood), based on the JHFIT methodology developed by UC Davis Center for Regional Change.
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Regional Briefing Book

Regional Briefing Book

SCAG’s Economic Summit began in the wake of the Great Recession as a convening to expand the region’s economic base and to determine priorities for the region that help businesses, public agencies, and communities improve economic vitality.

However, 2020 has brought increased recognition that improving economic health and achieving equity will require broader approaches that address social, economic, and environmental factors that influence the economy in the wake of recent events, including those related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Relatedly, there are a growing number of emerging initiatives which provide the building blocks to address systemic institutionalized racial inequities. Many challenges remain to address racial disparity within an inclusive economic development strategy.

This briefing book represents a first step toward a more comprehensive framework for an inclusive economic recovery.

It is comprised of five parts: 1.) State of the SCAG Region Economy & Outlook; 2.) Modeling the Economic Impacts of COVID-19 Through FY 2021; 3.) Centering Racial Equity as a Driver for Economic Recovery; 4.) Conclusions & Next Steps; 5.) Appendix: County Insights

Download the Regional Briefing Book, December 2020