California’s expiring affordable housing covenants pose a barrier to not only its affordable housing supply, but also its greenhouse gas reduction goals. Working with the Southern California Association of Governments, this study would address the following research questions to assist policymakers preserve the affordability of housing with expiring covenants, particularly near transit. First, which developments are important to prioritize, based on covenant expiry timing, public transit access, and other factors? Second, what strategies are most effective at preserving affordable housing with expiring covenants, and how might a regional entity best facilitate this process? Using datasets on affordability covenants, high-frequency transit access, job accessibility, and opportunity maps, this research will first determine the order in which developments should be targeted. By analyzing the developments that have been converted to market-rate in the past, we will identify the building, neighborhood, and market factors that best predict building conversion. Interviews with affordable housing intermediaries will help identify the optimum timing for outreach in order to prevent conversion. After a review of local and regional strategies to preserve affordable housing, this research will develop a framework for affordable housing preservation at the regional and local scales.

Climate change in California could have a large impact on the state’s economy, natural, and public health. One strategy to reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector is eco-driving. With the advance of connected-vehicle technologies, dynamic eco-driving uses real-time vehicle-specific information to optimize the vehicle speed and reduce fuel consumption and emissions. However, the effectiveness of eco-driving is seriously compromised by two issues: drivers’ interactions with the in-vehicle displays and lack of compliance with the real-time guidance. For the eco-driving applications to be optimally utilized and widely adopted, such challenges must be properly addressed. In this project, we propose to explore the two issues through a driving simulator experiment. Two types of roadways will be investigated, including local roadway with signalized intersections, and freeway stop-and-go traffic. Two well-established connectivity-based eco-driving velocity planning algorithms will be experimentally evaluated. Through findings of this project, we expect to provide policy makers with (1) realistic estimations of benefits of eco-driving applications; (2) countermeasures for higher compliance rate; (3) guidelines for safer interface design; and (4) guidance regarding increasing public awareness and adoption of eco-driving technologies.