SCAG's Ikhrata Prioritizes Land Use, Transportation Plans

The mantel as executive director of the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) has passed from your predecessor, Mark Pisano, to you.You have a long history with SCAG. Address your transition from planning director to executive director. What did you immediately have to address?

The most significant thing was that I had to reduce 25 percent of the workforce to balance the budget. So the biggest decision I made in the first two months was assigning the layoffs for 33 positions at SCAG. To get back to a somewhat financially secure situation wasn't easy.

At the same time, we needed to define three or four core issues to move forward. That was something that I thought needed to be done when I was planning director. The SCAG reputation wasn't as good as we would like it to be. We were flying at 40,000 feet, but we never touched the ground. We refocused the organization to establish partnerships with transportation commissions and reestablish an awareness of SCAG. I don't think many people realize what SCAG is or what SCAG does. We've seen good results with those goals.

What is the central 21st century vision of SCAG for this metropolitan region? What are you trying to accomplish?

We are trying to accomplish two things, in two major categories. One, planning for the future for such a region is not as simple as people think. We would be remiss if we didn't at least try to anticipate some of the things that could happen as the region continues to grow. The major thing that SCAG is trying to do is anticipate the challenges facing this region due to natural growth. We are doing an educational campaign and trying to advocate a program that would face, head on, the challenges that SCAG faces.

The second thing is that we are trying to maximize the funding for the infrastructure in this region, not only to build new infrastructure but also to maintain the infrastructure we have built to support urban form of the future. The second issue was compounded by the fact that the state passed SB 375 in January, which said we can no longer just simply do our regional transportation planning, but that we have to change the urban form.

With respect to being realistic about the future, has the significant downturn in the economy and the foreclosure environment affected the growth projections that SCAG sees over the decades ahead?

No, not at all. It would be a mistake-a huge mistake-for us to link our forecast for the future with the ups and downs of the economy. When we look at forecasts 35 years from now, we are going to have several cycles of ups and downs. Unless we stop people from having kids, we are going to have natural growth of 85 percent. I want to remind you of the beginning of the ‘90s when the aerospace industry was really suffering. People said, "Oh my gosh, people are going to leave California in masses." We have had the highest growth rate of any place in the country since then. Another example was after the 1994 Northridge earthquake-people said that Californians were fed up with the mud slides and earthquakes and were going to leave in masses. Had we based our forecasts on this attitude we would have been wrong.

You shouldn't base the forecast on things that are happening now. There are several reasons for that. One reason is that 43 percent of all goods coming into the United States of America go through our two ports. That is not going to stop any time soon. We have the eighth largest economy in the world. That isn't going to disappear anytime soon. We have the largest, most extensive transportation system in the world. That isn't going to disappear. You don't just forecast based on the foreclosures and the bad economy. Times are very very hard. You can feel it everywhere, and it has been rough on people, but the forecast needs to stay a forecast.

In May, SCAG produced a conceptual land use plan that would concentrate development along transportation corridors. Is that a good example of how you are trying to plan for the future, no matter what the state of the economy is today?

Yes, it is. That plan was a starting point for us-a very rough draft. We put it out to ensure that we started a dialogue. SB 375 is a state law now, but we were thinking about the urban form long before SB 375, and we are going to continue to think about it, even if SB 375 is no good. SB 375 is a land use sustainability bill; it is not a greenhouse gas emissions bill. It asks, do we have the water resources and the energy resources? Can we attain resources cheaply enough to continue spreading out? The answer is no-a resounding no. These are the kinds of ideas to sustain our region, along with meeting the requirements of SB 375.

Initial estimates suggest that the conceptual land use plan will get SCAG 60 percent toward the expected SB 375 goal. Talk a little bit about that projection and how you get the rest of the distance to the goal.

Correct. Sixty percent is about 4.5 million metric tons and that will take about 300,000 vehicles off of the road, which is not a small change. The plan we put out is limited to land use strategies, changing the urban form. We still have the option to add programs like transportation demand management and congestion pricing. By the time we get to the point where we are going to put the sustainable community strategy plan together for SB 375, we will have developed numerous other strategies. We're going to meet the target of 2.5 million metric tons. If I can just repeat that the additional 2.5 million tons is wonderful, an added benefit, but the goal of SB 375 is not necessarily only to meet the target from the state. The goal is to sustain the quality of life. Reaching the target is an added benefit.

TPR/MIR over the last year has focussed on SB 375's RTAC process. What is SCAG's role in the process? What are your expectations for the RTAC target-setting mission?

Ventura County Supervisor Linda Parks represents SCAG in the RTAC. I attend the meetings and speak. My expectation is that the RTAC will make solid recommendations to the Air Resources Board (CARB) based on a region's ability to do things, not based on an idea that everybody has to do the same thing. The most important thing that is going to come from the RTAC and the Air Resources Board is to allow regions to decide how they are going to do it and how far they are going to go in their region.

The reason I say that is because we are different than Northern California. We haven't had BART operating for 50 years. We are just beginning to learn about rail and have just started service in the mid-80s and early-90s. Given that regions are different, and given that we all must get there and do the right thing, we must allow regions to decide what kind of program they are going to put forth and how far they can go, as opposed to having a uniform way to do it.

I would also hope that the RTAC is not going to establish targets that are impossible to reach because then you could fail before you start.

The transportation and land use nexus has been a focus of your career. What exactly are the barriers to linking transportation and land use in this region, whether institutional or cultural? What do we have to do to get it right?

There are two unpopular things. First, without fiscalization of land use we aren't going to get into this discussion, meaning that cities want to have car dealerships because that generates more revenue. Proposition 13 was the worst thing that could happen to California. We need to deal with it to truly make transportation and land use planning changes. That way, cities will not simply be fighting for car dealerships; they will be fighting to do mixed land use development and fighting for infrastructure to support development.

Second is pricing. Pricing should be in tune with planning. If you don't price the system right, you are not going to get anywhere either. In this case, people who drive and people who use the transit are not really paying the cost that is imposed on society. If people have choices and we price the system right, we will be able to shift our land use. As an example, last summer gas was $4.50 a gallon. For the first time in the history since we kept data, we had a reduction in travel. Pricing matters. You price it right so that people can take transit, but first you have to provide the alternatives so that they can take it.

What can readers expect in the coming year from SCAG? If we were again to speak in six months to a year, what accomplishments would you be sharing?

If we talk in a year, the major accomplishment would be that other cities are fighting to implement ideas from SB 375, not just because they have to but also because it makes sense to our cities. I do believe, and you can hold me to it, that in a year, through our education campaign and some of our analytical tools, we are going to see 70 cities out of the 188 voluntarily adopting the kinds of general plans advocated by SB 375. In a year, I also hope that we will see-and I'm not sure it will be final-a reauthorization of a transportation bill in Washington that contains some of these strategies.

Given the impact of the housing crisis in the SCAG region, how long it will take to right the ship?

The impact is tremendous, especially in the Inland Empire. We are bottoming out on the market but that we are going to have more foreclosures. The next wave of foreclosures will be related to job losses. In terms of pricing, we are going to bottom out at the end of this quarter. We are going to see more foreclosures toward the end of the year, but next year we are going to see a rebound of the market and a correction in pricing. We are looking at a year and a half before the market starts going up. It is going to go up much more slowly than in the last six or seven years. It is going to go up steadily but at a slower pace.

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Even though port traffic is down, you rightfully suggest that a good portion of the country's goods move through this area. It has always been difficult to get all of the institutions that have an interest in goods movement together and speak with one voice. Have we made progress with that in L.A.?

There has been tremendous progress. We have signed a memorandum of understanding-a collaboration agreement-between the federal agencies, state agencies, the local transportation commissions, and SCAG. The idea behind this collaboration is that goods movement needs to be built at the national, state, and local levels. That was a very significant thing when we had people come from Washington, Sacramento, and all of the chairmen of all of the boards, and SCAG. We signed an agreement saying that we need to collaborate because this is a national issue. We are making huge headway. Does that mean that we are there? No. I think you still see people suing each other. The city of Riverside is suing both ports. I am bridging both sides to work together. We can overcome these challenges, but we are not there yet. We have a good start. For the first time, I can at least say that we are talking to the right people.